3rd House Journal

Wildthing in the window

[Ophthalmologist's office window, Belmont; 11/8/09]

Created by the artist, Marilyn Swift of Gloucester, for Pathways for Children.

JP Likes

[Backlit flower, Jamaica Plain, Boston; 9/26/09]

On Saturday afternoon, we took the T out to the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston for the JP Open Studios event, featuring a daunting 200+ artists spread out around the area. After getting off the T at Green St, map in hand, we headed towards the more familiar surroundings of Centre St to begin our exploration, arriving at the original JP Licks ice cream shop, a Boston-area favorite. We did forgo ice cream at that point (though we hit up the Newbury St JP Licks later in the evening), and did a bit of art jewelry browsing at Fire Opal gallery, but then we walked by Bukhara Indian bistro and couldn't pass up the warm spicy smells emanating from their brunch tables. Yum.

So, after that delay, we set out again in search of artists, passing this mural off Burroughs St, among the many murals in the neighborhood.

Luckily, we hit a treasure trove of artists all in one place at the Eliot School art school, inside the old schoolhouse building and outside on the grounds. I ended up buying a shimmering blue handpainted silk velvet scarf from Heather Kidson (she has a few scarfs here, though not the velvety ones at the moment).

We also talked to some other interesting artists, including Lisa Goren, who paints pieces inspired from her trip many years ago to Antarctica. They reminded me of the polar landscapes and Polar Attractions exhibit I saw at the Peabody Essex Museum recently (the PEM put her on their artist links list for the exhibit once she found out about it). Interestingly, when I asked her what she painted before she went to Antarctica she said, "nothing!" She only started painting six years ago. She's planning a series of 300 whale bones, which I think corresponds to the number of bones in a whale. Since she also paints kelp and other features of the Antarctic landscape, that's a lot of paintings! I'm always fascinated by the obsessive artists.

Another artist who had work that reminded me of a PEM exhibit I'd seen was Amy Hitchcock, who does assemblages - shadow boxes and collages - that reminded me of Joseph Cornell's oddball pieces. She lit up when I mentioned him (she went to see the Cornell exhibit twice) and showed us how she made some of her pieces, scanning Victorian postcards, such as one of Paris, and combining them into the assemblages.

Finally, we talked to Barney Levitt, whose work D was particularly taken with. Many of his paintings were "narrative still lifes" - or still lifes with a playful or dreamlike attitude. On his website, he says of his figurative work, "they will make you smile or wonder" - and many of the still lifes did as well.

It was all very creatively inspiring.

Transported

[Stony Brook T station, Jamaica Plain, Boston; 5pm, 9/26/09]

Art was everywhere in JP on Saturday afternoon. More on the JP Open Studios later.

Down by the river...

[From the MIT boathouse; 9/6/9]

...down by the banks of the River Charles (from Dirty Water)

We spent a lot of time down by the Charles River, on one side or the other, this weekend. I realized I'd missed watching the sailboats on the river this summer, so we made a point of walking down to the esplanade on Saturday. Then on Sunday we walked across from Boston to Cambridge to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus in search of their public art. The Boston Globe had featured an article on the art and architecture at MIT, so on that suggestion, we armed ourselves with a campus art map and headed over the bridge.

[View from the Mass. Ave. bridge; John Hancock building]

It was very windy on Sunday, making the sunny day deceptively chilly -- and sending the sailboats dipping this way and that. Which was was I thought of when we got to the Frank Gehry-designed Stata Center on campus. The buildings' odd hodgepodge I'd seen in photos looked more interesting in person and reminded me of the dipping and bowing sailboats on the river, although I understand that it's supposed to signify the "freedom, daring, and creativity of the research that's supposed to occur inside it." The bright sunlight played off the many reflecting surfaces like sunlight playing on water. We didn't get inside the Stata Center, which I hear is also quite interesting in design. The buildings, alas, have some problems, including leaks (MIT sued Gehry and the construction company over it). Anyway, they were irresistible for photographing.

