Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge continues with a color theme, this week the colors of our flag (whatever that happens to be). Here are some photos featuring the red, white, and blue (and sometimes other colors as well!).
CFFC: Colors of That Grand Old Flag
decorative art
PPAC #3: Fire Hydrants
Cee and Marsha’s Public Art Photo Challenge is in its third week, I think. This week is Marsha’s turn, and I linked to that. If you haven’t seen other contributions, click on the link and see some awesome petroglyphs!
Fire hydrants are a good place for public art – they are necessary and they are always there. People walk by them every day and don’t look at them, but sometimes it is worth stopping!
!
CFFC: Color vs B&W
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge about opposites this week has the theme Black & White vs Color.
Friend
Young black & white animal (before it turns black & white)
Still life
Wedding (yes, really) decorations
License plates
Flower macros
Bronze Marigold
Chicago Botanic Gardens scenes
April Squares: Bright and Whimsical
These whimsical animals were part of a sculpture garden next to an elegant restaurant in Antigua, Guatemala, and I think they are perfect for Becky’s April Bright Squares.
Antigua was part of an optional tour during our 2017 cruise through the Panama Canal. We crossed from east to west, and made several stops along the western coastal ports of Central America.
After touring the historic center, our tour bus took us on a narrow winding road up a hill, past the rich part of town. At the very top of the hill was a cultural center, Santo Domingo del Cerro, and restaurant called The Golden Fork. This is where we had lunch and afterward had some free time to shop at craft vendors or wander the grounds which contained interesting artwork by local artists, including various colorful animal sculptures – a rabbit, monkeys, snails, crocodiles, horses, and merry-go-round horses.
Thursday Doors: Amsterdam
Norm and others have posted colorful and creative doors for Thursday Doors this week. Here are some colorful doors mostly from the De Pijp neighborhood of Amsterdam, which I don’t think I’ve posted before. If I have, so be it – they’re worth having another look!
Thursday Doors: Cairo’s Islamic Art Museum
I am finding photos in my archives that I have never blogged about before, some suitable for Norm’s Thursday Doors challenge. We were on our own our last day in Cairo, because we were going to Israel to join up with a tour group there. On recommendation, we decided to go to the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA).
In 2014, there was a car bombing intended for the Cairo police headquarters across the street, which severely damaged the building’s façade, and destroyed over 20% of the museum’s artifacts. Personal photo of Gerard Ducher; link to license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/deed.en .
The MIA in Cairo is considered one of the greatest in the world. It has an extensive collection of rare wood and plaster artifacts, as well as metal, ceramic, glass, crystal, and textile objects of all periods, from all over the Islamic world and representing different periods in Islamic history ranging from the 7th to the 19th centuries CE. The collection occupies 25 halls in 2 wings, one wing organized by period and the other organized by category. The MIA displays about 4,500 objects, but their total collection equals approximately 100,000 artifacts.
These photos represent only a small fraction of the items on display, but they were ones I found especially beautiful or significant. And, of course, featuring doors!
Ceramic tiles from Iznik, decorated with floral ornamentation. Turkey – Ottoman Empire, 16th century CE.
Ceramic tiles with under glazed decorations based on inscriptions, human, animal and floral motifs. Iran, 11th-15th century CE.
Two table chests, made of wood inlaid with ivory. Turkey – Ottoman Empire, 18th century CE.
Ceramic Mihrab with carved under glazed decoration. Iran, 14th century CE.
Cabinet of painted wood, decorated with ceramic tiles. Egypt – Ottoman Empire, 17th century CE.
This and photo below: Stucco façade in shape of a Mihrab. Egypt – Mamluk, 15th century CE. Marble portico. Egypt – Mamluk, 14th-15th century CE. Marble fountain. Egypt – Mamluk, 14th-15th century CE.
Wooden door, assembled “tongue and groove,” inland with ivory, ebony, and bone. Egypt – Ottoman, 16th century CE.
Marble door, decorated with floral and geometric designs; gift from the king of Afghanistan, 18th century CE.
Wooden pulpit, (Minbar), brought from the mosque Tafar al-Higazlya, 1348-1360 CE. Egypt – Mamluk, 14th century CE.
Wood plated door with copper revetment, bears the name of prince Shams al Din Sunqur al-Tawil-al-Mansuri. Egypt – Mamluk, 14th century CE.
Ceramic tiles, painted under glaze. Egypt or Syria, Mamluk, 15th century CE.
Information obtained from:
Wikipedia: Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo
April Squares 29: Iowa State Capitol
The Iowa state capitol in Des Moines is atop a hill and offers a panoramic view of the city’s downtown. The exterior is entirely of stone with elaborate columns, cornices and capitals.
Looking up inside toward the top of the dome
Posted for Becky’s April Squares with the topic TOP.
