13th Steet Studio

From Here to There

We just got back from a tour of the Dakotas, mostly South but a little bit of North. We had a great time!

I have been lucky enough to travel to some very interesting places. From the Wailing Wall to the Great Wall, from Stonehenge to the Tokyo fish market I have seen a lot of interesting things.

In Beijing the cleaning staff at our hotel left orchids floating in the toilet when they were done.

In Mobridge, South Dakota the cleaning staff left the following for our convenience:

I would love to see what the management of each place would do if asked for the offerings of the other.

Quilt Market

I've seen a lot of blogs talk about last weekend's Quilt Market in Kansas City. I was there too, but my thoughts about market have remained just as organized as this Alexander Henry exhibit:

So you too will have to read other folks' descriptions and reviews for market news. I don't know what to tell you. The hype and merchandizing were ferocious.

Tick Tock

Time to post or get off the internet, I think. Lets go back in time a bit to the trip to NYC in December. Much of the reason for the timing of the visit was to be able to attend "Crafts at the Cathedral", an event held at Saint John the Divine Cathedral on Amsterdam in NYC. I knew that my favorite clock artist Richard Birkett was going to have a booth there and I wanted to get another one of his clocks. My long suffering husband was going to be there to tote and carry, so I could buy as big a clock as I wanted. Here is the new addition:

It has a music box that works and a camera that doesn't. The music box twirls an airplane when it is playing. I had my choice of dozens of slides to put in the slide viewer, and Hawaiian Godzilla was my favorite. All of this and more is attached to an old roller skate.

It is fabulous! It even tells time.

One side benefit from the trip to Saint John the Divine was seeing the strange and beautiful "Peace Fountain" on the grounds of the cathedral. You can read more about the fountain here.

Big Apple Birthday

Another fun thing we got to do in NYC was attend Jimmy Mirikitani's 92nd birthday party. Jimmy was the subject of the excellent film "The Cats of Mirikitani" by Linda Hattendorf. There is information about this film here. If you get a chance to see it, do it. I think it is my favorite documentary ever.

This past year Jimmy's artwork was exhibited in the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of the exhibit "The Art of Gaman,"  and he travelled to Washington DC to be a special guest at their screening of THE CATS OF MIRIKITANI.  He saw the White House and the Memorial to Japanese American Patriotism. His work was also exhibited at the Japanese Canadian National Museum;  and the Lawrence Arts Center in Kansas, in conjunction with Roger Shimomura's exhibit "Shadows of Minidoka." It was at the exhibit in the Lawrence Arts Center that we heard about his birthday party, and it just felt like fate insisted that we go when we were in his neighborhood on the right day and time. We told Jimmy we were from the same town as his friend Roger Shimomura, and that was good enough for him. It was an honor to meet him!

Park Art

Monday is not the best day for museum-going, but there is this rather creepy art exhibit in and around Madison Garden by Antony Gormley called Event Horizon. Thirty one life size body sculptures are placed on roof tops and in the garden...here is one on the very top of this building:

Otherwise, it was a good day for shopping in Soho and wandering around Greenwich Village. This pigeon was enjoying a nice bath in a fountain in a tiny park in "the Village". He made me promise to Photoshop out the Do Not Feed the Pigeons sign, so I did.

Hot Town, Summer in the City

First day in the Big Apple started out with a free Justin Bieber concert. I went to see the excitement, and honestly, I was a little disappointed. It looked like the barricades were set up for a bigger crowd, and I know I expected a larger, more frenzied group. The girls screamed for the cameras as much as they screamed for Justin. I guess we all know how to perform. Here are a couple of shots of the concert goers:

I think the group did four songs...one of which I had heard before. Baby, baby, baby, something.

See the fellow right in the middle of this picture below, holding up his hand? The perfectly styled hair of Justin Bieber was briefly visible about there. I couldn't catch him in a photo, though.

In other news...look at this genius idea...pizza in a cone. Delicious!

Zoom

Here is a picture of old people having big fun on a D.C. City Segway Tour:

It was so cool to zoom around on these crazy machines!

Out and About

...and missing in action. We got to make a quick trip to NYC to visit our daughter last week. It was fun, as usual, in the Big Apple! We got to see the newly re-opened Museum of Arts and Design,and an interesting exhibit of work by Martin Ramirez at the American Folk Art Museum. But most importantly, we got to see a taping of The Colbert Report, where our daughter is currently interning. After the show, we got to wander around a bit in the studio, thanks to our VIP status. I got to touch Colbert's desk. No photos, though. We did not want to push our luck. So, I'll just include a photo from inside my favorite NYC restaurant, Veselka, where a "Trick or Borscht" sign was part of their Halloween decorations.

New York, New York

Yikes, where did the summer go? I was lucky enough to be able to spend the better part of the week before last in New York City. My younger daughter is doing an internship with Comedy Central, working on The Colbert Report. Her job started before her dorm opened, so I used this as an excuse to go "help her out" by letting her stay with me in a NYC hotel. Oh, the sacrifices a mom will suffer! So, while she was learning the ins and outs of TV production, I had a lovely early lunch of cold borscht and pirogi at my favorite restaurant, Veselka. Sitting at a sidewalk table on a beautiful Fall-like day in the Big Apple with the latest issue of New York magazine made this Kansas girl feel a lot less land-locked!
Another food related highlight was taking The Melting Pot Food Tour with The Enthusiastic Gourmet. We had a great time learning about the various groups of immigrants that have come through NYC and made it the place it is. I would recommend this tour to anyone who loves food and history. I was too busy eating to take pictures, but trust me, we had some food that just isn't available back home.
My final food goal for this visit was to take a taste tour of the gelato shops that were featured in this New York Mag. article. Sadly, I only made it to two of the places before my gelato limit had been reached. Who knew I'd hit the wall so soon.
This building greeted us every day as we left our hotel. The painted but peeling sign advertises a performance group called Squonk Opera. We crossed paths with this group in Denver several years ago and enjoyed them very much. Shortly after that, they appeared in our town and we got to see them again. I was glad to see they made their mark in the Big Apple.