Nature’s Light Show

Dec20

I don’t go out on nature walks as often as I used to, which makes me sad, but it’s good to know that sometimes you don’t even need to leave the house to enjoy the wonders of nature. Over the past few months, we have seen some amazing sights in the sky. Everything from rainbows and spectacular sunsets…..

to the kind of natural phenomenon that I have never seen before, like the Northern Lights….

and sundogs. It was fairly early in the morning when I saw this strange sight. At first I thought it was the sun trying to break through the clouds but it didn’t seem like it was in the right place. Then I got a better look and it was a reflection of the sun along with a rainbow only with ice crystals.

Festive Arrangements

Dec12

As part of a long-standing tradition at this time of year, our Garden Club provides the local Historical Society with two festive floral arrangements for the Dietrich Friedrichs Historic House Museum.

We had a great time putting together foliage and dried flowers donated by members of the Garden Club and topping the arrangements off with ribbons and bows. The result was very pleasing.

Vivid Creatures

Oct22

A few weeks ago, we took a trip to the Morton Arboretum where they had an exhibition of sculptures called Vivid Creatures. I always enjoy the artwork displayed in these natural settings and although there were only five pieces on show, they certainly added to the enjoyment we get from visiting this beautiful arboretum in Lisle, Illinois.

These vivid creatures are the work of Portland artists Heather and Fez BeGaetz and include a white-tailed deer, a brittle button snail, a fox squirrel, a blue dasher dragonfly and a sandhill crane, all native to northern Illinois.

Many months of work went into designing, planning and fabricating these giant sculptures that are up to 23ft tall, and which were inspired by some of the creatures that the artists saw on an earlier visit to the arboretum.

Each sculpture is supported by a skeleton of sheet metal and connecting rods made with 80 per cent recycled steel. They are then covered with crumpled aluminum foil and finally spread with a cement-based sculpting medium. After two days of open-air curing, the pieces are fully weatherproof and as hard as stone.

Although most of the pieces were easily accessible, we had to work a bit harder to see the fifth one which was on top of, for us, quite a steep hill. But we finally made it, and it was well worth the effort. Thankfully there were a few seats at the summit, so we were able to take a rest and enjoy the view.

Lizzadro Revisited

Sep23

The last time we visited the Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art some years ago, it was located in Elmhurst. They have since moved to a new home in Oak Brook, so we thought we’d check it out. The new facility seems much more spacious and gives the exhibits the room and light they so richly deserve, to be seen to their best advantage.

For those of you who are not familiar with this form of artwork, lapidary art involves cutting and polishing gemstones and other natural materials to make jewelry, sculptures, vases and the like.

Lizzadro has a beautiful collection of Chinese snuff bottles. I’ve tried to use pictures that are new to the blog but it you’d like to see other examples you can follow this link to Treasures of the Lizzadro.

Cameos carved on a background of agate and adorned with diamonds or pearls are part of the Lizzadro’s cameo collection which also includes skillfully carved bowls and dishes.

One of the reasons for our visit was the fact that we’d been tasked with taking our 7-year-old homeschooled granddaughter out for the day to see something educational and this seemed to fit the bill admirably. Coupled with a crash course on digital phone photography at the camera club the previous evening, between the two of us we took several hundred pictures at the museum.

The museum has 20 dioramas that feature miniature animals and birds carved from various gem materials. These were two of my favorites.

The ivory carved puzzle ball was created in Guangzhou, China. This multi-layered piece was carefully crafted to allow each of the 24 spheres to move freely inside each other. I can only imagine the kind of patience it took to carve this. If you want to learn more about how it was created, you can follow the link Puzzle Ball.

The highlight of the visit this time was the Altar of the Green Jade Pagoda. It is the largest jade carving outside of China. It took 150 skilled craftsmen 10 years to carve this masterpiece from a boulder of the finest jadeite found in Myanmar in 1915. It stands 5ft tall and consists of 1000 intricately carved pieces. It debuted at A Century of Progress World Exposition in Chicago in 1933 and after several appearances at various expositions was donated to the Oakland Museum in California in 1968 and eventually gifted to the Lizzadro Museum in 2018.

More on the Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art in a future post.

Butterfly Beauties

Sep8

Now that the nights are becoming much cooler, the Butterflies and Blooms exhibit at the Chicago Botanic Gardens has closed for the season, so I was glad that I managed to see these beauties on my visit there in August.

This is always one of my favorite stops in the Garden. It’s fascinating to watch these little gems of nature fluttering around and, more importantly from a photographic standpoint, basking on a leaf or flower.

