a road trip.

I've also ventured a little farther than my towering mountains to find respite from my less-than-ideal situation. A few weeks ago a friend and I drove two hours north to Promontory, Utah where we learned about the long ago meeting of the railroad.

In 1869 the nation was recovering from the effects of the Civil War, seeking to find ways to build the economy, bolster patriotism and take advantage of the scientific and mechanical advances being made like never before.  One side effect of all of this was a frenzy of railroad building on both coasts and an effort to literally unite the still-damaged country. The Union Pacific Railroad was coming from the east while the Central Pacific was building from the west.  They'd been getting money based on the amount of track laid and weren't being very judicious about it when President Johnson and others in Washington stepped in and gave them a completion deadline. The agreed upon point was Promontory Summit near the Great Salt Lake and on May 10 engines from both sides met and a symbolic Golden Spike was driven completing the world's first transcontinental railroad.

There's a visitor's center there now (it's a designated National Historic Site) but not much else. However, they bring out full-sized replicas of the trains (the originals were scrapped for parts around WWII) and have knowledgeable staff that share stories about the historic day.  There's also a gift shop, small museum, and several informational movies that run throughout the day. It was a surprisingly delightful place to visit.  Highly recommended, especially for train or history enthusiasts.

yes, my photo is touched up a bit (ala Instagram) but the colors were nearly that vivid in real life-the trains were truly something to see!

And then nearby at the Great Salt Lake is a famous art installation, Spiral Jetty.  Created by Robert Smithson in 1970 it's made out of basalt rocks from the nearby hills and is over 1500 feet long (the pictures don't do it justice.) Depending on the time of year it can be covered by the lake but we've had such low rainfall the past few years that the water was barely visible from the viewpoint/parking lot.  We walked down to the jetty itself and beyond where the salt from the lake had dried in such a way that it seemed as if we were walking on ice or marble (I imagine that it's similar to the famous Salt Flats where they do all the land speed testing, but I've never been there.) We poked around in puddles marveling at the designs and variations of the crystals, the different colors and shapes, the strangeness that makes up this world we call home.

the two dark dots you can almost see just below the mountains, that's about where the water line is-everything else you see in the foreground is all dry/salt

It was definitely worth the drive and the half day or so we spent exploring. Utah, a pretty great state indeed!

a day spent wandering.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go into the District and spend the whole (drizzly, cold) afternoon wandering aimlessly through several museums before meeting some friends for dinner. My first stop was the Corcoran Gallery where I drooled over Degas, Monet and Rafaelli. Their collection includes modern and contemporary art, photography and the decorative arts, but I tend to  prefer the European myself.

Next up was a visit to the Renwick Gallery whose collection focuses on the American crafts and arts. There I was amazed by Wendell Castle's Ghost Clock, (all carved from a single piece of wood and made to look like a clock draped in a cloth...fantastic!) and somewhat haunted by Karen LaMonte's Reclining Dress.

Then it was off to the Old Post Office and a quick tour of the clock tower (too bad the views were obscured a bit by all the clouds) before making it to the National Portrait Gallery.  They had a wonderful exhibit of Civil War art; some paintings of battlefields and bivouacs, some of Matthew Brady's photography but a few of my favorites were some scenic views whose subjects had nothing to do with the War itself but were painted in the era and had some strong underlying symbolism.

There were four of them; one depicting a double rainbow arched over a jungle chasm signifying the reuniting of the two halves of the country, another shows a volcano in the distance ready to burst as tensions in the country mounted to a boiling point, and another showed the aurora borealis--the northern lights a symbol of the North's cause.

My favorite though was a painting of great icebergs, painted off the coast of Newfloundland. It was first displayed at the outset of the war and was proclaimed as the most splendid work to come out of the country and a reminder of what the country (as a united whole) could create.  Having seen glaciers and bergs in person I was awestruck by his ability to capture their majesty, enormity and fragility all with a few brushstrokes. I was swallowed up in the grandness of the painting that stood nearly as tall as I and twice as long. I could almost feel the cold Arctic air on my face (or maybe that was just the air outside blowing in through the open door!)  I confess it made me a tad homesick. (Do you call it "homesick" if it's for a place you've only visited briefly?!)

