Rain and Color

I had ceramics class on Saturday (it's usually on Thursday night but with Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving we lost two class days so we have to come in on Saturday). It was raining on and off most of the day. The school I'm attending started out as an agricultural community college and it retains some of that feel still - lots of trees and green areas. They still have a farm and animals (but I hear rumors that they're going to drop the Animal Science programs).

Anyway, as I said, it was raining on Saturday. One of the things I really like about the rain is what it does to trees. It makes their bark very dark and in contrast makes leaves and grass look brighter. I walked around the grounds near the classroom taking photos for a little while. Yes, I'm easily distracted, but hey, I'd been working on my clay creations pretty much non-stop for 5 hours by the time I took my photo break.
 

I wanted to shoot the clouds, but the coolest looking ones were in the direction of the sun and I wouldn't have been able to capture the subtleties of color that I was seeing.  There was also the widest, brightest rainbow I've ever seen that day! It only went up from the ground for a short way (wasn't a complete rainbow arch) but it was amazingly bright for just a couple of minutes (of course, NOT the minutes I had a camera in my hand). I did get a couple of shots, but it was fading by then.I love seeing rainbow and snow on the mountaintops.

Taking pictures on a rainy day can be quite beautiful. I took some when I was down in San Diego this past February (see dates Feb 1 and 14). The lights and buildings were reflecting off the streets. I thought it was cool anyway. So don't let the rain keep you from taking pictures. Get a raincoat for your camera and you're good to go!

My Fish is Done!

A little history of how it came to be:

 It started out life as a pinch pot (two pinch pots, actually, seamed together to get the body shape. Then I added the fins (top, back, sides, bottom) and the base. This is covered in colored slip (colored liquid clay) and has not been through its first firing (bisque fire) yet. The clay is B mix with sand.

Now it has been through the first firing. I added the anemone fingers before it was fired. The fingers and base are now coated in wax so they will not take the glaze I'm going to put only on the fish.  I want the fish to be shiny, but not the base. The wax will burn away in the next firing.

This piece actually cracked in the first firing where the fish joins the base because I didn't join them properly. However, since it broke where it did, the glaze will fuse it together again.

And here is the finished piece. The fish is all shiny and the base and fingers are the rough, unglazed clay. I like the texture contrast and the glaze makes the fish look wet. It is about 7 inches from nose to tail and just over 6 inches tall.

First Pot

This is my first completely finished pot from my current ceramics class. It's a pinch pot. It's ugly! This was just a practice pot to get used to manipulating the clay and to practice techniques. It was also a test pot to try out slips and glazes.

I've been enjoying this class. I'm much better at making 3 dimensional things than I am drawing to this comes easier to me than my illustration class.

My clown fish is glazed and should be baking in the kiln as I write this.I had taken photos yesterday of it with the unfired glaze and wax resist covering it, but somehow all those photos have just vanished. No class this coming week as Thursday is Veteran's Day and therefor a school holiday.

I have my final project in progress. We had to go to LACMA and see ceramics exhibition to get an inspiration piece then build our piece using at least 3 of the techniques we've learned this semester - pinch pot, slab, coiling, slump molds. We have to add a foot and a handle and use the decorating techniques we've learned. I'm also working on a dragon coming out of an egg - that was the coiling assignment. Plus I have a bunch of cups to make.

Lot's of work to do this month!!!

Right Where I Need To Be

I went to a meditation workshop at BodyMind Alliance tonight. I had forgotten that I received an email a couple of weeks ago about this workshop and had responded that I would like to attend. Yesterday I got a reminder about the workshop.

I'm so glad I went. I got some good ideas for processing feelings and integrating them rather than trying to get rid of the negative ones. I got inspired, relaxed. It was definitely where I needed to be tonight.

Denise Reimer is a healer and (IMO) a wise woman. As the owner of BodyMind Alliance, she is concerned with treating the whole body, not just the manifestation of an illness. Check her out on http://www.bodymindalliance.com.

Fish 2

Next phase of my fish (see September 24 for first picture). Now it has anemone fingers. When it's fired the gray looking stripes will turn white. Right now it's painted in colored slip. Next it gets a bisque firing. Then it gets glazed and fired again. The plan is to glaze only the fish and leave the base and fingers as unglazed clay.

I made a textured cup that didn't really come out so well and I'm in the process of making a baby dragon coming out of an egg. I'm a lot better at making things than I am at drawing them.

Little Angel

I was at the cemetery in Carpenteria yesterday and this was a grave marker. No name, no plaque, nothing other than this little angel. It's very small, only about a foot high.

Art UnBlock #2

This is the next picture done in my New Game In Town series (until I come up with a better name I guess. See July 2, 2010 for the first one).

At those times where I want to shoot something, but I have no idea in mind I turn to my bag of word tiles. There are 3 bags - Place (or Verb), Story Title (could be a book, play, movie, song, etc.) and Noun. I pick one from each bag and shoot an image based on those three tiles. The ones I picked last night were Beach, "The Shining" and Jewelry. I knew I would be very near a beach today (for reasons other than taking photos or actually going to the beach) so I knew I could set this shot up fairly easily.