The Iowa state capitol building is one of the prettiest I have seen, so I am including more photos highlighting the decorative tile floors and ceilings. The interior is constructed with several types of Iowan wood as well as 29 types of imported marble.
The House of Representatives, looking down:
and above, elaborate decor.
Colorful designs mark the floors, stairways and ceilings.
Mosaic murals
Looking toward the center of the building, the rotunda below
The library is a real gem!
If you are ever in Des Moines, the state capitol is worth a visit – bring your camera!
Source:
Wikipedia: Iowa State Capitol
Thursday Doors: Leftover Holidays
Norm is back with a new Thursday doors post! He posted about a repurposed church in French Canada – check it out! My contribution this week is photos of doors taken while walking the halls of The Moorings’* main building on a cold day. All the apartments have identical doors, but what is interesting is what their residents put on their doors! Most of the ones I found this week were holiday decorations (especially wreaths – I was on the hunt for wreaths in particular) that their owners hadn’t yet taken down. I’m also throwing in a few that I took in December, before Christmas.
This resident hung colorful decorations from the light fixture outside their front door!
This door has an advent calendar with all its doors open. (Notice the “No Puffins – Alaska” sign!)
Wreath collage!
The apartments also have little shelves outside the front doors, on which many people choose to display other holiday decorations!
Charlie Brown Christmas tree towers over a small creche.
Classic Santa!
Traditional Norwegian painted wooden items
*For those of you new to my blog, my husband and I recently moved to The Moorings, a senior living community in Arlington Heights, IL. We live in a duplex, but I walk the long hallways flanked by apartments on days when it’s too cold to walk outside and I don’t feel like exercising at the fitness center.
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Monochrome
Lens-Artists’ weekly photo challenge #70 has the topic monochrome. Monochrome can be either black & white or varying hues of the same color.
Normally, to create a black & white photo, I use my photo software to change it from color to B&W, since I do virtually all my photography in color. In this photo, however, I didn’t have to. It was after dark and the tree was lit from the side, so I got this spooky effect.
There was not much color in the original of this photo, either, but I did have to modify it to be completely monochrome. It was taken on Halloween, when we had an early snowfall, accumulating to over 3 inches! Fortunately, it is gone now.
This photo is a detail from the top of a box, created by a resident of our senior community.
October Squares: Artistic Lines
Becky’s Month of Squares challenge is back! Hurray! This month the theme is Lines & Squares.
In the past month I have visited two museums: the Chicago Art Institute and the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. Plenty of opportunities for lines!! Squares too, probably.
Here are the rules for Month of Squares:
Create your line square post, and include a pingback to one of my daily square posts
You can also add a link to your post in the comments on my post
To make it easy for others to find you and to generate interest across the web do include this month’s tag lines&squares
Preferably post daily but you can also post all 31 in one go at the end of the month, or if it is easier join us weekly.
You can even drop in occasionally with squares if you are away or really busy, and many do.
There is though only ONE challenge rule;
your main photograph must be square in shape!
At the Chicago Art Institute, after seeing the Manet exhibit, we went to the members only preview of an unusual exhibit entitled In a Cloud, In a Wall, In a Chair: Six Modernists in Mexico at Midcentury. The general idea of the exhibit was to show how artists in Mexico (whether they were Mexican or not) were influenced by native art and how they used native art elements in their own work.
My main photo is this one, by Ruth Asawa, “Untitled (BMC.58, Meander – Curved Lines),” c. 1948, pen, brush and ink on paper
Here are a few more in the exhibit:
Ruth Asawa, Untitled (BMC.127, Meander in Green, Orange, and Brown), 1946/49, collage of cut colored and coated papers
Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2003), all untitled, hanging forms, brass, galvanized steel, copper and wire
Pitcher, c. 1950, Purepecha, Michoacan, Mexico, hammered copper
Cover of a book
Female Figure with Bold, Geometric Face and Body Paint, 200-100 BC, Chupicuara, Guanajuato or Michoacan, Mexico, terra cotta and pigmented slip
Cynthia Sargent, Linea Musical (Musical Line)
Sheila Hicks (American, active France, born 1934), Taxco el Viejo (Taxco, the Old One), 1962, handspun wool. this is one of Hicks’ works whose geometry draws from Mexico’s ancient pyramids, as well as from the weave structure itself.
Anni Albers (German, active United States, 1899-19940, Eclat 1976/79, silkscreen on cotton and linen
Sheila Hicks, Falda (Skirt), 1960, wool
Personally, I did not always see the connection between Mexican native art and the pieces on display, although I did notice style and color, which are very Mexican, from my personal experience. My favorites are the yellow and orange Taxco rug and the hanging wire forms. There were several more pieces in the exhibition not included here.
Wanderlust & Wonderment 