(I've stolen the image from this website about the artist, Frederic Edwin Church. Normally I'd just send you there to look at it but I wanted you to be able to see it without scrolling through all of them to get there --but know that it doesn't even begin to do the actual work justice. And I encourage you to scroll and see the rest of his work when you've got a few minutes.)

It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon and made me grateful to live in a city where I could so while away my time.  What is your favorite way to spend a free afternoon?

Happiness is...a few random bits of pleasure.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens...these are a few of my favorite things from the past week:

• kamikaze squirrels  
• gearing up for the next concert by listening to this album over and over and over!
• chocolate cake with to-die-for peanut butter frosting
• a night filled with Frank Sinatra tunes courtesy of this show at the Kennedy Center
• This scripture: 

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Romans 8:18

• driving with the top down along winding country roads at sunset 
• not having to wear a sweater at work (the window for this is miniscule and often non-existent, we are either suffering from the cold winter wind blowing in from outside or chronic over air-conditioning)
• getting a massage
• creating things

This collage to hang in my dining room

Birthday Party in a Box packages to be sent out to several relatives celebrating big days this coming week

Lemongrass salt scrubs-some to keep and some to gift!

• bridal showers: visiting with friends, hugs, laughter and amazing food
• leftover Easter Egg salad sandwiches sprinkled with smoked paprika
• cleaning out my closet
• this book
• homemade blueberry basil preserves (a little smear of heaven on my toast! Mucho thanks Madame K :)
• This quote:  

...the definition of humanness is the opportunity to marvel at the majesty of creation...  ~John Green

• and then marveling!

How has your week been?  I'd love to hear about it!

Happiness is...a good book. (Summer Reading edition #13)

Page by Paige
Author: Laura Lee Gulledge
Pages: 192
Age Range: 12+
Published: 2011
Genre: Graphic Novel/Realistic Fiction
Cover Score: ***
Overall Grade: ****
Rating: PG-13

Paige has been uprooted from her rural Virginia home and thrust into the thriving metropolis that is NYC when her writer parents get new jobs. She misses home and her friends but also looks on the change as an opportunity to reinvent herself and discover just who she really is. Armed with some advice given to her by her artist grandmother she sets out to explore her new surroundings.

Rule #1 Buy a sketchbook and draw a few pages each week.

Her sketchbook becomes a journal of sorts where she puts her feelings into images rather than words. Her frustrations with her parents, her loneliness, her self-doubts, her insecurities about her new friends and relationships, all become vivid images and help her navigate the waters of emerging adulthood.

She finds a group of friends who accept her for her strange tastes in music, her sci-fi interests and her vintage clothes. Together they support each other in their varying forays into writing and music composition and art. Slowly Paige begins to appreciate her strengths and opens herself (and her art) up to others in person, online and in the community.  She improves her relationship with her parents, finds gifts she didn't know she had, even gets a boyfriend but most importantly learns that her happiness and her future are dependent on her actions and attitudes.

Half of the story is told in typical graphic format, Paige's life and actions are displayed in panels with speech bubbles and the whole shebang but it's her responses to what happens to her and her sketchbook entries that make up the other half and give the book its oomph.  She talks herself through her feelings and gives a name and an image to everything she goes through making her experiences extremely relatable. Even as an adult I found myself having 'aha' moments and smiling inwardly as I knew exactly where she was coming from. 

Some examples: as she walks down the halls of her school she imagines that everyone is just watching and waiting for her to embarrass herself and draws an image of hundreds of telescopes zoomed in on her every move. When frustrated with her lack of ideas (writer's block anyone?) she sketches her head being wrung like a wet rag dripping into a puddle of nothingness labeled 'ideas'. And navigating the 'what ifs' of love she shows herself holding her gigantic heart in her arms trying to navigate a floor covered in banana peels.