And while some of them were beginning to look a little ragged, many were still in good shape. Butterflies and Blooms will be back again in May, so something to look forward to in the spring.

Patterned By Nature

Aug28

Hooray!! I’m finally out and about and able to get to some of my favorite places. The theme at the Chicago Botanic Garden this summer is Patterned by Nature, displaying skillfully designed plantings, installations and the patterns in the flowers and plants themselves.

Instead of walking the entire route around the Garden, I’m now limiting my focus to one or two particular areas during each visit and enjoying the flowers along the way.

There was an excellent example of the Paisley pattern worked in succulents and other plantings surrounding the fountains in the Circle Garden.

There are plenty of patterns to be seen in the butterfly garden. I’ll be featuring some of these beauties in an upcoming post.

And there are several interesting exhibits featuring fashion and transformational art. More on these in an upcoming post on my other blog Getting The Picture. The Pattern theme will continue in the Garden through September 21st.

Summer In Our Garden

Aug8

It’s a jungle out there! With a bout of vertigo, a fall and days filled with panic attacks culminating in a trip to the ER, activity in the garden, for me, has been at a minimum. On the few good days, with outdoor temperatures still in the 80’s and 90’s, I’ve managed to pull some weeds and take pictures but mostly the flower beds have been left to their own devices. I’m waiting for further tests and hopefully a resolution to this latest round of health issues. I feel like I’ve aged about ten years since having COVID in January.

This has also meant that I haven’t been able to drive anywhere and plans to go to the Botanic Garden and other places to do some photography have been put on hold. But life goes on and the plants keep growing so here’s what we’ve had so far.

The lilies did really well this year and added a nice splash of color to the flower beds. Here are just a few of them.

Some of the dahlias managed to survive despite being rather neglected. I hope to do even better with them next year.

The zinnias that I grew from seed have been attracting what few butterflies we have seen in the garden this summer. Even the butterfly weed, and Joe Pye weed do not seem to have enticed them much this year.

The bird seed that gets thrown around and buried by the squirrels has produced an interesting crop of plants including safflowers, and sunflowers that attract the goldfinches.

I can’t wait to get back on the road again. There are so many places that I wanted to go to this summer, but I’ll just have to make them autumn trips instead.

Becky’s Square Photo Challenge – Simply Red

Jul6

Becky is back with her Square Photo Challenge and July’s theme is Simply Red. Flowers were the obvious choice for my first entry. These were growing in my garden…

These were at the Chicago Botanic Garden…

And these were at Cantigny Park, Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin and San Antonio Botanical Gardens in Texas.

If you haven’t done so already, I hope you will join me on my other blog ‘Getting The Picture‘ where I get Busted at the Park.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Creativity -Sculptures in the Park

Jun30

This week, Ann-Christine is looking back to an earlier topic, Creativity, for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. Back in April of 2019 my photos for this theme were taken at The Morton Arboretum. This time they were captured last week at the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

From the moment you enter the park you are surrounded by creativity. The new Welcome Center features four 20-by-90ft carved marble portraits by Jaume Plensa titled Utopia.

The next piece to catch our eye was a sculpture by El Anatsui, an artist from Ghana who used aluminum bottle caps from liquor bottles to create New World Map.

There are over 300 sculptures in the park including more than 50 major works by artists such as Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Louise Bourgeois. This whimsical piece called Mad Mom by Tom Otterness represents the universal authority of mothers. I can relate to that, both on the giving and receiving end.

The Lena Meijer Children’s Garden has water features, a rock quarry, butterfly maze, treehouse village and its own sculpture walk which includes The Two Bears by artist Marshall Fredericks. What a fun place for youngsters to spend the day!

It’s hard to believe how colossal The American Horse is unless you stand someone next to it. This sculpture created by Nina Akamu was inspired by a work created by Leonardo da Vinci in the late 15th century.

Another horse, created by Deborah Butterfield, may look as though it’s made of wood but in fact it is bronze.  First, she assembled materials that she had found, to form the image of a horse. Each piece of wood was then translated into bronze, reassembled and patinated to resemble the original wood. Now that’s creative!

I, you, she or he, is another sculpture created by Jaume Plensa. There are actually three figures made of stainless-steel letters, matching the piece that we saw earlier in downtown Grand Rapids.

The park is an amazing combination of art and nature, both remarkable in their own way. Many of the pieces are so large that they require plenty of space and the park is an ideal setting.

Grand Rapids Arch created by Andy Goldsworthy is made with stone from Scotland. As Goldsworthy himself puts it, it’s a stone taking a walk. I like that description.

I hope you will join me on my other blog Getting The Picture where I’ll be featuring a special exhibition at the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park titled Busted.