Showing posts with label NYBG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NYBG. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

One Thing Led To Another-itis

Does this ever happen to you? You make a list; you have the best of intentions but get derailed by the smallest of things, a phone call, a sunny day, something shiny?


I so meant to write you over the winter but I am guilty of One Thing Led To Another-itis. A thoroughly relaxing vacation set the tone that I could not escape from and took the last few months to catch up with friends, museum hop, stroll the NYBotanical Gardens Orchid Exhibit, be with family and revamp my catering menus. Not having much of a winter here in NY had me gardening in February and March and I can use the garden as a daily diversion, but I already see that the lack of rain and snow is going to lead to a tough year in the vegetable patch.

I am not complaining, this time off has been rejuvenating and I frankly needed it. Looks like 2012 is going to be a terrific year for business, and I have restaffed and revamped and now we are chomping at the bit. The first event of the spring season had us back at where my past post put us, my favorite treasure, The Katonah Museum of Art.

Rising Dragon: Contemporary Chinese Photography is the exhibit. We were busy doing our do but I was listening to the docent tell the gathering that the introduction of the internet into China in 1997 unlocked the world to a waiting populace who were eager for expression. The artists embraced technology and quickly came up to speed with techniques and advances, meeting, and in some instances surpassing, what is happening in this art form globally.

This exhibit ironically related to Walter Wick exhibit we did back at the end of January at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic, an artist who works in this modern form of photography that creates scenes, manipulates images with the resulting work that is more real than reality while becoming dream like in its intensity.

The Walter Wick exhibit was the first time I actually realized what I was looking at in this new digital form of expression and was fortunate to speak with the artists involved in the model and scene making and Walter Wick himself. Learning about the explosion of art coming from China and realizing how a suppressed society does not have an outlet to create, the toll that takes on the individual as well as the society was a new thought for me. With Walter Wick, like the title suggests, I felt like someone had opened my childhood mind’s attic, my memories of stories, toys, of play. With Rising Dragon I could not escape the fantasy; you could literally see the mind unleashed. Contemporary art is always exciting. Love it or hate it, it reflects the world and its current state. To the nay sayers I want to remind them that many of the artist’s works considered classic now were hated, even despised, at the time they were made. Contemporary art is, in many ways, seeing the future.

Speaking of future, it's sunny out, the lake is sparkling and the phone is ringing...I smell diversion....

The Katonah Museum- Katonah, NY
http://www.katonahmuseum.org/
Rising Dragon: Contemporary Chinese Photography
March 25 - September 2, 2012

The Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT
http://brucemuseum.org/
Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic
January 28, 2012 - April 21, 2012

Monday, March 22, 2010

Save The Trees...no really

Not sure how many of my friends here visit the NY Botanical Gardens, maybe you were there for the Train Show held every December with your grandchildren or you visit The Garden with a girlfriend for the Orchid Show which occurs at this time of year or you walk the grounds for inspiration and the restorative properties The Garden offers your soul. (I also visit for the great lunches at the Café and the amazing bookstore). BUT, the storm that ravaged this area destroyed some of the finest specimens the garden had curated over its nearly 120 year history. Old, old trees, plants and shrubs and some of the other lovely architectural and visitor friendly amenities were destroyed and some badly damaged.

I know this doesn’t rank up there with Haiti and Chili and that a Save the Tree’s outcry is probably laughed at but The Garden needs donations now. NYBG had run into tremendous disrepair during the 60’s and 70’s and the Wall St boom time and funding from corporate sponsors helped restore the Garden to its pre-storm brilliance. Then came The Tides of March and all the destruction it left in its wake.

Here’s a link to the Facebook post. If you can donate even a small amount it would be helpful, if not, please visit The Garden and see this amazing place. I have brought dozens of skeptical visitors over the years and every one, without exception, has left this place wide eyed and anticipating their next visit. If you can do nothing else to support this New York treasure, do visit this wonderful place. You will be so glad you did.

The New York Botanical Garden Remember that big storm March 13th and 14th? More than 150 trees were damaged here at the Garden. http://www.nybg.org/email/general/postcard_20100319.php