Becky's photoblog

Our visit to the Brooklyn Museum reminded me that I keep running in to copies of Frederick MacMonnies’ ‘Bacchante and Infant Faun‘, one of my favorite sculptures.

Just for fun, here’s a list of all of the versions of Frederick MacMonnies’ Bacchante and Infant Faun that I know of

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City  – the Met apparently has MacMonnies’ original bronze sculpture, 1893–94, cast in 1894. The Met’s page on the Bacchante
• The Boston Public Library – a bronze version of the Bacchante is the centerpiece of the fountain in the courtyard. my photoblog entry
• The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston – a bronze version of the Bacchante (cast in 1901) used to be in the MFA’s main lobby, and in 2010, it was moved to the MFA’s new wing. The MFA’s page on the Bacchante
• The Brooklyn Museum – marble, 1894
  – the Brooklyn Museum’s page on the Bacchante
  – my photoblog entry
• The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA
• The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum in Hartford, CT – bronze, 1894
• The Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Gardens, Pasadena, CA
• The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA – bronze, 1895
• The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL – bronze, 1894

The description of Bacchante and Infant Faun from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website (emphasis mine)

“Modeled by Frederick W. MacMonnies in Paris in 1893–94, “Bacchante and Infant Faun” epitomizes the dramatic quality of the French Beaux-Arts style that dominated American sculpture during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The sculpture captures a nude young woman in exuberant motion, her right toes on the ground and her right arm holding a bunch of grapes high over her head. Her left knee pushes upward in a dancing motion, and with her left hand she secures a nude infant sitting in the crook of her elbow. MacMonnies first presented the bronze statue to the American architect Charles Follen McKim in appreciation for a fifty-dollar loan that had facilitated MacMonnies’s trip abroad in 1884. McKim intended it for the courtyard of the neo-Renaissance Boston Public Library that his firm, McKim, Mead and White, had designed for Copley Square. After a great storm of public protest stirred by temperance unions, clergy, and other angry Bostonians against the statue’s “drunken indecency,” McKim withdrew the gift and then offered “Bacchante” to the Metropolitan in May 1897. The Board of Trustees enthusiastically accepted it, and the bronze was displayed for many years in the Museum’s Great Hall with other examples of modern sculpture. Because of the statue’s enormous popularity, numerous reductions of it were cast in two sizes. There are also four smaller bronze versions (68 in. H.), two large marble replicas, and three other located over-life-size bronzes.”

After touring Ground Zero, we walked through Lower Manhattan, past Trinity Church and Wall Street, to an incredible  after-wedding brunch before hitting the road and heading back to Boston.

When my cousin mentioned that our hotel was right near ground zero, I didn’t realize that the hotel was actually AT ground zero. As we circled the jam-packed block trying to find the hotel’s garage, I took the first photo in this series from the car – we were right next to the enormous construction zone at ground zero.

Our room on the 31st floor of the hotel had an absolutely jaw-droppingly staggering view of ground zero and the new 9/11 Memorial, which we toured the following morning. The 9/11 Memorial consists of 30-foot waterfalls set in the foot prints of the north and south towers, with the names of 9/11 victims engraved in panels all the way around. The waterfalls created a great deal of white-noise, which allowed each visitor the chance for peaceful reflection in the middle of a massive construction site.

My cousin married this handsome fella, and we got to spend an evening at a funky bar in Brooklyn!

We spent the day wandering around New York City before my cousin’s wedding. After driving to Lower Manhattan, we then took the subway to the Frick Collection – one of my favorite museums, which I hadn’t seen in almost 10 years.

Cannolli Nachos!! In celebration of our wedding, Brian’s parents hosted a wonderful party, featuring cannolli nachos and a phenomenal assortment of handmade desserts.

The Brooklyn Museum was on a very short list of museums that neither of us have ever been to, so we spent the afternoon there before heading to Stamford. Not my favorite museum, but still worth it just to see where the opening scene of a Rick Riordan novel took place.

My favorite part was the storage closet! The museum has a visible storage area where visitors can see how the museum stores the parts of the collection that are not on display. I SO need a closet like this!!

So incredibly peaceful

Another Passover, another beautiful table set for 20 of our nearest and dearest

Click here for my photoblog entries from

• Passover 2011
• Passover 2010
• Passover 2009
• Passover 2008 1st night and 2nd night

From the Longwood T stop on Huntington Ave, there’s an incredible view of Mission Church (The Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help). It catches the light of the setting sun just as I’m getting out of the gym and heading home.

We had quesadilla-week to celebrate our new griddle 🙂 This is my first attempt at a chicken quesadilla with fresh guacamole.

We had some people over to help us finish the wedding cake, and we made stuffed shells to satisfy a few different food preferences.
Here’s my Stuffed Shells for Everyone recipe.