Deciding where was the tricky part. I wanted it close enough to the water line that I was going to get a wave in the shot. When I got to the beach I also decided I wanted seaweed in the image. I found a likely clump in just about the right place. The waves washed it partly away twice before I got the shot I wanted (and I left some of the jewelry I wanted to use in my car), but I got a shot I liked and one that fit the criteria of the game. I had my sister standing watch for me in case a larger rogue wave was coming in - I didn't want to get wet, have EVERYTHING washed away, or get my camera wet.

This is a good thing to remember if you are shooting at the beach (very close to or in the water), near a road with traffic on it, near a cliff edge or anywhere where you might get hurt if you're paying more attention to your viewfinder than your surroundings. I almost got washed off a rock outcrop at the beach once a long time ago, but that scare was enough to make me always remember to bring a spotter along with me if I'm going to be shooting somewhere where I have to pay close attention to what is going on around me.
If you decide to play your own version of the game I would love to see the images you come up with and the criteria associated with them. Send me a link.

A Fountain And A Very Full Day

I went to a Dreamweaver seminar in Culver City today. It was on the University Of Phoenix campus. This fountain was in the courtyard. Very pretty!

It was a very long day! It took me over an hour to drive 26 miles this morning. The seminar was great! Very informative. Very inspiring. I learned a lot of things about Dreamweaver that I didn't know it could do. I also learned something about Adobe Fireworks, which I knew nothing about before today. It has some very useful stuff in it. I learned how to do things in Photoshop I didn't know how to do and how to use some features I've seen before but didn't know how to use them. Now I REALLY have to build my own website again. I've had two in the past but nothing in the last few years. There are so many new things I can try.

After the seminar I had to drive back to work (again, it took me over an hour to drive only 26 miles) to attend a CPR/First Aid class for 4 hours.  I needed to update my CPR training certification. It was a good refresher, but I'm REALLY tired now.

Bark or...

I love this. It reminds me of wind blowing ripples across the ocean or a bird's eye view of sand dunes, or an extra terrestrial landscape. The leaves kind of give it away, but still...

It's almost like looking for shapes in the clouds.

BTW - I saw another dragon in the clouds on my way to school tonight. The clouds were really beautiful.

Faux Magazine Cover

I shot this as a drawing reference for an assignment in my Illustration class. It was for a magazine cover. I love having a digital camera. I can see immediately if I have the look I want. This was a very quick, down and dirty shoot for such a nice outcome. I threw a velvet cape over my desk chair, put a clipboard on the seat so the glass and the candle didn't tip over then shot the image.

This one was difficult to get in focus because I was shooting in very low light and not on a tripod. I finally ended up standing it up on the coffee table to make sure it was steady. I didn't want to use the blade in it but I couldn't find a wand and I needed that straight, strong line to balance the curves of the glass and the crystal.

I think I took about 5 shots at different levels. There was one other angle I liked as much as this one - the camera was a little bit lower. I like the way it turned out.

Childlike Delights

Strawberries and marshmallows arranged below a chocolate fountain. How could anyone resist this childlike delight? Playing with your food. Drenching the large, luscious strawberry or soft sweet marshmallow under a flowing fountain of chocolate. I'll bet most of the people partaking of this sweet feat have visions of just sticking their tongue in that chocolate waterfall and drinking it in. Don't tell me you don't think about it and secretly wish you could!

Ice Fish

This was another one of those images that came out better than I expected. I was more or less just documenting a party when I shot this one. The reflected colors that showed up are really beautiful. I saw a program on How's It Made on how they make the very clear ice for ice sculptures.

Ice sculptures are an interesting art form. Necessarily, they are temporary at best. Some day I would love to go to one of those ice festivals in the North East or to one of the snow hotels that are erected in the Wintertime.

It's About Where You Look

I don't have to go very far to find beautiful and/or interesting things to shoot. I have to shoot used cars for my job and while walking over to do that this week I stopped to shoot the lilies in the landscaping in front of a building on my way. I like photographing the flowers, plants and trees around where I work. Different time of the day or the year yield different results, even if it's the same object.

Of course, in that same planter with the lily is a plant called Society Garlic. You've probably seen them - long thin leaves, long thin green stems with purple flowers. They're used quite a lot in landscaping, but for the life of me, I can't understand why. They smell awful!!! I had one in my garden a few years ago, thinking I was growing garlic. When I discover that all I was growing was a stinky plant (it does not produce garlic cloves) I got rid of it.

Someone in my office told me about the Spider Pavilion next to the Natural History Museum. I'm going to have to go over there and take photos! That could be some really good shots.

Fish

This is my first project in my ceramics class. It's a clown fish. It's not fired yet and it's only covered in colored slip. The stripes that look gray will be white when it's fired and the body will be orange. I still have to add some anemone arms.

I have no idea where my mind goes while I'm working on this. I'm sure I'm thinking about something, but I have no idea what. I got home from class about an hour ago and I'm really tired. Focusing your attention on something for 3.5 hours straight can be draining when you finally lift your head up from your project and stop working.

