Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bronze age, petroglyphs, photo, sweden on June 4, 2017| 2 Comments »
I love the family compound belonging to our hosts, with its birches, lupines, red cottages, and blue doors. Stuga 40 and I took photos there and at the nearby Vitlycke museum, a World Heritage site, where we saw ancient petroglyphs and a Bronze Age garden.
Near the garden were goats chewing their cud and two different kinds of shelters replicating life before 500 BC. It didn’t look luxurious. My photo of Bronze Age instruments, below, is especially for Modern Age musician Will McC.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged morning, photo, stockholm, sweden on May 30, 2017| 6 Comments »
Good morning.
I’m watching Stockholm from the balcony. A garbage truck came for the trash cans behind the publishing house across the street. At 7, a young man on a bicycle took off his helmet and stowed his bike, came around the iron gate, and went into the front of the building.
People are running along the edge of the park. Soon parents will be rushing their toddlers to day care in the park. A blond woman is walking a small black dog with a curly tail past the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History, and Antiquities.
Spring was late here, so after we had enjoyed the tulips and daffodils and lilacs back home, we are getting to enjoy them again in Stockholm. A dad pulls down a branch of white lilacs and lifts his son to smell them.
From where I sit, I can see pink rhododendrons in the park, a red bus picking up passengers, and a man commuting by Segway.
Time to get a refill on tea.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged baltic, photo, stockholm, sweden on May 28, 2017| 2 Comments »
With the best Swedish tour guides imaginable, Erik’s folks, we saw many Stockholm highlights today, starting with a couple views from their balcony.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, massachusetts, Mehdi Ghadyanloo, mural, photo, rhode island on May 17, 2017| 6 Comments »
How did we get halfway through May already? It’s time to mention I’ll be taking my first break in six years between May 26 and June 6. We’ll be in Sweden. I’ll try to blog, but you never know.
It sure will feel strange not to post. I have put something up on this site every day since May 2011!
But before I leave, I have other things to share, including today’s photos. The first two are from the giant mural in Dewey Square, Boston — the latest in the Greenway’s ongoing series. The featured artist this time is Mehdi Ghadyanloo from Iran, where he is known for upbeat murals.
The next photo shows a WPA mural in the Arlington, Mass., post office. John pointed me to it after he saw my recent post “Hunting Down WPA Art.”
Then comes another of my shadow photos. Can’t resist shadows. That one is followed by tree-stump mushrooms and dogwood. Can’t resist mushrooms either.
The four Providence photos that follow attest to the fact that the city finally experienced a sunny Tuesday morning (the first since February). Blackstone Park is the location of the Indian shelter and the fallen birch tree with the mysterious yellow plastic strips (art?). Nearby was a wondrous carpet of pink petals and an early rower on the Seekonk River.
Finally, I wanted to show you my lilac progression. With muse.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged e pluribus unum, frida kahlo, frost, lichen, photo, women's march on February 13, 2017| 4 Comments »
I hope you’ll enjoy these photos and some explanations. The only one I didn’t take myself is the photograph of a dime.
Here’s the story of that. A couple days after the temporary ban on travelers from seven countries was announced, the teacher in a refugee ESL class where I volunteer was teaching about money — what different coins and bills are worth, whose picture is on them, what the words say, and so on. On her big video screen, she pointed out the phrase gracing the dime, “E Pluribus Unum,” and since I’d had Latin, I translated it as “Out of Many, One.” Sure did seem timely.
The sign from the January Women’s March was on a neighbor’s fence. The unprepossessing gray house, we recently discovered, was a Norwegian church in the 1800s. My husband had been telling his coffee group that he saw a sign by the Concord Post Office that said “Parking for Norwegians Only,” and someone told him, “Probably has something to do with the Norwegian church that used to be on Lang Street.” A Norwegian church was on Lang Street? That was a surprise!
The angry sky and the pictures of lichen need no explanation. The frosted window was taken last Friday, after our big storm.
The Frida Kahlo portrait was painted on a wall in the parking lot of Dorcas International, a refugee resettlement center in Providence.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged concord, light, photo, picture, shadow, sweden, Vermont on January 17, 2017| 9 Comments »
My latest photo round-up includes several from family members plus examples of my own fascination with shadows and light.
The first picture is from Erik’s mother in Sweden. I love that a Swedish gingerbread house was rendered in red board-and-batten style. Next is a funny sign about Norwegians that my husband shot in Concord. Then we have Suzanne’s photo of proto-skiers and another funny sign, this time in Vermont.
The old barn is next to the Ralph Waldo Emerson homestead. The house being torn down is the haunted one I have described before. Tearing it down revealed that it was actually haunted by a raccoon.