I really loved the ideas here and the positive ways that she solved and worked through her issues and the fact that we could see and be a part of the process. I think it could give hope to kids going through the same things or help them find their own coping mechanisms. I love that she worked with what she had but didn't feel like she needed to make a huge overhaul of her life (there were no extreme makeovers or changing to fit in with other people's ideas of who she was or should be, instead she worked to improve her confidence and strengths she recognized in the moments when she felt like the best version of herself.) 

Plus, there's a soundtrack at the end. And I'm a sucker for any book that has its own soundtrack! I have a nice list of new artists to check out. Yippee!

I also found myself applying some of the rules/techniques to my own writer's quest.  Let's see if it helps!

An entertaining and thoughtful read, I highly recommend it!

Here are the rest of the rules for anyone who’s curious.

Rule #2 Draw what you know. If you feel it or see it...draw it!

Rule #3 Shhh...quiet...listen to what's going on in your head.

Rule #4 Let yourself fail. Don't take it all so personally.

Rule #5 Figure out what scares you and DO IT!

Rule #6 KISS: Keep it simple, stupid.

Rule #7 Live a lot to get better material. Let yourself feel everything.

Rule #8 Stay stimulated to avoid creative constipation.

Rule #9 Trust your gut instinct. Be honest with yourself.

Happiness is...environmental art.

I wish I had artistic ability.  Sometimes I like to pretend I do but really it's more of a talent for mimicry than anything else.  I am not very creative, but I'm appreciative. I can spend hours wandering through museums or galleries marveling at everyone else's talent to think and create.

I also love nature. You've already had to endure my waxing rhapsodic over the colors and sights and sounds of gardens and mountains and whatever else happens to be floating my boat at the moment so I won't make you go there again. But I want to sing the praises of a few artists who use the best pieces of nature to create pieces of art. (This is by no means an art lesson, merely my own ramblings so forgive me if my terminology or anything else is off.)

My current obsession is environmental art. To me, an environmental artist views nature as a palette of possibilities. They take the picture that the rest of us see, shatter it to pieces and then put it back together mosaic-like, creating something wholly new and yet familiar and recognizable in its strangeness. Sometimes the piece is removable and separate from the world around it, something that becomes its own individual creation to be enjoyed of its own accord.  But more often it is left where it began to return back from whence it came with only a photograph to remember what it was, its other life lived for a short time.

Here are a few of my favorite artists right now.  All of the images are from their websites unless otherwise noted below.

Andy Goldsworthy was my first introduction to the genre. He has an installation at the National Gallery here in DC that's rather impressive but I find some of his other pieces far more breathtaking.

Rowan Leaves and Hole 

Pebbles Broken and Scraped

(images found at the morning-earth website, here)

Then there's Jim Denevan. His pieces are larger and even less permanent, often brushed onto dirt and sand like this...

There's just something haunting and otherworldly about these creations. Crop circles anyone? Love them!

Stuart Ian Frost tends to follow somewhat in Goldsworthy's footsteps. I see a lot of similarities in their styles and materials though Frost's don't seem to stay in their natural habitats. Instead he pulls out of nature  items to create very geometric sculptures.  This one is made from seagull feathers.

Another artist is  Strijdom van der Merwe.  I'm not as familiar with his works but again there are familiar tendencies and flavors here reminiscent of the others. He is also more what I would qualify as a 'modern artist' meaning that rather than just geometric shapes or designs there are abstract forms and images that I feel should represent something that I just don't understand. These are probably my least favorite and yet some of his pieces are enchanting in their own right. (I can't find any linkable/borrowable images to post but take a few minutes to check out his gallery on the website. I love the rocks stuck on toothpicks floating over the water...yeah, not technical at all but that's what it looks like!)

I love that so many of them look as if they are something you might happen upon in your own travels if you were lucky enough, quick enough, special enough to be in the right place at the right time. There's a touch of magic and sorcery to them, as if elves or fairies or woodland creatures have been at play. Just for the moment you can believe that maybe it all happened naturally and absolutely anything is possible.

Do you have a favorite artist or medium? Are you more partial to abstract or realistic images? Paintings or sculptures? Modern or classic? Do you have artistic skills or inclinations of your own? I'd love to hear about them!