Since I Last Wrote...

I saw a bit of the 65th Revival AAA Glidden Tour.

This is the shared parking lot of the Blue Star Antique Pavilion and the Saugatuck Brewing Company just off exit 36 of I-196 on the way to Douglas, Michigan.

My husband's homebrewing club often meets here, and I have spent the odd happy hour wandering up and down the aisles of the antique pavilion and exploring the many many booths.

I just loved the contrast between these two cars and had to get a shot of them together.

I finished the little Niebling I started. The booklet describes the designs on this page as "dreieckiges" (triangular), but this one wanted to be round.To me it looks like something inspired by Ernst Haeckel's Art Forms in Nature. It's a little thing, 50 rounds or so, under 8 inches across.

Then I started another, Glöckchen, because these things are like Terry Pratchett books: even when I know what happens, I still have to work my way through and see how everything works out.

Friday the weather was beautiful, warm and sunny, so we went to the Frederik Meijer Gardens to see the Chihuly exhibit and the Art Prize pieces.

(And I will stamp my foot here and say this was all built after we moved out of Grand Rapids, otherwise I would probably work there.)

On the way, from the highway we saw a bit of the work being done on St. Adalbert's. We used to live near it, and the copper roofs have always been green, so it felt odd to see them all shiny and coppery.

When you walk into the lobby at the gardens, this is what you see on the floor:

The floor is all covered with these organic-looking bronze shapes embedded in terrazzo. This is the work of Michele Oka Doner, Beneath the Leafy Crown, installed this year.

All three of us have been to the gardens before, but I think it's always been in the spring, for the butterfly exhibit. This was our first fall visit.

My mom took our son to see some of the Art Prize works in Grand Rapids, and we saw some more here at the gardens (scroll down the right sidebar), but I didn't get pictures of any of them!

Instead I got lots of pictures of Chihuly glass and really big plants.

The sun splashed out on the orange glass in this one, but I took it anyway, trying to get the bridge in the background for scale. Then the woman in turquoise walked into the shot, and I took it. Look how HUGE those leaves are.

I love the tropical house, and our son did, too. I had a great time going through there with him, because he kept noticing things like the live finches flying overhead, and asking about different plants.

And then we went to the carnivorous plant house, and the arid plant house, and then outside. It was awesome.

If you've been reading Girl Genius, you'll appreciate my last picture:
Look at the fangs! EEEEEE!