The six light-and-shadow photos depict a stuffed animal in bright sunlight, our front gate after a recent storm, Plato’s Idea/Form of a trash can and recycling bin, three green windows, chairs in the pocket park, and a surprising pattern of light on a window blind.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged colonial inn, gingerbread, park, photo, providence, uss concord, winter on December 13, 2016| 8 Comments »
I thought I’d collect some early-winter images, but an out-of-season iris decided to redefine early winter for me. The iris loves that Dunkin Donuts brick wall so much it decided to bloom. Then the temperatures went down into the teens.
The USS Concord (1923-1947) had a bell that the town acquired and put on display in a public ceremony shortly after Veterans Day this year. I enjoyed watching the evolution of the pocket park that hosts the bell and was amazed by what a deep hole had to be dug for the pedestal support.
The unusual “Lost & Found for the People” is beside the path that runs down the middle of Blackstone Boulevard in Providence. (I hope that “the people” will find what they lost soon.)
The next picture is of the daily dog-walker gathering at Emerson Field, where I was delighted by a message nestled in the roots of a tree: “Just do right.”
The veggie colors spoke to me of Christmas.
The gingerbread house competition is at the Colonial Inn and will be up until January 1. The last gingerbread house is in the library. It all makes a person want to try her hand at some decorative baking.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anthem, concord, gardner museum, leonard cohen, photo, providence on November 17, 2016| 6 Comments »
Photos with meaning. Well, maybe not all these photos have meaning. Some exist for their own sakes.
The first, from my backyard, captures two things I love — fall colors and shadows. The second shows the Concord River flowing through Minuteman Park; the third, shadows on the monument at the North Bridge.
The restaurant with the kitchen facing the street is a delightful new entrant to the celebrated Providence restaurant scene. It’s on Westminster Street and is called Bao Bao.
The winged creature on a Boston building looks like a gryphon to me. Do correct me if I’m wrong. Next is a rhino outside the Museum of Fine Arts museum school. That’s followed by the amazing cloister of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and an illuminated manuscript from a current exhibit in the new wing.
Finally, I couldn’t capture the whole Leonard Cohen lyric on the sidewalk in Wayland Square — would have had to stand in a busy street at rush hour. But it’s from his song “Anthem” —
“Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, books, leaves, library, photo, photograph, scarecrow on October 23, 2016| 4 Comments »
In spite of the drought, Massachusetts trees displayed some of their best colors this year. I’m sharing one photo taken along the Concord River, another that barely does justice to this month’s reds and golds, and a third that intrigued me because the green leaves were pink only on their tips.
Other photographic offerings include a name shadow at Bondir restaurant, where we had lunch today, a pirate skeleton with his skeletal parrot in a Lowell bookshop/café, lovely plants in the café, an artist working en plein air, shadows of ivy trying to break into the house, and four book-themed scarecrows at the public library.
The first scarecrow was inspired by the book Strega Nona, the second by If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. The third scarecrow promotes the library’s seed catalog, and the fourth celebrates the counting books.
Don’t you wonder how the library came to do all that work? There must be 20 scarecrows altogether. I’m trying to picture the meeting where the boss says, “We’re doing scarecrows for Halloween. Who volunteers to do what?” Or maybe it was more spontaneous. It sure looks like people had fun with it.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, nature, photo, photograph, postaday, shadows on September 18, 2016| 5 Comments »
I’m starting to notice that my photos (all taken on my mobile phone) have recurrent themes. Today’s nine pictures reflect a few of those interests: words on signs, shadows, plants, nature, art. Either I’m in a rut, or I’m going to get really good at a few themes.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Aaron Usher, blackstone river valley, Butch Adams, Christy Christopoulos, contest, elementary school, fifth grade, inner-city, Jesse Nemerofsky, Linda C. Dugas, national heritage corridor, patricia zacks, Pawtucket, photo, photography, postaday, rhode island, Richard Benjamin, Slater Mill, urban, visitor center on September 8, 2016| 2 Comments »
Pat Zacks at the Camera Werks in Providence feels compassion for inner-city kids whose schools can’t offer many enrichment activities. That’s why she volunteers every year to mount and hang 500+ juried photos by Pawtucket, Rhode Island, fifth graders (and a few grownups).
On Wednesday I stopped off at the gallery where the “Calling All Cameras” photos are on display until the end of September. The theme this year, submitted by Linda C. Dugas, is “Pawtucket’s Color Palette.” Winners of this, the 18th, annual photo contest also get their work featured in the city calendar.
An impressive slate of judges are responsible for choosing this year’s winning photos (Butch Adams, Richard Benjamin, Christy Christopoulos, Jesse Nemerofsky, and Aaron Usher). Winners will be announced September 25.
I wish my photo of a child’s box turtle entry had turned out well enough to post, but I’m sharing a couple other favorites here.
Stop by the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor visitor center, just off Interstate 95 in downtown Pawtucket, to find the box turtle. The visitor center is opposite the historic Slater Mill, birthplace of America’s Industrial Revolution.