[Ray and Maria Stata Center at MIT]

We also trekked all over campus, finding Jacques Lipchitz sculptures and IM Pei buildings among our finds, plus a side trip across Memorial Drive to the MIT boathouse, and a stop in the student center to refuel at Ana's Taqueria. Then we headed back to the city for a rest before heading back out to see the sunset over the river at a little after 7pm.

[Scullers rowing on the Charles River, sunset; 9/6/09]

...I love that dirty water
Oh, oh Boston you're my home.

Speaking of dirty water, we spotted a couple of people swimming off the docks on the river Sunday evening. A passerby was shaking his head and I said, "Do they have any idea what's in that water?" He said, "They're French." Sure enough, the two young guys swimming were speaking French, though I couldn't pick up from the distance whether they were Canadians or French. Clearly they weren't from around here.

I do hear that the river is a lot cleaner than it used to be, and probably reasonably safe for swimming. An older Vietnamese couple were fishing off the dock, catching what appeared to be fat sunfish that they were no doubt planning to cook for themselves.

---

See more photos from the weekend here.

Seascapes

[Marblehead Harbor; 7pm, 8/25/09; click for larger]

On Saturday afternoon, we took a short drive up to Salem to go to the Peabody Essex Museum. It's one of my favorite local museums, both for its beautiful building and its excellent exhibits which often reflect its historical roots as a repository of maritime art and treasures that sea captains brought back from travels to Asia, Africa and India. The latest large exhibit is The Golden Age of Dutch Seascapes, which ends in early September. The exhibit features more than 70 paintings from Dutch painters during the 1600s. Lots and lots of ships in sea battles, roiling waters and gusty glowering skies. There were also some calmer paintings of harbors, which is what I thought of when I looked at the harbor scene above, taken in Marblehead later that evening. We also enjoyed the current photo exhibit, Surfland, featuring modern tintype portraits of surfers.

After the PEM closed, we walked around Salem a bit down, past all the tacky witch-themed shops to the waterfront, where one tall ship, The Peacemaker, was docked and open for touring. We didn't feel like boarding, but watched a couple of small motor boats navigate the choppy water in some serious headwinds from Hurricane Bill out in the Atlantic. The rough seas explain why the harbor was full of moored sailboats; beaches along the New England coast were all closed to swimming, too.

[The Peacemaker, on Derby Wharf]

[Yellow Salem water taxi coming in on choppy water]

Although there are a number of restaurants on Pickering Wharf in Salem, it was early yet so we decided to drive down to Marblehead, a rocky peninsula just south of Salem. There, after some inadvertent scenic side trips, we found a local hangout appropriately called The Barnacle, attached to a rock on the side of the harbor. We were ushered past the noisy bar and restaurant out onto the narrow porch out back for a nice dinner overlooking the water.

Soft weekend

[Leaf, Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary; 11:30am, 6/20/09]

For most of the weekend, a light drizzle occupied the air, too light to be considered falling. On Sunday, we put up an umbrella briefly, then traded it for our hoods, the better to pull up or down as we ducked in and out of shops. The Irish call it a soft day. The Urban Dictionary calls a soft day a day with no edges.

If there were edges, they were high in the sky, to be squinted at during cloudbreaks.

[A view from Boston's Back Bay; 5pm, 6/20/09]

There was a brief break in the endless clouds and rain on Friday evening. After dinner with a friend in Cambridge, the sun broke through and we walked along brick residential sidewalks admiring the gardens (very green, with rain-drunken blooms) and lovely porches. On Saturday, the sun did battle with the clouds, gaining the upper hand early only to lose it at the end of the day. At least it was dry and bright enough for awhile to bring one turtle out to "sun" at the eponymous Turtle Pond in the local Audubon sanctuary.

[Painted turtle at Turtle Pond; 11am, 6/20/09]

Nearby, the bullfrogs were also busy bellowing (a former colleague called Habitat "frog heaven").

It was a nice soft weekend for me, no timetable, no plans but last-minute - duck into a warm cellar-hole of a restaurant for dinner, couch-potato the rest of the evening, watching movies on the HDTV. On Sunday, we did wander out to see Up - in 3D! Wonderful movie. (A quick Google search says I'm not the only one who thinks the main character looks like Spencer Tracy!) We joked about a woman who promptly quit her job after seeing the movie, but really it did have a powerful message about taking stock of what's important in life.

