Fort Myers, FL (Part 4) - Beautiful Music

When we went downtown for the First Fridays Art Walk in Fort Myers we had a chance to meet some of Alice's friends, enjoy some delicious food, browse a few galleries and hear some great music!

These are a few of the friends that Alice meets up with to enjoy First Fridays and other night life around town.  They are a sweet bunch of folks.

While we were there we heard the legendary John Mooney play blues (slide) guitar for free at the Indigo Room! He's a pretty amazing musician. (There's a photo of him playing with Bonnie Rait among other things). Apparently he has family in Fort Myers, so he comes to see them and drops in at some of the local places to play.  Sorry that the photo is blurry. I was using our table as a tripod and it kept getting bumped, but you get the idea.

After that we wandered down to have dinner at the French Connection Cafe.  The food was excellent and very reasonably priced.  Even though we had a pretty big storm earlier in the evening, the weather was perfect for eating outside.

Check out Alice's Steak Salad.  Mmmm!

Later we stopped in at this Arts for ACT Gallery and Boutique set up to raise funds for (Abuse Counseling and Treatment) in the Fort Myers area. See the beautiful blue scarf hanging over the partition? That's where I found MY beautiful GREEN hand-dyed silk scarf by Sara Long that I promptly purchased to bring home.  It was VERY reasonably priced too. I loved all the quilted art and textiles here. 

 

Alice has a friend, Kat Epple that was playing music at another gallery - Space 39 (also free to listen) so we headed over there to hear her music and meet more of Alice's friends.  We learned that Kat's music has won 8 Emmys for film scores and has been nominated for Grammys!  Pretty awesome, huh?  Unfortunately, I don't know the names of the other 2 musicians, but they all played beautifully!  The guy on the right is playing a theramin.  You can go here if you want to hear what one sounds like.  It has something to do with radio waves...

 

Well we're headed out to Naples today, so that's all I have time for. We had a really fun time at the Art Walk, thanks to our host and tour guide, Alice.

Fort Myers, Florida (Part 1) We're Here!

For those of you who don't already know, I'm in Fort Myers with my mom and my sister, Diane on a short vacation to visit my mom's sister, Alice. Unfortunately, it's after midnight here and we have a busy day planned tomorrow (and most every day that we're here), so this has to be short and sweet.

I just couldn't wait to post a couple of pictures of some of the things that we saw tonight when we went downtown to their First Friday Art Walk. Yes, they have one too. We'll talk more about that later.

Right now you can admire this awesome art installation with words shining all over the sidewalk, building, pedestrians and ...

...even on the trees!

I just LOVE it!  Alice didn't really know the story behind the choice of the various words.  Some of them are definitely real words, but others look to be either made up or another language.  I haven't had time to research it.  Let me know if you know anything about it.

Anyway, this is at the Sidney and Berne Davis Art Center in downtown Fort Myers.

Here's a close up of the words below as well.

Later we went into this gallery that had some gorgeous textiles!

I found this beautiful hand-dyed silk green scarf for only $15!  What a fun souvenir to bring home as a reminder of the wonderful time that we've already had...and it's only the first day here!







We also enjoyed some amazing music tonight, but that will have to be a post for another time.  In the meantime, do any of you know what a theremin is?  I can give you a hint.  It's a musical instrument and we got to hear one tonight!  More on that to come so stay tuned...

Love the message in this art!
Check out this awesome art work that I saw when we were at the Second Saturday Coffee House last week downtown at St. George's !

This is done by Derrick Kempf a local Phoenix artist.

Sometimes I have to admit that I don't get some artwork. Sure, the colors and designs can be lovely or shocking or surprising, but it's hard to get into the head of the artist to see where it all came from. I love this collage because it is so fun to look at and actually provides a positive message to everyone who sees it. These positive reinforcements would be a treasure to have in any room and I love the cottage/beachy casual feel of the piece. Be sure to click the pictures to enlarge so you can see the detail.

I would love to have a collage like this one for my family room wall. The promises and identity statements that it conveys are excellent reminders of how God sees us all the time.

Here's another shot of some of his other work that was there. It was so nice to have all this great artwork to look at while the music was going on. Thanks Derrick, for sharing it with us.

Antiques Roadshow - what should I take?

