The sky was so blue + mail art

 I walked to Spanish Meet-up yesterday morning. The air was crisp, the sun out, the sky was so blue. This house on Monument Avenue was decorated simply with copper and silver colored balls. One night we'll do our drive around the neighborhood to capture more of the decorations. Mostly, it's pretty tasteful, but a few people get wacky.

 The Davis monument is in the middle of the intersection. It's huge because he was the president of the Confederacy. My daughter and I are reading books about the American Civil war now, her interest piqued mine. So far, we've both read some good ones. I recommend the book March by Geraldine Brooks, fiction, about the father from the book Little Women. I've downloaded Little Women to my Kindle as I couldn't remember it very well. A revisit is in order.

 This is the Science Museum, our former railroad station, where my Spanish meet-up group gathers in the cafe each Friday. In front is the Grand Kugel. I've written about this before. It never fails to amaze me.

 This fish landed on the ground with a "kathunk" that sent the dogs and horses into a panic! The previous landing of a pumpkin was bad enough; this was far more startling. Tiny Town revisited!

 Mail art using more of the labels from my gift box. This one is going to Buenos Aires to cheer up someone's mother who is ailing.

For this piece, I used part of a recycled cover from a pad of art paper as the substrate and another of my new labels. I am keeping to my minimal three for the label series, I think.

Some views of my city.

Sauers spice factory

 A few days ago, I decided to document some things in my neighborhood. This is the Sauer's plant. We call it the spice factory though they also do flavoring extracts as you can see by the sign. They have a terrific electric light bulb sign which is to the left and perpendicular to this building. It's for mayonnaise and some night I'll try to get a photo of it to post here. I took this photo from the car as I passed by (I was NOT driving at the time.)

Science Museum

 This is the Science Museum of Virginia, which is a short walk from my house. It's where I go almost every Friday morning for my Spanish Meet-up group. It was a train station when we first moved to Richmond. It's still very elegant inside.

This is the monument to Jefferson Davis. He was president of the Confederate States of American during our civil war. Richmond was the capitol and the conflict sort of never ended for southerners. This monument is located, of course, in the middle of the intersection of Monument Avenue and Davis St. I pass by it every time I walk to Meet-up.

Jefferson Davis monument

Grand Kugel

This is the Kugel that is located in front of the Science Museum. It weighs tons yet is floats and rotates on a constant flow of water at the base. You can kind of see it at the bottom of the globe.

It was a beautiful day when I took these photos and the days since have continued to be so mild and clear. Lucky us! I think it's going to change in the next day or so.

We, however, are headed north for Thanksgiving, where the weather is going to be lots colder and wetter. brrrrr. Happy holiday to those who celebrate it! And happy, in general, to those who don't.

Our short trip to DC

Our cousin was in DC for a conference and invited us to join her for a couple days after it was over. We stayed in the Omni Shoreham and had a nice view of the pool. Here's how it looked on the first night we were there when there was an amazing rain storm, with thunder and lightening. A light show! We went to the National Museum of art, where this Calder mobile is installed. We saw, for the third time, the Martin Puryear show. I think we're official groupies now. Another wonderful show, which made us sad, though happy that we got to see it, was the treasures from the Kabul museum. Not much left of the treasures, or Kabul, I think. Brave curators managed to save some of the items that were in the museum. We're standing in front of the big poster advertising the treasures. Later in the day, we stopped at Teaism for some, of course, TEA! The boxes they keep the tea in are so beautiful. Afterwards, we went to the Phillips Gallery to see a show of work by Richard Diebenkorn, photographs by Brett Weston and work by Jacob Lawrence. What a wonderful day of art. And as we left the city the next day, heading home, we passed the Washington monument. I was able to capture this image with my cell phone. It was a short visit, but filled with art. We were energized by it.