We've all been complaining mightily about the bleak June weather we've had here in Boston, but it's hard to complain about a weekend with no hard edges.

Planetary Alignment

[At the Christian Science Center, Boston; 2pm, 6/14/09]

The weekend flew by...

The Boston Pops concert Saturday night at Symphony Hall was part of their celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing on July 20, 1969 (Buzz Aldrin had been there on Thursday night, but alas not Saturday). After opening with the fanfare from Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra (you know, the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey), the Pops orchestra did excerpts from Holst's The Planets -- Mars, Venus and Jupiter -- accompanied by some gorgeous video by astronomer and visualizer José Francisco Salgado of Chicago's Adler Planetarium. (See photo below from the Adler site.)

They also had the Navy Band Northeast Wind Ensemble, which was okay, though not my thing. I was happy for their conductor, though, who was thrilled he said after 24 years of conducting to be standing on stage at the 100+ year old Symphony Hall. The third part featured the Tanglewood Festival Chorus performing patriotic stuff, again alas not my thing but something the Pops is good at. It's likely much the same type of thing they perform every year for the 4th of July concert on the Esplanade.

[Christian Science Center]

Sunday was gray and rather chilly, though mostly the rain held off but for a bit of spitting now and then. Too bad I didn't have my camera with me the evening before as we'd walked by the reflecting pool at the Christian Science Center on a lovely evening. Here's how it looks on a sunny day.

I'd never been to the Mapparium at the Christian Science Center and it was fabulous! You stand inside a stained-glass globe with the 1935 Rand McNally map of the world surrounding you on all sides (there's a 30-foot-long bridge to stand on in the middle). There's an all-too-brief tour to go inside, and the guide explains the features, etc. I'd have to loved to spend a hour - beautiful and fascinating. I've always loved maps. The website has a gallery, though it doesn't do it justice - I think you just have to be inside to appreciate it.

As the stars would have it, my friend CA was in the city this weekend and since I hadn't seen her in many months, we got together for dinner last night. So it was another busy weekend. But lovely.

Arts and Tarts

[At the Beacon Hill Art Walk; 2:30pm, 6/7/09]

Today was the annual Beacon Hill Art Walk in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood. Last year I went with friends. This year I was staying with D in the city for the weekend, so we walked over, with a quick stop for ice cream at Café Vanille on Charles Street. One of these days I'm going to have to try one of the delicious looking fruit tarts from the café's pastry case...

It was another lovely weekend in Boston, with temps in the low 70's F and sunny or party sunny. And, as you can see below, the roses are in bloom. Alas, no time to write more. But you can take a look at my latest photos, or view the whole Boston Spring 2009 Flickr set. I guess I'll need to create a new summer set soon.

[On Newbury Street, Boston; 6/7/09]

Steel Trap

[Students hang out in Shang, by Mark diSuvero, at UMMA; 12:30pm, 5/19/09]

Ta Moko

I met friends at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts yesterday to see the Polar landscapes exhibit, which is leaving March 1st, and also to belatedly celebrate one friend's early January birthday. (Such are our busy schedules.) There were actually two polar exhibits, both of which had some interesting work. Check out the PEM's very cool (no pun intended) website for the To the Ends of the Earth exhibit.

More moving to me was the photography exhibit, Body Politics, Maori Tattoo Today, which runs through the end of April. (The PEM site has only 3 photos in their slideshow, but there are a couple more, and interesting commentary, in this Boston Phoenix review.) Not only were the photos beautiful, but the Maori pride in reclaiming their right to exist as a culture was powerful. Before "taking moko" -- the practice of facial and body tattoo -- there is a long period of soul searching and consulting with family. Each traditional tattoo reflects geneology as well as individual expression of personality and physical features. The people photographed -- by Dutch photographer Hans Neleman (he has a photo book) -- each have a statement to go with their photo, whether Christian Biblical, Rastafarian, gang-related, or simple "why I chose to take moko and what it means to me" comment. Fascinating.  [Photo above from the PEM exhibit website]

[Atrium, PEM, Salem MA; 3:45pm, 2/15/09]