Odds & ends from NYC

Make that "discouraged with blogspot" not bloodspot as in the last post.
I am not ailing. I got auto-corrected by blogspot!!!

I am home, comfortable calm familiar home. I enjoyed all the other homes I was in on my trip, but they are stimulating more than calm.

My trip was wonderful. George predicted I would have a ball and I did. My prediction was more of an anxious nature, as I got quite hung up about the connections in my trip, the transitions-going-wrong possibilities. There were many pieces & legs to the journey and I am grateful it went smoothly.

I wanted to share a few themes of the trip. I'll start with some New York/Italian panache high-fashion window.

The extra added window reflections are part of my pleasure. Too funny. Of course I used to be called Daffy. I got so sick of "oh like Daffy Duck?" as a child, I soon switched to Daphne & Daph. 

After seeing ecstatic alphabets it was hard not getting caught up in these silver inflated letters. I also got caught up in the ambiguity made by reflections from the street, please note: THIS is a dress I WANT!

Art photographed would be another category. Robin Tost, a Sarah Lawrence classmate, makes metal quilts, for heaven's sake. They are so special.  

Then Susan Hambleton's swimmers.... also a classmate.

At MoMA, aside from Elsworth Kelly's wall, I have some other things to delight in. I wish I could have photographed the Ecstatic Alphabets show, but there was a photography ban on! AND there was no catalogue either, from which I might have purloined cool images. There were so many language-based ideas in those rooms.... enough to keep my mind busy for a long time. I'd have gone back for RE-viewings in a flash.

This was an interesting exhibit about modern art approaches to the human body.

This one was called Anyone's Self Portrait. I am in the mirror, just arms.

We also saw an industrial design exhibit. It was fascinating too. Below is a leg splint designed by Charles Eames. And fascinating forks!

This is a housing unit deigned to use heat from street vents. It's for people without homes.

And then there was the art in Meridee's apartment. I'm just sharing a bit. Two Calder prints.

This is a sculpture below is by Eli Noyes, Meridee's brother. The Noyes family knew the Calders quite well. Sandy Calder was not happy if he found anyone copying his "look" which actually was very easy to do!  This Eli Noyes sculpture was in the room where I slept. OH my!! So much to feel enriched by!

                                                    That's enough for now.

Last Day in NYC

It hasn't been scorching hot here, thank goodness. I had worried about that in advance.
Today Marcia, Jim & I will go to the Julia Richmond Public School quite close to Rockfeller University where Meridee works as the Chief Occupational Nurse. She give doctors and lab technicians their shots, helps them prepare for travel in foreign lands with foreign diseases, deals with concerns for whether the lab monkeys might get infected by someone with latent TB, accidents in the facility, etc.  It's a fascinating job with brilliant people all around and she's not retiring yet. Still having too much fun.

It has been great staying with her in NYC and renewing our friendship. Our grandmothers were friends. I once sent her a picture of that! Joan Cannady Countryman was Meridee's suite mate for 4 Sarah Lawrence College years. Joan & I both took 4 years of math with Ed Cogan.  Marcia Moeller Tendick was my roommate sophomore year. She and her husband Jim are also staying at Meridee's.

Farewell from Broadway.

That's it for now.

Another Day in NYC

I certainly hadn't heard about this project when it was happening in Vancouver! Out on Spanish Banks a man [many people?] had raked this pattern into the low tide sand.

It's rather like the amazing snowshoe track patterns that were like crop circles.
The tide does come in!
But how sublime, even from sea level. Beachwalkers were as surprised as I in NYC discovering this much much later.

This piece as also in the dust and dirt show at the Museum of Art & Design. 

Crows carved from charcoaled wood!

And here, fantastically enough, are the ashes of various "great books" placed in various wine glasses. WHAT a concept! And the effect was eerie.

I had thoughts, the day I went to MoMA with Susie Hambleton, that NYC is quite chaotic, but everyone knows how to handle it.  Street-crossing sometimes requires an act of courage!

I know this is not like street crossing in Delhi, but....

Elsworth Kelly wall at MoMA. I loved this wall. Shadows, shapes, color & all and somewhat reminding me of a staff of written music. Color chords! We saw a fabulous show there of ecstatic alphabets. I'd have loved to take photos, but it was closed to cameras.

You may well ask!! The MoMA store has amazing t.h.i.n.g.s in it. I'm wearing this shirt now. I fell in love with the packaging. All but the last photo was taken on Meridee's piano, which accounts for the color shift.

The next night I went to Sarah Lawrence. Here's the first reunion photo.

Marcia Moeller Tendick on my left, Joan Cannady Countryman, my co-classmate for several math courses with Ed Cogan, & Meridee Noyes Brust.

There's lots more to share, but that's it for now.

On the East Coast

 I'm in New York right now, here for my 50th reunion of the class of 1962 at Sarah Lawrence College. Thirty-three of us are gathered.

The day before going up to the college I went to the Museum of Art & Design, which is what the Craft Museum morphed into. One of the shows I saw was about dust & dirt. This gorgeous wallpaper-like pattern was made by silk-screening something sticky onto paper and leaving said paper by an open window to attract pollution & dust from the ambient atmosphere. Pretty nifty!!

Another item was a "quilt" made from papers made from laundry lint!

That day my friend Susie went to the Highliner. It's a park that was built on an old elevated rain line.  It is brilliantly executed. It's sublime being up there. I hope to return again there on Monday with some other friends.

I loved this amphitheater. The "stage" is the street below. How perfect is that? Susan told me people have weddings here. And you, dear reader, don't miss the yellow billboard!!

This park offers all manner of spaciousness and tightness, all manner of architecture. 

A Frank Geary building, I love it.

This is a birdhouse sculpture. See that peculiar box in the lefthand photo? The only birds I could imagine nesting here were starlings & I'm not overly fond of starlings unless they are murmurating.  Or maybe English Sparrows....I started thinking about rats too... No birds would have a chance....

  

                    I totally love the accidentally captured smooching couple!!!

By now you know I love this stuff Cracks between buildings! 

One of so many High Liner gardens. I'm having a lovely time.

That's it for now.