Starting with weeds, Mona Caron is a San Francisco-based artist who paints beautiful large-scale weeds in murals that make them magnificent. Her weeds aren’t the ugly plants you want to get rid of in your garden. They are objects that surprise and delight your senses. They appear to grow wild rising up from parking lots in the middle of cities, bringing life to barren cement boundaries. Gorgeous!

The artist couldn’t have said it better about weeds and why she paints them:

They may be tiny but they break through concrete. They are everywhere and yet unseen. And the more they get stepped on, the stronger they grow back.

 

Air is life. Water is life. Land is life. Don’t give up

— Mona Caron

Before I explain about some other weeds, please be sure to see some of Mona Caron’s butterflies before I get onto butterflies.

For the last 2 weeks, I’ve been dealing with my own weeds. My main database and mirror backup were having issues. I asked my husband to help look and diagnose what may be wrong. I believe that in the process the software that we used to diagnose may have damaged the files. They both failed recovery. My last full backup was before I took my trip to Scandinavia in June and this is in tact. I’m still in the process of locating and trying to recover newer files. I’m not sure what was actually lost since I’ve been using Dropbox and my main database since the last backup. Most new files may be OK. Fingers crossed. This has just taken an exorbitant amount of time, so much so that I haven’t been able to stay on track for every other weekly posts or had a chance to post about a birthday and some recent events. I’ll do that now

Peter surprised me with an unexpected getaway Saturday before my birthday at The DC Wharf Intercontinental Hotel. We call it “our son’s hotel” because he’s the project manager for the construction firm supervising the build. It’s complete but they still have some punch outs to do.

It was unfortunately, crappy weather with snow and rain. Not many people were out and about but it was pretty outside. We enjoyed it from inside at the Canopy hotel’s Whiskey Charlie bar, next door, where we had a wonderful experience before, and which I’m realizing that I never got a chance to write a full post about, so I’ll add a snap shot of pictures from when we visited last after seeing the Vermeer National Gallery of Art exhibit in December. It’s my favorite museum where I used to work. It also brought back memories to walk past the Arena Stage, another workplace.

The previous cocktail experience was when I had helped concoct a signature marzipan-flavored drink that was served for brunch to celebrate my sister’s 50th birthday at Magnolia’s on King. After attempting the drink on our own with Disaronno that came in a fashion-Missoni bottle, we found the better and perfect tasting drink in the WC Mainstay cocktail at The Canopy. Now we know how to make it!

However, this time at Whiskey Charlie’s I lost a single glove and liner that fell out of my pocket somewhere between the top floor bar, elevator and front desk. I noticed immediately before leaving and backtracked but still couldn’t find it. No one turned it in and I’m missing those gloves now. I had those liners forever! They help manage my Reynaud’s all throughout the year. The replacements just don’t cut it. Letting it go…we had a delicious meal at Al Crostino, an Italian restaurant near the Black Cat, where we danced to 80’s music for three hours despite spraining my middle toe earlier that day. This was a great workout; even though our knees hurt the next day.

This included breakfast in the hotel at Kith & Kin the next morning as we awoke to sunshine and all the snow melted. We had just eaten at Kith & Kin for brunch with Piers & Libby to try it during restaurant week the week before. It was wonderful. The hotel breakfast was OK in comparison. It’s nice to see this restaurant doing so well. These selections below come from their lunch menu that you can get during brunch time.

My actual birthday was celebrated with my Book Group during a Mardi Gras party, which I coincidentally host every year. This included a table setting for the theme, homemade shrimp remoulade from Brennan’s, Louisiana chicken and a Creole vegetable side dish with lima beans. Dessert was the real deal, half lemon-chocolate doberge cake from Gambinos — the best and a delectable, local King Cake from Best Buns!

