Rainy Day Art

It's that time of year again, for another adventure and another place to add to my collection!  Last week I traveled to Atlanta, Georgia to see Amy, a good girlfriend from college. It's always more fun to share trips with people close to you, having more laughs, a second opinion and a local tour guide. 

On our first day of adventuring in Atlanta, we went to the High Museum of Art, somewhere Amy had been wanting to explore and I, as an artist, am drawn to by nature. We were lucky to see their latest exhibit of Dutch painters including Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring! It was such a beautiful collection of paintings where I could have spent hours staring at the delicate flower still lives or the warm landscapes that make even a blizzard scene look cozy and inviting.

Museums become the keynote of my travels since art lifts my spirits and inspires my creative soul. I hope these beautiful images I collected from the day inspires you and gives you a little taste of the High Museum of Art.

Greensboro's Natural Science Museum

          I always love being a tourist of the city I live in.  People become so used to their everyday routine, that they forget what their surroundings have to offer, especially when you just want to go 20 minutes down the road for a day of adventure!

         Wanting to go somewhere I'd never been before, and not having time for travel, Vlad and I spent a Friday afternoon exploring the Natural Science Center of Greensboro, NC!  I didn't realize how much was there!  Between the exhibits and the indoor habitats, as well as the small enclosures outside, there's a lot to see.  The Natural Science Center is only one of two zoos in the country, the other being in Indianapolis, that has Javan Gibbons monkeys.  Soon, in spring 2013, it will also be the home of the Carolina Sciquarium!  So I'm already excited to go back next spring and see the addition!  Its definitely a place to put on your checklist for Touring Greensboro!

An Afternoon in D.C.

          I came to D.C. for a few days and I had an afternoon to play!  I've been to D.C. a few times, so I've been through most of the museums, some of them twice, so I decided to explore somewhere I hadn't been yet, the National Aquarium.
          Though this aquarium was small, located downstairs in the Department of Commerce Building, it's residents were diverse.  Watching fish swim so effortlessly through the water, creating a constant, elegant movement is so relaxing to me.  However, the octopus was what caught my fascination. I just stood in front of his dark habitat and as if in a trance just watched him move.  His tentacles twisted around themselves, curling and writhing, allowing his intense strength and movements to look like a dance.  I didn't know that the octopus is considered the one of the smartest underwater creatures, even more intelligent then dogs.  I was simply amazed by this beautiful, vermillion animal.

        I did, of course, have to stop by my favorite exhibit in the world.  Since I was 2, I've been in love with dinosaurs.  The triceratops was always my dino of choice and Land Before Time was my favorite movie.  I had dino stuffed animals, and made the first sculpture I ever created was of a stegosaurus in 4th grade!
          This is another summer of dinosaurs, with the dino gummy "bears" I found and since I'm currently reading the classic Jurassic Park, I thought it was only fitting to stop by the exhibit and walk beside those larger than life creatures that once walked the earth (and also see the Dinosaurs 3D IMAX showing).
          While it was my third trip to the museum, the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History never gets old to me.  Full of things of from both the past and present, it just puts on display how amazing and powerful mother nature can be, making people aware of how many other species and lifeforms are a part of this world, and how important they truly are, because without them humans wouldn't have come to exist in the first place.

An Afternoon in  Washington D.C.

Boston Museum of Fine Arts

         When most people look at a painting they see the scenery, the atmosphere, the figures and the drama they are involved in.  They see the whole picture.  Maybe it has been my years of art history classes, seeing endless masterpieces on larger than life digital screens, but for me seeing an original painting, is like meeting someone for the first time.  Walking through the rooms of the MFA is like catching up with old friends, seeing friendly faces around every corner, and having the honor of making new acquaintances.  

          And like  any group of friends, every painting has its own striking personality.  Its the brushstrokes.  Most people look past them, but I can stare at them for hours, noticing every smooth curve or textured splatter.  I always have the most obtruding desire to run my fingers over the layers of an oil landscape.  Paintings become topographical maps of an artist working through their process. Pieces of art are windows to their creator's soul, who leave a part of themselves in every painting.  But its the brushstrokes that are the connection from the artist to the canvas.  They are what is left as a passage through time to see the artist's perspective, leaving behind a personality for us to analyze and enjoy while comparing Van Gogh's furious and destructive passion to Monet's delicate serenity.  Museums, while inspiring to any artist's heart, are also comforting to mine.  On this trip, I needed to surround myself with beauty and creativity,  to let myself just stare for a while at brushstrokes that have become familiar and soothing.

  

 

Day 3.

The Nichols House Museum

on Beacon Hil

          Mt. Vernon Street was home to many prestigous families in the early 1800's.  Specifically at 55 Mt. Vernon Street, orginally owned in 1804 by the Mason's, resided Miss Rose Standish Nichols with her collections of art, furniture, and memorabila. She and her two sisters, all trained at the Miss Shaw School, studying carpentry and woodworking, which for a women in the 1800s was very impressive.  They were all also well educated and talented.  Miss Nichols specially was still traveling to Switerzland until a year before her death at age 89.  Born in 1872 she was an author, a suffragette, a lifelong pacifist, and a women's rights activist at a time when that was an far unseen future.  She was a world travler, studying English, Spainish, and Italian landscape architecture and gardens, writing books on each style.  Her house has been preserved, with most of its original furniture and collections from the family, including several sculptures created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens who was Miss Nichols uncle.  She was such a diverse and interesting women, so it is fitting that her house still displays her passion and personality. (Nichols House Museum Website.)

Pictured Below:  Miss Rose Nichols during a magazine photoshoot

 
Tapestry from the mid 16th to the early 17th century, worth at 500,000 (only worth less than 1 million because the family cut the bottom border so it would fit the wall better.)

Beautiful Textured Wallpaper

Rose's Bedroom