A Great Weekend

While Jerry and Dave did chores, Cheryl, rudely and ruthlessly, beat Anna Lee at Boggle, a game Anna Lee foolishly taught our son and daughter when they were young enough for her to win.
We also played and read with Bennett.

Cheryl and Dave planned a special day on Sunday as a belated “significant birthday” celebration for Jerry.  It started with watching Bennett and his friend Nora take swim lessons.

The young man teaching them is studying to be a social worker.  If he is as kind and patient with his future clients as he is with two four-year-olds, he should be a great success.

 Watching them swim stoked our appetites and it was a good thing because there was such a wonderful menu at Woodberry Kitchen in Baltimore.

 One of each of these was on our shared bread tray.

Next came the big surprise Cheryl and Dave arranged for Jerry.  We went to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, dating back to 1876 and the third oldest in the country.  There he, Bennett and Anna Lee got up close and personal with South African penguins.

We started with a brief orientation on penguins.  Then we entered an anteroom where we got acquainted.  There were six females and one male because the males tend to get a bit aggressive and possessive.  The penguins like to peck at clothes, pants and things that dangle.

The keeper even had the penguins sing for us.

Outside, near their small pool, we could touch them and they returned the favor by trying to take nibbles of our fingers and legs.

Jerry even got a souvenir.

Though we have seen penguins in Antarctica and in South Africa, this experience was truly sensational because it seemed so personal (just the keeper, the three of us, two women and seven penguins).

This polar bear is the only surviving one at the zoo.   Her mate died a few years ago and she is content to live our her days enjoying looking for food and swimming in her pond during the summer months. 

This was a great finale for a wonderful family time and a very full year of traveling.

Re-acquaintance and the Renwick

It’s a long story but Anna Lee got connected with a cousin of a cousin.  Because of that we got a personal tour of our favorite DC museum, the Renwick.  When we were here last year, the museum had just reopened with special exhibits, each filling a room.  Some of those exhibits remain, old favorite items have been returned and there are new installations to enjoy.

Volume by Leo Villareal is made of LED and stainless steel and is constantly changing.

 Janet Echelman’s woven sculpture, 1.8 Renwick remain from last years exhibit, Wonder.

 Cousin Sara is a docent at the Renwick and gave us an in-depth tour of the museum.  Under her guidance we looked more closely and saw things we had overlooked.  Her knowledge gave us insight we had lacked from viewing on our own and just reading label copy.  We were glad to see this trompe l’oeil Ghost Clock by Wendell Castle back on display; it is carved from a single piece of wood.

 We saw Nick Cave’s large exhibit at MassMOCA and we delighted to see some of his smaller work.  This Soundsuit implies protection from all that is going on in the world.   

 Jerry paid particular attention to the Sam Maloof and George Nakashima chairs.

 This Untitled Trophy is by UC Davis artist Robert Arneson (we will be seeing more of his work in a new museum in Davis, CA).

 Hiram Powers, created six life-size sculptures depicting a fully nude female figure.  This is a work done on a 3-D printer of the Greek Slave, a original of which is in the National Portrait Gallery.

 Following Sara’s tour, the curator of the museum gave a tour of Visions and Revisions, art from four unique artists
               
Jennifer Track creates art from bone and antique objects.

Stephen Lee Young uses intentional accidents to create his beautiful ceramics.

Norwood Viviano’s blown and cast works show historic changes in human activity around the world

It is hard to believe that Kristen Morgan’s works are made of unfired clay.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch.  It gave Anna Lee and Sara a chance to reconnect and for we two couples to talk.  We look forward to getting together with Sara and her husband Mark on our next trip to DC.

This was the seventh museum we had visited in two weeks and each one is fabulous.  We encourage any of you who can get to this area to enjoy these as we did.

Friends

We went on our annual visit to Nature’s Best, the annual photo contest at the Museum of Natural History.  The competition is intense.  These are among our favorites, a most difficult choice with such an outstanding collection.

Our RV friends Paul and Carol were near DC and we were happy to get together and catch up on travels and family. 

 We met at the National Museum of the American Indian.  The cafe at the museum features food from various native tribes and it is a real treat to eat there.  After lunch we took a guided tour of sections of the museum. 

The introductory movie has three “screen”levels, the ceiling, the screen and a rock on the floor.  The effect is quite dramatic.

Our docent is from Bolivia and told histories of tribes of Northern, Central and Southern America. 

He emphasized that there were many civilizations here long before Columbus arrived and Europeans settled here.  Under the 1813 Doctrine of Discovery, Indians lost their right to land because of European “discovery.”  The Heye Collection contains 10,000 years of the history of the Americas.  The dog represents life and comes from 500 BC-AD.  The sacred eagle means power.

These wampum belts are  actually a contract between tribes.  They represent an oral agreement sealed with feathers, seeds, etc.  Each stripe means a recorded contractual term. 

“Nations” by Jenny Ann “Chapoose” Taylor includes the names of 456 tribes in the stripes and the 50 states represented in the stars.

Farewell and hello to family

Bennett got a special souvenir of his time with his cousins.  Eddie is a rock collector and opened a rock Cheryl had brought from her travels.  The inside glistened.  This will join Bennet’s treasure collection.

Saying good bye and a huge thank you to our cousins,

 we drove up to Troy to visit the farmers’ market for last minute supplies.  Bennett asked the balloon lady to make him a penguin to share with Zadie and Bubbie. 

Then we said good-bye to Uncle Jeff and headed to Philadelphia where we enjoyed a delicious Italian dinner with more cousins, Barbara and Bob. 

Our wonderful weekend came to an end and we headed to DC for more fun times.

When we arrived we found Batman dressed to save the world.

MASS MOCA

On Friday we all drove back to Massachusetts, this time to tour the Mass. Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams.  The buildings remain from a century ago when this was a major mill area.  The mills closed and so did the income and jobs of the residents.  The UMass art department, in an effort to increase tourism, established their contemporary art program in 19th century factory buildings in North Adams.  The idea was good but only moderately successful from a financial standpoint

This was Jerry and Anna Lee’s second visit to the museum and we enjoyed having our family to share the excellent and not so good art that fills 140,000 square feet of gallery space.  The art includes videos as well as stationary pieces on the floors, hanging from the ceiling and mounted on the walls.  The size of the pieces range from a quarter inch Small Black Ball to multiple floor to ceiling installations.

Bennett preferred the videos and light effects and gave some good comments about those he liked and those he did not.

 Sol LeWitt’s walls fill three floors.

Nick Cave’s sculptured forest of lawn ornaments have been transformed into a beautiful and challenging statement about race in our country.  He has taken what are usually party ornaments and replaced the normal spinning shapes with outlines of guns and bullets.

Climbing a ladder leads to a garden where lawn jockeys have become dream catchers surrounded by flowers.

 

 The installation ends at Mylar waterfall representing a metaphoric cleansing.

Bennett enjoyed creating his own art at KIDSPACE

and determining what the animals were made of.

These holograms were quite surprising

.Back in Castleton, Jeff and Bennett challenged Dave and Edan to an air hockey match and, of course, the more skilled players won.