These were all the good things that happened surrounding my birthday. Soon after and out of the blue one my large maroon clownfish got sick with a “clown fish disease” that I first noticed with some whitish discoloration on his snout. The research I did proved true that by the time I noticed this it would be too late to treat him. More importantly I needed to concentrate preventing the other fish from contracting it. I had to treat the tank for 21 days with Para-guard, an anti-protozoa medication that could kill all the invertebrates. I had to remove my 7 year-old hermit crab, the only one left, into a specimen tank. Fortunately, he was OK for this long in a new environment. There hasn’t been another outbreak and my two remaining fish appear happy, as does the crab to be finally back in the tank.

Now we’re back to where I started because that same week my database was damaged and I’ve been doing search, recovery and tedious cleanup ever since. I’m entrenched in digital files as weeds. My hope is my filing system will emerge more streamlined after this. For the amount of time this blog takes, which I enjoy doing, it has taken too much time away from actual work-related necessities. I’ve decided to be more sporadic in my posting. I have so many things that I want and hope to post about but this may be less than once a month if that. My readership isn’t what it used to be and I’m questioning the time-consuming effort.

Here’s where the butterflies come in. I believe in transformation, as symbolically represented by the butterfly. Mantra, the France-based artist, uses his exceptional trompe l’oeil talents to paint large-scale butterflies as murals to show the transformation of the place that occurs where they are painted. He leaves these public sites more beautiful than when he began. I really love his work! It seems appropriate to break the 10-year, non-stop AIE blog post run (this being the 780th post) with these beautiful specimens that I couldn’t find more inspirational.

I consider this a transformative period where efforts can be better spent on furthering to increase Casart Coverings, as possible European production is beginning and some new designs will follow in the spring. Meanwhile, please know that I’m always looking and observing that Art Is Everywhere and hope to share those posts with you when I can. They just won’t be as regular as they have been in the past, or this might be my last post but I’ll keep the blog online as a catalog of all things noticed and appreciated.

Here’s an updated post from DesignBoom on Mantra’s work, which is phenomenal and more images from Jason Kottke blog post.

If you’d like to see more highly realistic and detailed, nature-oriented murals, see the casartblog posts featuring the exceptionally talented artwork of Jane Kim and when she used Casart removable wallcoverings in the process of painting the world’s largest and only Wall of Birds mural for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The mural shows the evolution of the world’s birds from a scientifically illustrated orientation.

Another related insect post has to do with a truly incredible buggy exhibit, and it’s celebration of how the earliest collections of Curiosity Cabinets that ‘morphed’ into our first museums over time. This exhibit meshes the concept of the Cabinet of Curiosities, which I first discovered in my delight of trompe l’oeil painting, with museum exhibition design — two of my favorite things.

The post Weeds and Butterflies appeared first on ArtIsEverywhere.

Afterall, artists (all kinds) have to make a living you know. I’ve left the link in case the creator works out another arrangement but I’ve removed the embedded video in the meantime. It could also be that maybe the author has closed his YouTube account. Here’s a little background summary and you may be able to find another video through these links.

Jamison Maley, a high school Physics teacher at Haverford School in Philadelphia has created a wonderful compilation of his favorite murals set to his own funkadelic-jazz music with the help of his student Jake Mullin playing the drums.

I’ve enjoyed the murals in Philadelphia and seeing them paired with music gives a new found appreciation.

The murals are constantly expanding through the Mural Arts Philadelphia Program, which appropriately gives this city its characteristic name, “The City of Murals.”

Some Philly muralists like Meg Saligman, who painted many of Philadelphia’s iconic murals, have brought their talents to other cities, like Chatanooga.

Meanwhile, some famous murals in Philadelphia are either being painted over or removed due to ongoing developement, like this Autumn mural by David Guinn. We first saw it at night.

And yet, other murals purposely celebrate and are incorporated into the architecture on which they are painted and some even create new visual streetscapes.

Whereas, other murals celebrate cultural events, as when Pope Francis visited. This Sacred Now: Faith & Family mural by Cesar Viveros was awaiting his arrival in an incomplete state. Philadelphia citizens participated in its painting during “paint days” on 153 panels that were later installed. This effort made the Guiness Book of World Records for the largest number of painting participants.

