Thursday, April 28, 2011

Garden in the Woods

Garden in the Woods is a great place to go if you like gardens and are near Boston especially in the Spring.

Flowers are in bloom...

... ferns are fiddle hedding...

and the variety of flowers are wonderful.

Some of of the little flowers are doubled colored...

...and others have bright stems and ruffled flower tips.

Some of them have windswept shapes...

...and others look like little bucket claws like prize machines...


Some areas of the garden are green and flowery...


...some are damp footed in the water...


... ans other areas are gray and somewhat dead looking...

... and some flowers look like little white bells.
There is a little wildlife like this mallard duck...

... turtles near the shore...

...and some on islands in the pond...

 ...and I even found a chipmunk.

The flowers were wonderful...

... in both color and variety....

... and I even found some cactus here in the Northeast

There was a fake stegosaurus...

... that was pretty cool,..

and an artistic wooden snake in the valley.

We eventually returned to the place we started,,,
... where I took one more picture,

I took this picture several years ago on a visit to these gardens and I think the lady shown here was at the garden again this visit. Interesting!

Quote of the Day ~
"By cultivating the beautiful we scatter the seeds of heavenly flowers, as by doing good we cultivate those that belong to humanity." ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Boston Museum of Fine Arts

We love Boston and our friends here today we left their home...

... to visit the Museum of fine art...

... where we were greeted withTaihu Rock from the late 19th Century or Early 20th Century.

Doreen and Sharyn led the way while I lagged be

"Appeal to the Great Spirit," a sculpture by Cyrus Dallin, is the last of a four-piece series called "The Epic of the Indian." Dallin, a native of Utah, had a large amount of interaction with Native American children while growing up. The Sculpture was cast in 1909 in Paris, France and won a gold medal for its exhibition in the Paris Salon.

The entrance to the Museum is grand and once inside...

... there are three beautiful sculptures of a Madonna with child...

... a hunter...

... and a reclining woman.

The Dale Chihuly Glass exhibit was the main reason for the visit today...
...and it was amazing to see what looked like a 50 foot tall glass yucca plant

The fine art at the museum's new Art of the Americas"
... is amazing...

....and the work of masters.

The subjects are heroic

... and in heroic circumstances.

They are not all paintings...

... some are sculpture...

... and they are all fascinating ...

... including the pieces being renovated.

The museum has a large amount of early american decorative arts

all wonderful to see.
 
I did take a break to walk outside...

... it may not be very artistic but I liked the skateboarders...

...and the older couple exiting the museum...

and I especially liked the small fountain ...

... I also  liked the look of the garden eatery...

... and seeing the lights of Fenway park and the top of the landmark Citgo sign,


Dale Chihuly and his "Through the looking Glass" exhibit was the main reason for our visit to the Boston Museum of fine art and we were nor disapointed...

... I was especially impressed with this ship of glass and it's black reflective base...

Some of his pieces were stand alone brilliant ...

... and of intricate design...

...beautifully lit and simple...

...others were groupings and while individually impressive, were set off by the collective items to form the image of a dinner table coupled with northwestern native American woven baskets and Pendleton blankets.
...and then there was a glass forest...

...and an undersea reef.

The show was just exciting ...\
...and the patrons also participated in the show while in this room with the glass pieces above showering the room with colored light.


There we huge glass ornaments hung from the ceiling in many colors...

...and shapes
...and finally a simple forest of lavendar lights entitled neodynium reeds on logs.

Exiting through the gift shop we saw several pieces...

... beautifully colored...

and impressively shaped...
with color and light...

and a rainbow of frozen glass.

Other pieces I like were this Singer Sargent painting ...

...this intricate stained glass...

\
... wonderful portraits...

... glorious room settings....

...and more and more fine art.

My favorite had to be this piece by Singer Sargent of life sized young girls at home.

Actually best of all was seeing this place with Sharyn and Doreen.

 I walked out and took one more picture of a couple of tourists who were enjoying the sun and pictures of a tree taken with a cell phone.

Quote of the Day 
"Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering - because you can't take it in all at once." ~ Audrey Hepburn

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©Paul Viel