Get with the QR

In order to stay current,
you have to stay current!
This is a QR. If you have travelled,
then you have seen these and probably
wondered- what is that?  It is a new type of
bar code.  QR stands for quick response.  These are used frequently in places like Japan.  They can contain all kinds of info.  They usually direct you to a specific website from your smart phone.  I want to use it as an art project.  I want to know what I can find out about who clicks on this partiular QR.  Send me a message!

Oh, Mexico....

I ended year one of my exploration challenge by visiting yet another new country to add to my list.  My family, and when I say my family, I mean all of my husbands immediate family - 13 in all- flew south of the border for some fun in the sun.  Who says 13 is an unlucky number!

This year I ended up trying a some new foods - I have to keep at this as there are so many things to taste and experience. I visited two new states - Oregon and Washington. - both very beautiful and well worth the visit. I now have 7 to go to have seen all 50-  Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota, Montana, Kansas, Hawaii and Alaska.  I may have actually been in Kansas as a child, but I don't remember it, so I won't count it.

State capitals.....well that is yet another challenge.  I'll have to think about this and count how many I have been in.  I know I have lived in a few - Little Rock, Harrisburg and Raleigh.

I visited a few new countries. They were Spain, Italy, the Holy See and Mexico.  On this score I have lots of places that I need to go. I have only been to Canada, Mexico, England, France, the Holy See, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Venezuela, Barbados, St Lucia, Greneda, the Virgin Islands, and several islands in the Bahamas. There are 257 countries listed on wikipedia.

And on the larger scale of things that means I have been to North America, South America, and Europe.  I need to get cracking on those continents. 4 more to go.

Major cities....well this year I hit Rome, Madrid, Seattle, Portland, Venice.

As my mom would have said - so many places, so little time.....

Well, no time like the present.  I am planning my next short adventure with my friends.  We are going to see another Frank Lloyd Wright creation.  I'll tell you all about that soon.

Any travel advice?  The advice is always welcome.  Happy Trails in 2011!

Get those middle aged bones moving!

I challenge anyone who reads this to get out and move on foot in a new way for 30 minutes each and every day.  Let's compare notes in a month and see what has happened and where we have moved!

I wish I had some gum...

Boy. Who would have ever thought that gum and beer could buy so much beautiful land! I took a drive up to Lake Geneva today to tour the Lake and in particular Black Point Estate. My SpecialFX friends and I lucked out. The day was a perfect example of Fall. Beautiful blue skies with a few fluffy clouds floating overhead made the Lake look even prettier than it already is. This is the time of year to go to a place like Lake Geneva. A few weeks earlier and it would have been a crowded tourist trap. But this time of the year, the waitresses are glad to see you walk into the restaurant, the guides are happy to give you the full guided tour and the docents at the historic homes like Black Point are generous with their time and knowledge. Geneva Lake and Lake Geneva, the town and lake respectively, are the summer home to some very successful people from the Chicago area.  The Wrigley Family have several homes on the Lake, just to name one famous family.  People have spent millions of dollars on lovely 'summer' homes.  Not as lavish as places like Newport or the Cape, but certainly the Lake is truly a lovely place to vacation. And one of the most impressive homes on the lake is a victorian estate called Black Point.

Black Point is a home of unusual distinction. It is a survivor of a by-gone era. In some ways, the whole town of Geneva is a throw back to another time. It is a reminder of what vast wealth and the good old American dream can buy you. The Black Point home was a family home. It was built by German immigrants who made large sums of money brewing beer. The American Dream come true. The brewery in Chicago no longer exists, neither does the family home in Chicago along Lake Michigan. Both are long gone. But the 'vacation' house still looms over Lake Geneva. The house was donated to the State of Wisconsin by the surviving members of the Conrad Seipp family.  The family had owned the estate and used it as a summer escape since it was built on the South Shore of Lake Geneva in 1888.  Unfortunately for Conrad, he didn't really get to enjoy the house. He died shortly after the house was finished.

The house sits on the highest point over looking the lake and has been the site of many a weekend romp.  Now if you can climb the more than 100 steep steps, you too can get an idea of what the rich and somewhat famous of the Midwest used to enjoy on a hot August weekend.  The house has not changed much over the years. It is filled with mismatched victorian furniture. In my opinion, it could use a decorator. It is a bit dark and doesn't really seem particularly comfortable.  But with a good glass of beer and the right company, it could be a lot of fun.

For me the most enjoyable part of seeing the house was the boat ride to the house.  A young teacher gave a very nice guided tour of the lake. The weather was perfect and I was with friends who are easy to travel with. This is not something that is always true about friends as I am sure many of you know. That is the best part of any field trip. Throughout life we have friends that we play with, friends that we shop with, friends that we dine with, friends that we laugh with and friends that we cry with. We have friends that we share memories and stories with if we are truly blessed.  I value my friends.  They are a necessary part of a full life.  You can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends. I think I am really lucky to have some wonderful friends.  And I am even more lucky to say that many of my friends are flexible enough to go at the drop of a hat. By the time you reach middle age, the reality hits hard that if you are going to do something, there is no time like the present to do it when someplace interesting or new comes along.  So to all of you friends out there, pick a new place and lets get going.

Travelling with the SpecialFX

Tomorrow I am off on another adventure with my SpecialFX Tour Group. We are off to Wisconsin for the day to explore the back roads, catch a little color, ride a boat in hopefully not too gusty winds on Lake Geneva and tour a true Victorian Mansion. I hope my feet will get me up the 100 steps from the boat to the house!

