Throwback Thursday - Chihuly Glass and Gardens Part 2

September 2017 - Seattle WA

Click here for part 1 of Chihuly.
The highlight of our visit for me were the gardens outside and we were spared the west coast rain.

The native plantings are dotted with glass foliage in vivid reds, lilacs, yellows and blacks, including the spiky 30-foot, lime-green tower visible from the outside.

Boca Raton Florida Day 4 - 10

November 2017 - Boca Raton FL

Boca Raton  - November 2017

Saturday
Last Week Recap
Day 4 - Pooler/Savannah  GA to Boca Raton FL
One Word Saturday


We drove from Pooler (Savannah) GA to Boca Raton in about seven hours.
Temperature was 28 C or 82 F when we checked in and went for groceries.

Some billboards along the way.

Our condo
This is an inner courtyard with the living room on one side, the kitchen on the opposite and the hallway. I think it is my favourite "room".

This is looking up through the courtyard, there is a balcony off a bedroom upstairs.

Barbecues are just outside our unit.

Dinner was very simple, spaghetti and meat sauce.

Sunday

inSPIREd Sunday Wytheville VA
Shadow Shot Sunday

A lovely lazy day lounging by the pool reading.

Monday

Foto Tunes
Monday Mural Wytheville VA
Wordless

Was warm again but with a lot of cloud activity. 

John went golfing in Pompano Beach at Palm Aire played an 88. 

I enjoyed sitting in the sun with a book.

Tuesday
Tuesday Treasures
Weekly Travel Theme Boca Raton FL

There was quite a thunder storm overnight!
We just lazed around in the morning.

Then we headed out to downtown Boca Raton to look around and have lunch.

Mizner Park is a lifestyle center in downtown Boca Raton. The center is home to rated eateries Max's Grille, Racks Downtown Eatery + Tavern, Yard House, Villagio's, and Uncle Julio's. The Centre for the Arts at Mizner Park is located on the north end of the development, which includes an amphitheater, the Boca Raton Museum of Art and Carré d'artistes, part of an international network featuring over 600 emerging artists. Cooper Carry designed Mizner as a classical Mediterranean revival town center.

We decided to visit the Museum of Art which was a delight.
Click here to visit the sculpture garden.
And here for more of the museum.

Geometry is the basis for nearly all of Rosenthal’s sculptures, with cubes or leaning discs as the dominate forms. Marty’s Cube is one of numerous variations of his signature monumental, balanced cube. Other versions installed in public places include: Alamo (1967) in New York City at Astor Place and Cube ’72 at Guild Hall in East Hampton. Unlike all other works on view at the Museum, you are encouraged to touch, and more precisely spin, this seemingly precariously perched, soaring 14-foot, 2,000-pound box. Tony Rosenthal (born 1914 in Highland Park, Illinois; died 2009 in Southampton, New York) 

A Chihuly! Click here to follow my passion for his works!

We decided to eat at Max's Grille.
 MEIN BOWL SPICY LO garlic / ginger, wok greens, broccoli & snap peas, korean bbq, chili paste, chopped peanuts scallions with an add on of chicken.

SEARED AHI TUNA Asian vegetable slaw, yuzu ponzu, sesame seared, ginger & wasabi

Wednesday

Another day of golf and reading/relaxing with some laundry thrown in.
Other than golf and beach/pool there is not a lot to do in Boca Raton.

GOLF COURSE???

Thursday
Thursday Doors

American Thanksgiving so everything is closed, we had thought to go out to lunch but most were closed as well.

John made scrambled eggs for breakfast, the best and then ham and tomato sandwiches for lunch.

The sky, in the morning as I lay reading/listening.

Thunder started rumbling around us as forecasted around 1PM.

And then...

But it cleared in time for John to barbecue steaks for dinner.

Friday

Weekend Reflections
Friday Finds

Another golfing and lounging day. GOLF COURSE????

Packing also got done as we are heading to Daytona Beach tomorrow for the night.


BOOKS

I finally got a lot of reading in.

I finished Sound of Gravel and can only say what an amazing young woman she was to have coped with some much and still go on to become such a pillar for your younger siblings.

Good As Gone I finished in one sitting by the pool.  A good suspense but the writing was very disjointed, jumping here and there. It was hard to feel any connection to any of the characters.

What She Knew had me totally drawn in. A good read.

Also finished Her, I hate open-ended endings! And the motive???? Really?

I started listening to The Interestings.

The Third Wife there were so many truisms in this book that reminds me of so many people/families that I know.

The Girls certainly speaks about a teenager in the crazy times of the late 60s. You can easily identify with Evie's insecurities.
It basically took the real events of the Manson murders and renamed the characters.
I get the behaviour as a teen of Evie but the middle-aged Evie recounting the story and the sad listless life she lead after these events made me want to throttle her!

Odd that Manson died this week when I was reading this book.


The Residence:Inside the White House was an interesting read about the staff at the White House. But I felt like she repeated herself constantly and spent an inordinate amount of time reminding us that the staff is always discreet.


I started Commonwealth and love that it is a multi-generational story.

Chihuly Glasshouse and Gardens Part 1

September 2017 - Seattle WA

John decided we had to make a trip to Seattle while out west so that I we could visit the Chihuly Garden and Glass that opened after we visited Seattle.

I will split this into two posts, one inside the glasshouse and the other in the garden.

We had seen some of these pieces when he had a show in Toronto at the ROM last summer.

Chihuly Garden and Glass is an exhibit in the Seattle Center showcasing the studio glass of Dale Chihuly. The exhibit opened in 2012.
It replaced the Fun Forest that we remember from our visit to the Needle in 2008.

Fun Forest

This is so much more inviting than a bunch of rickety rides.

The project includes three primary components: the Garden, the Glasshouse, and the Interior Exhibits, with significant secondary spaces including a 90-seat café with additional outdoor dining, a 50-seat multi-use theater and lecture space, retail and lobby spaces, and extensive public site enhancements beyond the Garden.

In the first gallery, the neon-white slim stems of “Glass Forest” curl upward from their bubbles in a 1970s groove. Conceived while the artist was teaching in New York, it was groundbreaking for glass art. The work stretches indefinitely into the mirrors behind and beneath.

Then comes a room full of the Seaforms inspired by Puget Sound: seven Persians (large gold vessels sprouting giant glass kelp, octopi and crabs) surrounding a central aqua-indigo standing chandelier of twisted glass pieces, dotted with gold-dusted urchins and snails. Everything’s poised on mirrored black bases, with black walls to highlight the glowing iridescence of the glass.

Details on the above piece.

Then follows the long room of Mille Fiori, the glass garden of curvy red stems and tropical glass foliage first exhibited for the opening of Tacoma Art Museum’s new building in 2003.

I loved these pieces. The last indoor gallery hosts 19 Macchias, the wide-lipped shells “spotted” with glass shards and standing larger than life around the dark walls.

The installation inside of the Glasshouse is an expansive 100-foot long sculpture and is one of Chihuly’s largest suspended sculptures.