Have you ever seen the TV show? I don't watch it religiously, but I have stopped the remote once in a while to see what treasures they happen to be appraising that will make someone the next millionaire, or at least a little more comfortable in their retirement. It's a fun show and the optimist in me cheers for those who find hidden treasures in unexpected places.
You may remember my announcement that I would be receiving 2 tickets to the Roadshow's visit to our own town of Phoenix, AZ. I'm excited that I'll be going with my friend, Linda whose home is filled with all kinds of collectibles. I can't wait to see what she brings. August 1st is fast approaching and I've been trying to decide what to take to be appraised. I think I've made my decision, but not sure... These are the items I'm considering. Let me know what you think, please.

First option is to take photos of Terry's mom's mini-grand piano (above), that I mentioned previously on this post. Unfortunately, it's too heavy and fragile to be taken down to the Roadshow location, so we would see if they can at least give us a little bit of info on it, just with photos.

I'm also considering this Roy Lichtenstein print. It was created specifically for donors who gave money to a 25th anniversary fund raising campaign for California Institute of the Arts, where I used to work. The only reason I have one is because I found some of them leftover in the attic at the school and they said I could keep a couple of them. Since Lichtenstein is fairly well known and has since passed away, I'm assuming these were printed in limited enough numbers that they may be worth something.

Next is this vintage camera that my brother brought home last year. I have no idea where he got it from, but it's pretty cool, in that it folds down into this compact little case.

And last, but not least we have several very old books from Terry's family. These 3 are the oldest.

The Silas Marner book is copyrighted 1909 and has the name Edith Lindberg written in pencil in the front. There are rumors that Terry's dad is related to Charles Lindbergh (the aviator). You know how people used to change the spelling of their names back in the old days. Anyway, this one isn't in bad shape. It has a photo of George Eliot inside, but no other illustrations or photos.

The other two are more worn and tattered, but more interesting to me.

Looks like the last copyright on the Tom Sawyer book is 1917. The pages are falling out of this one, but I love the full page black & white illustrations by Worth Brehm.

Gulliver's Travels dates back to 1912 and has a note inside the cover: "To Billy - from Daddy - Xmas 39". This one's in a little better shape, with some full page color illustrations by Milo Winter.

So please give me your input on what I should take. I can only take 2 items and it's a tough choice. Thanks!

A new form of art!
As mentioned before, we visited Terry's mom, Carole, this weekend and while we were there she showed us this new piece of "OvenArt" that she created. Can you tell what it's made of?

I asked her if she'd pose with it, but she declined, so I decided to do a few different views of it to help you truly appreciate the piece.

I love the abstract nature of it...the tentacle-like legs reaching out between the vertical metal bars. It almost looks like a jelly fish or some otherworldly creature. It think she should sell it.

Now can you tell what it is?

I'll reveal the secret at the end of this story.

Terry has always told me the stories of when they were growing up, his mom used to store bags of potato chips in their oven because she didn't have enough cabinet space to store them anywhere else. Every once in a while, she would forget that they were in there and turn on the oven to bake something. As you can imagine, it wasn't long before things were smelling strangely, the room would fill with smoke and sometimes, if she was really busy (and distracted) they even caught on fire. Fortunately nothing else in the house went up in flames.

Now, I must say, in her defense that taking care of a family with 6 kids (5 of whom were rambunctious boys) had to be so much more than a full time job. You can't really blame her for overlooking a measly bag of potato chips in her busy day.

Have you figured out the artwork yet?

It's actually a couple of plastic container covers melted down thru her oven rack. She put them in there because she didn't have room anywhere else for them. Sound familiar?

It's nice to know that she can laugh at herself though. We love her for that.

I really do think she could sell it.

Chihuly Exhibit at the Desert Botanical Gardens

One of the things we did on Easter Sunday was to go to the DBG in Phoenix as the guests of our friends, Cathy & Marshall. We had a chance to visit the Butterfly Exhibit as well as the Chihuly Glass Exhibit which was thru-out the gardens. The two exhibits are so popular that you can only see them with a reservation, so if you go, be sure to call ahead to reserve your time slot.

