Skip to main content

Out and About

 We have been busy, too busy for me to post. I'm feeling a bit as if I have missed a passel of school assignments. Let's see if I can catch up enough so that posting will feel just too difficult to do.



Thursday we attended graduation at The Jewish Theological Seminary. Two dear friends were being honored with honorary doctorates.




Friday we went out to the Poconos to a retreat center for a reunion of a group of my husband's dearest buddies.



Google Maps sent us mostly on tiny rural roads.









It was a beautiful ride. The weekend itself was wonderful .



As we turned into the gas station I had noticed some Hebrew or Yiddish writing on the tan building in the center of the photo.







It reads Satmar Bungalow Colony


Our older son is visiting from Israel for the week. We had had a big family dinner on Thursday evening. Yesterday my husband, my son and I went to MOMA.


Back when I was an Art History major there was a specific way one had to look at art. Each piece of art needed to be looked at long and seriously so if you were called upon to write an essay about the painting you could comfortably produce a thoughtful three or four pages. Now I go to museums to have fun and to look at whatever catches my eye for as long or as little time as I please. Mu husband, my son and I all go through exhibits at our own paces. We check in with one another but feel free to enjoy at our own paces.

When this iteration of MOMA was new I hated it. I think that they hadn't quite figured out how to light the place so that the artwork didn't get lost in the vastness of the spaces. I remember one art critic complaining in those early days of this newest building that Monet's Waterlilies looked like dirty bandages in the vast space.  I think that they have finally figured out how to best use the vastness of the spaces.

During this visit I was struck by how the architecture of the building interacts with the street and the artworks.






























I just loved seeing this Louise Nevelson sculpture next to the windows of the apartment house across the street.



They seem to be enjoying placing art works so they have a lively conversation with one another.






I got to visit some of my favorite things in the museum























Shadows!!!!





 This sculpture reminded me of the work of  El Anatsui - but pre-dates this phase of his work by more than twenty years.  His work though is made out of discarded junk and is all the more magical for it.

















It feels a little comforting to see that the seemingly flat surfaces of Matisse collages are in reality a bit rough.









The groupings of Bertoia chairs in the courtyard seemed  like  art itself.























On the way home we passed an amusing street sign.




 While I was taking these photos there was more that I was planning to say. However--this will have to do for the moment
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

I love hearing from my readers. I moderate comments to weed out bots.It may take a little while for your comment to appear.

Popular posts from this blog

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee.  If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it.    My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid.  I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed.   A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee  and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...
1 comment
Read more

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

 I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night.  I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1)  אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה  God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2)  אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר   May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3)  יָאֵר יְהֹ...
8 comments
Read more

A Passover loss

 My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of  linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin.  You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...
2 comments
Read more