Nothing like a road trip with friends!

More tomorrow.

A bit of balance goes a long way

It is always a lot of fun to see an artists' work in person. Books are wonderful. Film is great, but nothing does an artists work justice like the opportunity to see it in person. I ventured into Chicago on the El to see the new Calder Show at the MCA with some friends. It was a beautiful late Summer day. The weather was perfect - 70's, the sky was blue, the El wasn't crowded and my friends are a fun loving group. A good start to the day. We arrived at the MCA on a Friday morning. I like the MCA. It isn't a large museum. It doesn't wear you out physically and sensually when you go there. You can see everything and then sit and have a latte on the terrace and feel good about the visit. Some museums are so large and the collections so diverse that I often feel over-stimulated and exhausted after a visit. But the MCA is not one of those museums.

I don't have a degree in art. But I have always loved art. And I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to have seen a lot of it. I have read a lot about art. And I have three daughters who are full or part-time artists who have taught me a great deal about different art periods and movements in art. I have to admit that I am a contemporary art lover. I never get tired of seeing and learning more about this type of art. I find it so very interesting and thought provoking. I don't really think of Calder as a contemporary artist. I did enjoy the show. I love the seeming simplicity of his work. The cleanness and balance. I was sorry that there wasn't a very slight breeze in the museum to set the work in motion. I tried blowing up at a few of the small pieces and got a dirty look from the guard and stopped. But what fun is it to see a mobile just hanging with absolutely no movement. Just a study in balance. It was interesting to think about when Calder was making some of his pieces. Especially when he was sculpting during WW2 and did not have access to sheet metal. He had to be green and use a lot of reclaimed materials. The bronzes and wooden pieces that he created during that time period have a very interesting feel to them. There was a small bronze piece on display that was very interesting to me. I wasn't certain whether it was actually all one piece or was a work of balance. The signage didn't say. But if it was a work of balance, wow!

In conjuction with the Calder is a show of 7 Contemporary Artists who were influenced by Calder. The show is called Form, Balance, Joy and features works by Jason Middlebrook, Martin Boyce, Nathan Carter, Abraham Cruzvilligas, Aaron Curry, Jason Meadows, and Kristi Lippire. This show was well worth seeing.

The MCA has a show with Redmoon Theater called The Astronaut's Birthday. It looks very interesting. It is interactive comic art that is being projected on giant screens and viewed through the museums windows to an outdoor viewing audience. The short video that they had describing the show made me really want to see it. But unfortunately, it is only being shown on weekends and only at night in September Not possible right now, but worth watching for if you have the time and are down town this weekend or next.

I spent the rest of the day with my friends exploring Michigan Avenue. We saw a great street performer who looked like a modern day tin man - silver duct tape and silver body makeup. Really funny to watch. And then shopping. Shoes seems to be a universal attraction for most women and we saw some beautiful examples. And chocolate. We made our way to the Hershey Store before hitting the El to come home. They have a dark double chocolate cookie that is very worthwhile. No free samples like Hershey PA though. Too bad!

All in all a fun day. My friends are so easy going and fun. A good group of women from diverse backgrounds who like to do new things. We all agreed that more adventures are on the horizon.

Bella Italia - shopping in my mothers shoes.

My mother told me that I would love Italy when I was 18. Did I listen to her then? Of course not. Who believes their mother knows anything when you are 18! My mother went to Italy for the first time the summer that I was leaving for college and came back raving about the city of Rome, the beautiful churches, the fantastic shopping - something that my mother held a master's degree in- the lovely people, the shear joy of exploring new territories etc. That was my mother's first major worldwide trip. She ended up seeing more than 90 countries in her lifetime. And loved all of them. She started thinking about travel at her own grandmother's knee while reading the National Geographic.

I have inherited her love of both travel and shopping. I know that I have instilled a love of some of these adventures on my own children. It is amazing to me the influence that our parents have on us. Even when we sometimes try our best to be nothing like them, we/they seem to be there in funny little ways that we don't even think about. For instance, I was looking at pictures that my daughter took of my in Venice. I was standing in St. Mark's Square, smiling, with my hands in front of me at the waist, exactly like so many photos I have of my own mother at roughly the same age and we are even wearing almost the same jewelry. Certainly not done consciously, but there is her subtle influence. There is another photo taken at dinner in Padua and I noticed it because I have a photo next to my desk of my mother, which was taken in China during the late 1970's, and we are both holding our eating utensils in exactly the same way! I wonder if one of my own daughters will discover a photo years from now, with something similar and if they will recognize the similarities. I wonder what their reaction will be - pleasantly surprised or a little dismayed that they are turning into their Mother!

I found myself thinking a lot about both of my parents when I was travelling. Part of it was because I was lighting candles for them in every church that we visited -and we were in a lot of churches during our short stay in Europe. We averaged at least two a day in Italy. But the other reason for thinking about my Mother in particular were all of her stories of her wonderful adventures. I found myself wondering as Katie and I toured Rome if my mother had shopped along the same streets? I know that we visited many of the same sights and it made me smile to think that I was walking in her footsteps. Maybe an angel named Sara guided us to that shop with the beautiful gloves in so many lovely colors? I was sorry that I didn't have the chance to see these sights with her, but so grateful that I was able to share them with my own daughter.