Good Fences Uncovered…

It was so beautiful here yesterday.  Spring has definitely sprung.  I just had to go out searching for some of those fences that have been buried under the white stuff all winter long.  I took a ride a little bit north of here toward New Braintree, Massachusetts.  There are some really primo rock walls out that way.

  So here you go!

Linking up with The Run*A*Round Ranch's Good Fences!

Good Snowy Fences…

Yesterday was a truly beautiful day here in snowy Massachusetts.  I had an appointment early in the morning for a massage (Lucky me!) and afterwards, I just had to drive around for a while to admire the beautiful mounds of snow against the perfect blue sky.  I managed to pick up a few shots of fences on my rounds so I am going to link on up to The Run*A*Round  Ranch’s Good Fences.

The snow just keeps on coming and it's getting harder and harder to figure out where to put it.  It has been snowing off and on today, but it won’t amount to much.  However, they are threatening us with another foot this weekend.  If Worcester doesn’t win The Golden Snowglobe Award this year, it will be a miracle.  But, we are currently ahead of Buffalo by only six inches.  It may be a close one.  I am a person who likes the winter, but this has gotten to be a bit ridiculous.

They look cold, don't they?

Good Stockbridge Fences…

Greg and I took an afternoon in October to make a trip out to Stockbridge, Massachusetts to the Norman Rockwell Museum.  We had just a matter of days left to see the special exhibit there titled “The Unknown Hopper” featuring Edward Hopper’s early work as an illustrator.  We were glad we did as we are both fans of Edward Hopper but had had no idea that he started his career as an illustrator.

For me, it was interesting that Hopper found his work as an illustrator constraining and only did it to make ends meet.  Once he sold his first “real” art and his career as an artist started to take off, he quit his job and dedicated himself fully to painting what he wanted, when he wanted. He said of his art, “Maybe I am not very human - what I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.”

This is probably Hopper’s most famous painting.  It has been imitated over and over again.

Rockwell, on the other hand, is well-known as an illustrator extraordinaire.  Today, most Americans are very familiar with his Saturday Evening Post covers even though he died in 1978.  Rockwell said, “Some people have been kind enough to call me a fine artist. I've always called myself an illustrator. I'm not sure what the difference is. All I know is that whatever type of work I do, I try to give it my very best. Art has been my life.”

My personal favorite Rockwell illustration called The Problem We All Live With shows Ruby Bridges, a six year old African-American girl going into an all-white public school in New Orleans in November of 1960 as she is accompanied by four US Marshalls for her protection.  I find this piece to be very moving and heart wrenching.  This photo was published in Look magazine in 1964.

I make no judgment here.  Two different people, two different ways of looking at art.  Art and the admiration of it, after all, are among the most subjective matters on the earth.   I’m just glad that these two exceptional talents were able to contribute such beauty and insight to this world.

But I digress from my purpose for posting here today.  Today is Good Fences day and I did manage to take a couple of fence photos while we were out in Stockbridge.  They may not be art, but they are illustrations of good fences and  even though it was a very gloomy, grey day, I tried to give them my best.

Linking to The Run*A*Round Ranch's Good Fences!

Thanks, Theresa!

Good Shaker Fences…

When daughter Carrie and I visited Hancock Shaker Village back in September, I got quite a few photos of fences.  If you are interested in the Shakers at all, take a look back at my October 20 blogpost.  They are a fascinating sect.  And they build Good Fences…

Linking to The Run*A*Round Ranch Report's

Good Fences.

Looking back…

If you read my last blog post, you know that I had three photos entered in the Massasoit Art Guild Annual Art Show.  I am pleased to report that I took home an Honorable Mention ribbon for my photo “Pod” in the Digitally Altered Photography category.  If you saw what I was up against, you would be impressed with that.  The photo that won the category was taken by my friend Paulette Adams.  It was an absolutely fabulous photo of two hats taken at Old Sturbridge Village and it was a very deserving winner, indeed.

I have been so busy since September, that I feel like I have left a lot of photos in the lurch so I am going to spend some time going back.  I hope to have more time to catch up with everyone's blogs soon also.

My daughter Carrie and I picked an absolutely pristine early autumn day to visit Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.  The Shakers are an interesting lot and if you are ever in this area, a trip to the village is highly recommended.  But you had better hurry.  They close in early November for the season.

Soon after our visit, I spied a copy of Down East magazine and, lo and behold, the cover story was about the last three remaining Shakers who live near New Gloucester, Maine.  I won’t get into the gist of the article, but if you are interested in the Shakers, click HERE, for a link to the story.

Hancock Shaker Village is a true Shaker village that was settled in the 1780s.  I took a lot of photos of this beautiful place and will post a few today.  It is truly a gift to be simple.

A Trip to the City…

Last Friday was a beautiful day here in Central Massachusetts…a perfect day to head into the city.

 

Worcester, Massachusetts may not be much of a city by some people’s standards, but right now it is the second largest city by population in New England.  And while it may not be much to look at over all, it has a lot of good things about it, including ten colleges/universities, very good restaurants and a very nice art museum.

Our first stop in Worcester was to Shrewsbury Street and the Flying Rhino restaurant for lunch.  The ambiance and food was good, but it took us three or four times around the block to find a parking spot.   Trouble finding a parking spot makes Worcester feel much bigger than it is.

This Quinoa Salad that Carrie ordered is a WooFood.  WooFoods are marked with the WooFood logo on restaurant menus, "making the healthy (and delicious) choice the easy choice."  I had a WooFood veggie burger and some broccoli slaw.  I say WooHoo for WooFood.

Then we went on to the Worcester Art Museum, known to locals as the WAM.