We decided to go from 4 pm to 8 pm since we knew that would be a good timeframe for photos. The weather was perfect too! We went from late afternoon sun, thru dusk, sunset and dark. Since it's a lighted exhibit in the evenings, it looked amazing in all the stages we saw. I took what seemed like a bazillion photos and I'm thinking of entering a few in the Arizona Highways Photography Contest. There are a lot that I like personally, but it's hard to come up with something truly unique for a contest. I may enter anyway just because I like the prize that they're offering and you just don't know if you don't try. We'll see...
First I want to share a couple of fun photos of our friends. Marshall spent quite a while waiting patiently for a good shot of this lizard. I'm sure he got a better shot than I did.

He moved around to a different angle so this stick wouldn't be in the way and the lizard actually moved and "posed" on a rock for him. All the people around us stood and admired the lizard and Marshall taking pictures of the lizard.

Then Cathy posed for this fun picture. Doesn't she look so sweet? Well she is! We're privileged to know them both. I'm so glad God brought them to Arizona and to Open Door. They're such a precious couple.

Here are a few of my favorites from that gorgeous day.

Finally! A bit more about vacation and inspiration...
As I started thinking about all that still needed to be said about vacation, I realized that there's probably much more than I should post at one time, so we'll see how this ends up.

I mentioned Bar Harbor, Maine in the last vacation post, but missed a couple of key stops, that I'll fill in now.

So much of what I saw and experienced inspired me to make time in my busy life to do something creative. To get back to drawing or writing or something totally different than the other activities of my day. I get to dip my toes in it with my blogging and photography, but I'd love to do more. We'll see if I can make that happen.

While we were there I also learned that many of my favorite artists and writers lived in New England. Why was it such an inspiring place? I'm still trying to figure that out, but there were several obvious clues. The surroundings are absolutely beautiful and I can see why the cool damp weather would encourage a person to stay inside and use their imagination to take them to new places.




One day when we were in New Hampshire we went up the road to Franconia to visit the home where one of my favorite poets, Robert Frost, summered for over a decade and a half. They call it "The Frost Place". It was a cozy little spot with this amazing view of the valley and the mountains on the other side. The day we were there, the mountains had received a dusting of snow overnight. The house was quite small and simple by today's standards, but had a big front porch. I could imagine the poet sitting on that porch or on a bench under a tree writing his amazing poems.
After my experience of having a dad that was an iron-worker who didn't say much, I wondered what it must have been like for his 6 kids to have a poet for a father. How in the world could he find time to write with all those kids around. Wow! He must have been an awesome man with such a tender and creative soul.

If you've never read any of Robert Frost's poems, check out a few of the more popular ones, like "The Road Not Taken". It's a classic. We saw hundreds of stone walls, just like he describes in "Mending Wall". Take a look. I think you'll like them.

Our next creative stop was the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, Maine. It houses the works of three generations of the Wyeth family. NC Wyeth was a book illustrator in the early 1900s. I would love to find some of the classics with his illustrations. They were gorgeous! His son, Andrew Wyeth started as a teenager and did much of his painting in watercolors or egg tempera. I remember learning about him in high school. His work was so detailed. You appreciate it even more so, if you've tried to paint with watercolors. It's not easy to get that kind of detail.
Then Jamie Wyeth, who is still living, went on to follow in the footsteps of the previous generations. I thought Andrew would like his photo of the shark's tail. Read the pic of the description about it too. I think Andrew would be great friends with Jamie.

And last on my list of inspirations was a new artist that I discovered while at a cafe in Bar Harbor. Her name is Neiley Harris and I LOVE her paintings of nature, trees, fruit, flowers, etc.. She has a website and a blog that show her work and the process as well. Someday maybe I can buy one of her paintings when I can afford to get original art. Actually her pieces are really quite reasonable compared to more well known artists. I guess we'd better buy them soon, before she gets too famous.

All in all, these visits made me want to retire from working and just be creative in whatever way I can find to do it. But since we know that's not going to happen any time soon, I'll just have to squeeze in some creativity along the edges somewhere.

OUR EARTH AS ART:

Check out this link to the USGS site of "Our Earth as Art"

These are beautiful images taken by the Landsat-7 satellite - and most recently, the Terra Satellite's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER).

The top one is the Ganges River Delta in India, where the Bengal Tiger roams.

The orange & blue one is the Malaspina Glacier in Alaska.

The blue & green one is the Mississippi River Delta.

Pretty amazing stuff, huh! I just love the colors!