Murals will always be important in Philadelphia. There may even be one depicting the Superbowl win but until then, when they need repair, it’s best to get the artist to do it so we can continue to enjoy the artwork.

A great way to end this post is with Vox’s explanation of Philly’s murals. It’s also set to a jazzy musical rendition.

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I booked an Amarone wine tasting for my husband for his birthday, The American Wine Society tasting was at one of our favorite Virginia vineyards at Pearmund. It was on Sunday before Monday’s Martin Luther King holiday. We accidentally booked the hotel reservation at Airlie for Saturday night. We showed up at the winery wondering where everyone was. Oops! Fortunately for us Airlie was right down the road and it was their winter rates. We booked another night and were able to fully enjoy a long weekend getaway, when it was 2 degrees below freezing. Here are some pics from the weekend.

We only ate breakfast in the main dining room. It was a glorious setting with morning light streaming in and Louis Prima and Frank Sinatra seranading us. The majority of this space was reserved other times for two wedding parties while we were there.

Instead, we headed down the side steps to Harry’s, where we ate at least four delectibal meals. I’m still craving the juicy seared pork chop with sweet potato puree and delicious brussell sprouts. I wish I had taken a picture.

Harry’s is names after Harry Connelly Groome, the original owner of Airlie.

Just outside the bar doors is a lovely pond and fountain. Most of it was frozen except at the center. We saw geese crossing over to where they could swim.

There are many things to do at Airlie, including a lot of weddings. There were two different wedding parties while we were there.

You can enjoy a firepit with friends, play archery (in warmer months), walk the many paths, take bikes to other cottages to workout or play pool. We rode bikes to these and their organic farm. It was frigid and I couldn’t feel my face much less my fringers in the 2-degree below cold. I wouldn’t advice riding in this extreme cold but it was a fun adventure.

And check out the interactive map.

You can reserve an organic dinner with friends in the garden and under the stars. How romantic and memorable it would be! The uncanny thing is this is the very dinner I’ve been wanting to do through Vermilion, one of our favorite restaurants. Airlie is one of the farms that provides their produce and where you can book a farm to table dining experience.

We had so much fun relaxing at Airlie that we were starting to feel transported with the sensation of being back at Sewanee, sitting on the porch, watching the shadows shift as time just drifted by. I caught up on some journal writing.

However, I neglected to take pictures of the wine tasting but you can read more about our previous experiences at Pearmund. Tomassi is a brand that usually never disappoints and we were happy to have it at the tasting. What a Airlie way to experience winter and a wonderful birthday celebration.

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It’s freezing cold outside! If you are on the East Coast, you know, with double-digit negative numbers that we’ve experienced!!

Fortunately, in the DC area, we’re not digging out of snow, although, I wish we were!

Instead, I’ll post the first frozen image of our fountain. This was from a month ago when it was only 32 degrees. I thought the swirling formations were really unusual and I wasn’t sure what would have caused them particularly since the fountain wasn’t running.

Look closely, is it just organic swirls, or God’s way of saying, “Hey, humans, you can’t control this weather. My finger is on the trigger!” Do you see a thumb and possible hand? Hmmm…Was this a warning of the arctic freeze to come…?

Fall and winter are some of my favorite months but I have adverse physical reactions to both. Raynauds kicks in when just walking by the frozen food section in the grocery store, so you can imagine what happens when it is negative 10 degrees and feels like negative 20 outside. In fact, I’m postponing an onsite project until it warms a bit because I may not be able to feel the brushes.

Managing the cold could be fun as long as I could stay internally warm.

If I were living in a very cold place, like Iceland, I’d want to enjoy it here, in a Bubble Igloo Hut. It gets a 5-star rating, btw.

I’ll have to finally write about my 2017 Scandinavian heritage trip this year because I’ve already been to Gullfoss waterfall and the Blue Lagoon. The views were exceptional.

When I return, I think I’ll take this Golden Circle Tour and test the Bubble for viewing the Northern Lights. It’s on my bucket list, which I’m thinking more about accomplishing lately.