August is Free at the WAM, so you still have fifteen days to take advantage of that if you are in the area.  The WAM is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.  We went primarily to see the Arms and Armor exhibit that came to the WAM after the Higgins Armory Museum closed in December of last year.  The Higgins was one of those places we always meant to go but never got to.  So we were glad to see that some of their collection would be on exhibit at the WAM.  We enjoyed the armor and we did wander around to see a few other things.   I took no photos in the museum, but I took a few out in the Stoddard Garden Court adjacent to the museum.

This is a photo of Worcester's Community Mosaic.

And here is Carrie taking a photo of herself reflected in a sculpture in the Court.  You can also see a little bit of me on the right hand side.  I was wearing a red t-shirt.

Then we walked Evan home since he lives only about five minutes from the museum and we headed back to the country from whence we came.

On our way out of the city, I snapped a photo of Worcester’s famous and somewhat notorious Turtle Boy sculpture, which has its own page on RoadsideAmerica.com.  Enough said about that.

Wormtown fences…

For many years, the city of Worcester, Massachusetts has teeter-tottered with Providence, Rhode Island for the title of the Second Largest city in New England behind Boston, of course.  I’m not sure who holds the title these days, but I can tell you this:  Providence has a much nicer and better serviced airport.  You can actually go to a variety of places from there.  These days, there are only two flights out of Worcester on Jet Blue and they both go directly to Florida.

Yesterday, Greg and I, being retired and having nothing much to do in the afternoon, headed to the Worcester airport anyway.  We didn’t want to go to Florida.  We were hoping to see Air Force One land.  President Obama was coming to town to give the commencement speech at the Worcester Technical High School graduation.

It seems we weren’t alone in our quest.  There were quite a few people hoping to park along Route 56 at the end of the runway.  Of course, they (we) were not allowed to stop…duh!  But we circled around and eventually we saw that the eagle had landed.  I didn’t get a photo of Air Force One even though I did see it.  But I got a few pictures of the fence that surrounds the Worcester Airport.

Across the road from the airport, these girls had the best view of the going-ons, but they didn’t seem to be in the least bit interested.

Watching the news later in the evening, I began thinking about my high school graduation.  Well, I guess I should say that I wracked my brain for a microbe, an iota, a grain of a memory of my graduation.  Sadly, there was zero, zilch, zip, nada, nothing there.  I can’t remember one second of my high school graduation.  If my father hadn’t taken photos of the event, I might not believe today that it even happened.  I do remember this white dress however.  That is definitely nothing I would have ever bought or worn if not forced to.  Not that there is anything wrong with it…it’s just not me.

But the young people from Worcester Technical High School (and the administration of the school) who are very deserving of having the President of the United States as their commencement speaker will not have that problem when they are my age.  Regardless of their political leanings now or in the future, they will most certainly remember their graduation day.  Kudos to them!!

I’m hooking up with Theresa at The Run*A*RoundRanch Report to show off my Good Fences.

Life’s little things…

Why is it that it’s always on the weekend that the kid or the dog gets sick?  With the kid, you can always take them to the emergency room, but it’s not quite so easy with the dog.  Olive, the pug, started acting strangely in the afternoon on Saturday.  The strangeness continued on into the night.  She wanted to go out all the time but didn’t seem to do anything.  Greg was out of town so it left me holding the leash, so to speak.  Olive was up all night, in obvious discomfort, and I was up with her.  Believe me, this is not normal for a dog who usually requires 18 hours of sleep to have the energy to get up for dinner.  Well, long story short, it seems that she has a bladder or urinary tract infection, poor baby.  On Sunday, she actually seemed to feel a lot better, but we have an appointment this afternoon at the vet to make sure all is truly well.  I, on the other hand, still feel like I’ve been hit in the head with a two by four.  It’s no longer so easy to lose that much sleep and snap back.   But I will feel much better when Olive has a clean bill of health.

Meanwhile, she walked with me to check out the new ferns that are coming up.  I think they may be my favorite thing about spring.

The Double Date

Spring Dance

In other news, I am displaying some photos at the Spencer Public Library for May and June.  It’s part of a program with the Massasoit Art Guild to display local artists’ works at various places in the area.  Here’s one of the photos that I hung over there.

I think that it is incredibly difficult to decide what actually rates a public showing when it comes to my photos.  Good photography is so very subjective.  But I just kind of pick things I like and go from there.  That can be a long and arduous process.  I know from being on Flickr that what I like isn’t always well received publically. But what the heck, as far as hanging stuff in the library, it’s good to have the exposure…no photography pun intended.  The thing I like most about this program is getting to see the insides of these fantastic library buildings.  The Richard Sugden Library in Spencer is a truly beautiful structure.

  I actually have this pipe dream of photographing all the public libraries in Massachusetts.  There are 370 libraries here and I have photos of about six.  I guess I better get some sleep and start moving.

A Good Fence in Wales...

Dropping in quickly to link up to The Run*A*Round Ranch's Good Fences.  

Here are a couple of pictures I took earlier this week when I was desperate for something to photograph for my Flickr 365.  The weather was dreary and it spit rain all day.  I found myself in Wales, Massachusetts at one of the cemeteries there.  Actually, this is Wales Cemetery No. 2 next to the old Town Hall and one of my favorites in the area.  I really like the fence.

Village Fences...

I'm hooking up with Good Fences today on The Run*A*Round Report.

Here are some fences from the visit that Carrie and I took to Old Sturbridge Village last week.  There are loads of fences there.  I guess they have to keep the sheep and oxen in and out.

They have town fences:

The Salem Towne House

The lawyer's office. with the General Store in the background.

And they have country fences:

That's the school house in the background with the kiln behind that.

This is the Small House that I mentioned in the last post.