And if you are ever in Providence, please check out the Camera Werks on Hope Street. Pat’s Facebook page, here, has more information on the photo exhibit.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged A Wind to Shake the World, block island, hurricane of 1938, Little Free Library, massachusetts, new england, new shoreham, North Light, old manse, photo, photograph, postaday, rhode island, shadows, sunflower on September 6, 2016| 4 Comments »
This healthy sunflower is at the Old Manse in Concord. The Trustees of Reservations always plant a big garden there, with pumpkins growing between the corn rows.
The lantern-like seed pods in the next photo embellish a tree beside the Providence River. The leaf shadows on brick were spotted not far away, along a grubby Providence sidewalk.
Can you read the plaque on the Providence Journal building? It shows the crazy height that the water reached in the infamous Hurricane of ’38. Golly!
My husband says the barrier at Fox Point will prevent flooding like that from ever happening again. I don’t know. Were the engineers aware of global warming when they started construction in 1960?
New Shoreham (in the next picture) was also battered in the hurricane of ’38. In fact, the storm wiped out the island economy on land and sea. The fishermen and farmers were not insured against such a catastrophe. No wonder people there remember that hurricane!
One thing that is different since 1938, as I learned in a splendid book called A Wind to Shake the World, communities in the path of a hurricane now get plenty of warning. But in 1938, when houses on Long Island, New York, were washing out to sea, no one up north knew it.
A few other shots of New Shoreham: a Wednesday farmers market, the Little Free Library, a view through a stone wall, a rumpled morning sky, and the North Light.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bluffs, crane, deep water, fresh pond, impatiens, new shoreham, peat, photo, photography, postaday, stone wall, tide pool, tug hole, war of the worlds, windmill, you are old father william on August 7, 2016| 6 Comments »
In order to get down to the beach for a good shot of the structures I’ll call “War of the Worlds,” I had to negotiate a very steep, very slippery path that reminded me of my age at every step.
“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,
“And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head —
Do you think, at your age, it is right?”“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son,
“I feared it might injure the brain;
But now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.” …
I thought of The War of the Worlds when I took the photo of this, the first, deep-water windmill in America and its giant parent, which is assembling the next four windmills.
The beach on the south side of the island is beautiful, and since I don’t often scramble down there, I took photos of the tide pools and one of the many towers people build with smooth beach stones.
Moving right along, there’s a mobile of sea creatures that I made in an art class with my oldest grandchild. He made one, too: a jellyfish, a shark, a whale (he chose to make an orca) and a sea turtle.
I also have shots of a quiet “tug hole” (a peat bog), reflections of houses on the far side of Fresh Pond, a lotus, flowers against a stone wall, a box of pink impatiens by the outdoor shower, a monster crane getting delivered to Paradise, and magnificent city shadows.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bluffs, island, l'artisan, new shoreham, ocean, photo, photograph, postaday, providence, rocks, salted slate, sea, stone wall, surfer, wayland square on July 29, 2016| 2 Comments »
The first two photos today are from Wayland Square in Providence. My husband and I thought the shade covering at l’Artisan looked like something we could use at our house, but by the time we walked back from dinner at the Salted Slate, the pretty covering had gotten all twisted up by the wind.
The flowers casting early shadows are Marsh Mallows. The little frog in New Shoreham also cast a long shadow. In the next photo, perhaps you can tell that the herring gull is looking for more of my sandwich.
There’s a sliver of moon above the hanging basket. Hope you can see it. Next is a sample of New Shoreham’s lovely fields and stone walls.
My older granddaughter wanted to know if the car with pink eyelashes was mine. No, but maybe I should think about getting eyelashes for the Fusion.
One of my favorite views is looking down the bluffs to the ocean. Often there are surfers riding the waves at this spot. Finally, see how my youngest grandchild cooks breakfast for me in the playhouse.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bonsai, fleur de lis studio, graffiti, photo, photography, picture, postaday, providence, street art, vandalism on June 12, 2016| 2 Comments »
Providence has to be the New England capital of playful graffiti. After PVD Fest a week ago, I caught three new bits of cheerful vandalism around town — new to me anyway.
Pasted on a wall near my office was a duck in a suit, which a younger friend informs me should be understood as “ducktales” because the suit has tails.
I especially love graffiti sayings, like the one about being blessed where you stand and the one about explaining to a friend that you are not a Virgo.
Artistic adventurism is not new for Providence. Take a look at the exotic Fleur-de-lis Studio, for example, on Angell Street.
In other Rhode Island photos, we have the playhouse that Farmor gave her Providence grandchildren. Erik put it together, with help from Suzanne and the kids. The 18-month-old now thinks she’s in charge of screwdrivers.
The picture of berries has a robin eating them. You may have to take my word on that. And if you walk around looking up all the time, you’re sure to see interesting tops of buildings.
I’m winding up this photographic array in Massachusetts, with the herb garden behind the church, the sexton’s bonsai trees, and another tree that reminds me of a line from a hymn: “roots, hold me close.”
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