89. Rose Art Museum

Week 89  3/15/17

On yet another very cold week, we decided to stay inside and drove to the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis, which has been on our list for a while. It's fairly small, and shows mostly modern and contemporary art from the 1960's and 1970's. One part of the museum lets the public witness how exhibits are prepared.

This work is by Fred Eversley

A permanent exhibit has been set up with furnishings from the mid 20th century. Visitors are invited to play records, sit and read etc. We played a Dave Brubeck record and looked at magazines for a while.

Here are two items in the glass case that we don't have in our attic - an Oscar and an Emmy. We could't read the inscription.

88. Library Crawl - new and old

Week 88  3/9/17

On this cold day we decided on an indoor adventure. Neither of us had been inside the new Millis Public Library so we headed there first. We ran into several people we knew, looked at the beautiful and functional space which is well-organized and light. They have many community programs and meetings.

In the meeting room was an art exhibit. The drawings of these anthropoids are all life-size.

Next stop was an old library, the Bacon Free Library in South Natick. This small library is in it's original building and is very cozy and welcoming. I'd been there before and had conversations with the staff.

The Natick Historical Society museum downstairs was closed but I knocked on the door and we were let in. We had a nice chat with one of the curators.

Here Paul looks at a baseball from a factory in town which no longer exists.

We saw display cases focused on Horatio Alger who was born in this town, as well as Henry Wilson who was a Vice President of the United States. There were cases for some of the newer luminaries of Natick as well.

The library director here is great. She set up many book clubs, exhibits and events including an annual original art auction. The cupcakes are from an earlier visit when she hosted a reception for children's book illustrators.

87. Our Great Gatsby

Week 87  3/3/17

We always look forward to our annual weekend in Chatham with our Riverside Fishing and Poker Club friends at Our Great Gatsby, a 10-bedroom house that we have shared for a March weekend for about 12 years. We get a good rate in March.

On the way, Paul and I took a detour to the bay side of Cape Cod at Brewster, where we followed "Point of Rocks Road" and discovered a tiny beach with three parking spaces. Paul is pointing to a rock with a point on top.

Paul has a couple of new pictures of the gathering which I'll put here when he gives them to me. 

86. Moose Hill

Week 86  2/23/17

On this sunny day we didn't expect the snow to last, but at Moose Hill in Sharon, which includes Audubon and Trustees of Reservations trails and facilities, the snow hung on, especially in the woods. We'd been here before in the summer on the Trustees property so we walked on Audubon trails today. It was school vacation week, and many families and children day-campers were also enjoying the place. Both visits we greatly enjoyed the temporary art exhibits in the Audubon building. This time the theme was "skies."

Evidence of maple sugaring (not a good year in 2017, alas), and yarn-bombing of a tree stump.

Paul saw a few cork trees, which seemed unusual. 

85. Politics and Art

Week 85  2/15/17

We visited the Davis Museum for the first exhibit in the US dedicated solely to Carlo Dolci. This exhibit included loans from across the globe including the Louvre, the Met and even two from our familiar Ringling Museum in Sarasota which we visit annually. The Madona shown below is very familiar to us.

Elsewhere in the museum there was lots of action! In response to Trump's immigration policies, the director, Lisa Fischman, (shown below at rear) and her staff were in the process of removing or draping works that were created by or donated by immigrants.

We loved this exhibit of African art and were able to see most of it before the drapes were pulled down. 

In the evening we attended a lecture/panel/talk/conversation between Mark Lilla of Columbia and Tom Cushman of Wellesley. Tom is a frequent golf partner of Paul and one of the few conservative faculty at Wellesley. In this Freedom Project he attempts to offer speakers with many political points of view. A recent piece piece by Mark Lilla, "The End of Identity Liberalism" in the November 18 New York Times has been controversial, and the discussion was lively. We heard that several of the posters were defaced.