It’s either the Bubble Igloo or other top places to stay and watch the Northern Lights.

Like in Finland, where the glass igloo Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort is located, described on Thrillist.

Either way, I’ll be happy and no longer feeling the arctic freeze.

In the meantime, if you are traveling outside, please take care to prevent freezing.

This Podcast from Outside Magazine is “chilling” and will make you remember how easily it can happen. (Scroll to the bottom to listen to Episode 1, #55 on the list)

Also, don’t run in the cold either. Just watch the movie Wind River, and you’ll see what can happen in severe cold. Stay warm. Stay safe.

Click here to see previous wintery posts with visual inspiration.

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Disclaimer:  There are actually no pictures of the interior of the West Wing of the White House that were taken during the tour in this post. They are not allowed.

Our Christmas Eve tour started out at what I always affectionately call “DC’s Haunted House” but is actually the Eisenhower Executive Office Building,* also known as the “Old” Executive Office Building or EEOB or EOB for short. There are “newer” townhouses that are also a part of the EOB that were built across the street. There was a two-tier, tight security process to enter the well-guarded grounds, as only someone who works in The White House can register visitors for this type of tour.

*(Click the link above to scroll to see interesting facts about this building at the bottom.)

Obama’s White House tour site has great archived photos all around, so check back here for a thorough visual synopsis of this post and then some.

Our friend is one of the Chiefs of Staff for one of the commissions that advises the President. This was a great present and opportunity for us to see where she works and where the President, Vice President and other high-ranking government officials work in the West Wing of the White House, along with offices in the EOB. We were happy that our son and his wife decided to join us.

The following pictures have their descriptions below each photo.

Since we couldn’t take any pictures inside the West Wing, it is worth describing that everyone in our group noticed how small the halls and how low the ceilings were. My guess is that they are barely seven feet tall, only because I could almost touch them with my hand. I’m short too but they were definitely shorter than eight feet tall, the ceiling height in my house. I wonder if the President and the First Lady have to bend down when they enter?!

The halls were decorated as if you were in a traditional home or hotel with antique furniture and collector’s paintings — in a more “comfortable but stately” way than you see depicted in almost every film about The White House.

Regrettably, I coudn’t find a really relatable “Hollywood” image to visually describe this disparity, except this one from the West Wing TV show. However, I did find this one to show the actual low ceilings.

Atlas Obscura’s blog has fun facts about how Hollywood “glamorizes” the White House.

The White House “Mess” is more like a small fancy, four-star restaurant. Most all White House staff and members eat here. It is surprisingly “cozy” and stately with its Navy tribute theme. You can take another “virtual” tour of inside the White House via the link above.

The Oval Office was, however, characteristically “huge” with the tallest ceilings and the most light. It was unexpectedly understated but beautifully designed with President Reagan’s rug while President Trump’s is being made. Each President designs their individual rug. I like the stylish peach and gold colors and the fact that Trump has pictures of his parents on his desk. Otherwise, this and all the rooms were reflective of the People’s offices.

This image of the current Oval Office gives you a good broad visual of the room.

The last time we did a similar tour was in 2005, when another friend was working in The White House under President George W. Bush. It was after 9-11 and security was understandably tight but we were still able to take this picture outside of the West Wing along the corridor made famous by other Presidents as they are shown walking during reflective moments during perhaps tumultuous times of their leadership.

This image of Reagan walking the same West Wing corridor in the same direction is from The White House Museum, where you can see other Presidents walking the same path.

We were able to take a family picture outside of the White House as you exit, under the Presidential Seal.

From here, we walked to the Press Office. Even though it has been renovated (in 2014) since we were last there, its exceptionally small footprint has not changed.

We walked back to the EOB to collect any bags we had. When inside, I should mention, don’t forget to look up at the beautiful stain glass ceilings. They bring in light and ornate decoration.

After a great tour and cold day with family and friends, we each went home to enjoy our Christmas Eve separately. Ours was at Grace Church.

Click here, if you’d like to review another day at the White House — part one tour.

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