1. Start by cooking jumbo shells al dente, steaming some broccoli, defrosting some frozen spinach, browning some ground turkey (season to preference), and coating the bottom of your pan with tomato sauce.
2. In a mixing bowl, add some ricotta cheese and cut-up broccoli, then stuff a row of shells with the ricotta/broccoli mix (this is for our guest who doesn’t like spinach).
3. Then add some spinach to the mixing bowl, a little more ricotta, and stuff another row of shells with the ricotta/broccoli/spinach mix (this is for our veg-friendly guest).
4. Then, add the ground turkey and the rest of the ricotta to the mixing bowl, and stuff a row of shells on the opposite side with the biggest bits of ground-turkey (these are for your meat-lovers).
5. Then stuff the rest of the shells with the rest of the mix, cover with another layer of tomato sauce, garnish with parmesan or mozzarella cheese, and bake for 45 minutes at 350.

Went downtown to the courthouse to begin the lengthy process of changing my first, middle and last name

We treated ourselves to fancy sushi take-out using our beautiful new sushi set, and other pieces with the same pattern that I’ve picked up here and there.

Spent a few hours playing with Jen’s kids before they headed back to CA. This is a very giggly little girl standing on my sternum while a dog licks my ear 🙂

On the day after our wedding, we spent a cozy quiet mini-honeymoon overnight at The Porches Inn in North Adams, MA. We ‘discovered’ this little gem when we took our first trip together in May 2008, and we went back every year since (except last year). We made ourselves right at home in the cozy living room of the inn and settled in with our drinks and a good book before heading off to a phenomenal dinner.

The following morning, we woke up to a perfect cold crisp New England winter morning, and raided the breakfast buffet. After a lazy morning, we drove back to Boston taking the long way through scenic Massachusetts roads, with a stop in Northampton for a late lunch.

Please click here for photos from our visit to the Porches Inn in

• May 2008
• April 2009 and
• July 2010

After leaving the hotel, we crossed Massachusetts – from East Boston to Williamstown (the furthest north-west corner of MA) – and arrived with enough time to begin our honeymoon with a brief visit one of our favorite museums: The Clark Art Institute.

While the galleries are closed for renovations, they’ve installed several pieces from the collection in a salon-like exhibit, where paintings were deliberately thrown together with paintings from very different times and places. One of the things I love about the Clark is the examples of images of women in their collection – instead of royal portraits, or portraits of women with their children, the paintings in their collection show women who have thoughts and skills (this maybe isn’t the best selection of my favorites, but you get the idea).

Please click here for my photoblog entries for our visit to the Clark Art Institute in

• May 2008 and 
• April 2009

After a lovely brunch, we managed to get everything packed up, sorted out, checked out, packed up in several cars all going in different directions, said our goodbyes again and again, then we hit the Pike and headed west for our mini-moon in the Berkshires.

Becky & Brian’s wedding on Boston’s Harborside from Maureen Cotton Photography on Vimeo.

Becky & Brian celebrate their special day at the Hyatt Harborside with breathtaking views. Photography by taken by Maureen Cotton.  www.maureencottonweddings.com

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Maureen Cotton, a gifted photographer and one of my dearest friends, photographed our wedding and created this wonderful video slideshow that captures the joy of our day so perfectly.

But I couldn’t go a whole day without snapping a few photos, even on my wedding day. I woke up in my suite, saw my dress hanging up and saw a very foggy skyline. Many, many hours later, the fog had long-since cleared and we took a water taxi to the North End for dinner.

Our wedding weekend began in the hotel’s restaurant – relatives arrived throughout the afternoon, and we kept adding on more tables until it looked like Thanksgiving! Every time I looked up, someone new had arrived!

That evening, we hosted a dinner at the hotel for our out-of-town guests, and then the ladies were invited up to my room for wine and chocolate before bed.

During dinner, Jen and I went upstairs to check out the ballroom so I could show her where she and the girls would stand for their reading during the ceremony. That took my breath away … This was the first time I saw the ballroom set up for our ceremony the following morning. Sneaking in there in jeans with one friend was MUCH different than walking in the room the following day in a white dress, with 120 of our nearest and dearest on their feet.

My old photoblog, 2007-2012

I started a photoblog on photoblog.com in late 2007, around the time I started dating this really great guy. For the next few years, I posted regularly and tried to capture life’s little adventures, most of which included my sweetie. We explored our city, made dinner, threw parties, went to weddings and brought our cameras along for the ride. Those adventures can be found at www.photoblog.com/bdaroff.

My new photoblog, 2012-present

When we got married in March 2012, I changed my name and decided it was time for a new website (www.beckydimattia.com) and a new photoblog (www.beckydimattia.com/photoblog) … and here we are! This photoblog was created in July 2012 using WordPress and the Pretty Parchment theme, which I modified extensively. I recreated all of my posts going back to our wedding weekend, and I plan to continue posting for many years to come.

Three days before our wedding, we visited the hotel to go over everything with our coordinator, then we had lunch at the restaurant looking out over Boston Harbor towards the city. Three days before our wedding, we saw just about the only snow in 2012, and we watched as a thick fog settled in quickly and completed obscured our view. Honestly, it was actually beautiful and magical.