Unfortunately, it might not survive. Because the fins are so thin they will dry out before the rest of the piece and that may cause them to crack. To prevent this I should have applied wax to the fins, but I forgot. I have to turn it in on Saturday for a grade. If it cracks I'll get an F, but I have the whole semester to remake it and get a better grade. If I can make it once, I can make it again.

No Particular Reason

Sometimes there is no particular reason for the images I choose to shoot other than at the time it seemed like a good idea. That's the beauty of shooting digital - it's very "green". I can take any shot I want and if I don't like it I can just delete it. I'm not spending money on film or prints (or polluting the environment with the chemicals it takes to process film and prints.

BTW - the photo is not double exposed (although it looks like it). There is a window between me and that other table and the "ghost images" are the reflections in the glass.

Anticipation

I think this photo could be used for a Rorschach test. Is this just a collection of empty chairs or is it a scene of anticipation? Is this a room emptied of life or will these chairs soon be full of people eger to be inspired, enlightened, entertained, educated?

How we interpret visual cues makes all the difference in how we live our lives. There were many artists sitting/standing in this room, standing in the balconies above it, walking through it at various times throughout the day. How many of them noticed the play of light on the chairs and floor? How many of them saw an artistic beauty in this arrangement? Surely I couldn't have been the only one. I think I'll post this photo on DeviantArt (deviantart.com) and see how many of the people who attended the party took a photo similar to this one or thought of chairs as art.

When we are children we play the game of finding "things" in the clouds. I saw a dragon just the other day on my way into the office. I had to bring a co-worker outside to see it (he's Chinese and born in the year of the Dragon). I though it might be auspicious (lucky) for him. He wasn't as impressed with the cloud dragon as I was. Maybe it was auspicious for me since I'm the one who saw it first.

How many things do you see every day and don't even think about them? How much more would you see if you looked for something artistic or interesting in your everyday surroundings? Wouldn't it make your life a little more interesting?

DeviantArt 10th Birthday Bash

Ana (my niece) and I went to the DeviantArt 10th Birthday Bash at the house of Blues last Saturday. Ana has well over 100 images (mostly drawings) on DeviantArt. I only have about 10 photos up. For anyone who doesn't know, DA is a social network for artists of just about every medium. Saturday they said they had about 15 million (that's MILLION) artists all over the world. When we got there we signed in with our screen names. Two of Ana's pictures showed up on the monitors on the 3rd floor while we were up there. That was cool!

They had monitors all over the place and showed random artwork of members on the screens all during the party. It was amazing to see all those people in one place who had this social networking place in common. It was very inspiring and humbling. I got some great ideas about pictures I want to do as a result of being at the party. I even wrote them down so I wouldn't forget.

They also had the new Bamboo drawing tablets available for people to try. These new tablets are also touch pads. They even gave a few of them away. It was a really fun day. I'm glad we had the experience.
www.deviantart.com

A Spider In My Garden

I discovered a spider web in my tomato cage yesterday morning on my way out to work. It was so delicate and so perfectly woven. I had to spray it with a mist in order to shoot it. I think I confused the spider who made it. It wasn't in the web when I sprayed, but it ran into the center of the web - probably looking for food - when the weight of the water drops moved the web. I could imagine it muttering to itself about 'the one that got away" when it didn't find any food.

The web is still there today, although not as tidy and new looking so I hope it has been successful in it's hunting. I just hope whatever is flying around pollinates the flowers on my tomato plants first before it gets caught in the web. 

I need to get a macro lens!

Pre Salsa

 

Can't wait for my tomatoes to grow up so I can make salsa. I stopped buying tomatoes in the store years ago. I just wasn't worth spending money on something so tasteless. I haven't grown them for a couple of years now, but I bought a couple of heirloom tomatoes over at Green Arrow a few weeks ago - one is Amish Paste, a plum tomato, and the other is Brandywine Red Potato Leaf, a rounder tomato. The Amish Paste has smaller leaves and has grown about 2 1/2 times larger than the Brandywine. Right now it's full of flowers that will soon turn to tomatoes. The Brandywine has much larger leaves (like a potato plant - hence the name I guess) and currently has only one flower on it.  

I haven't grown either of these varieties before. I usually grow the Early Girl. Thought I'd try something different this year. If I like them I'll save the seeds and grow them next year. Someone taught me about saving tomato seeds (or anything with very small seeds) - you just spread the seeds from the whole tomato out on a paper towel and let them dry really well. Later, when you want to plant, just tear off a piece of the paper towel, lay it in a small pot with soil and cover lightly with more soil. All (or most) of the seeds will sprout and when they get big enough you can thin them out and transplant them into another pot or into the garden.

New Game In Town

I was having trouble with coming up ideas for photos and artwork in general. My niece told me that she had a teacher who had a box of craft sticks on her desk that had sentences written on them The teacher would  have the kids draw a stick each then use the sentence on the stick as the beginning of a story.

From that idea I came up with another idea of my own to push creative ideas. I bought some small wooden disks at the craft store. I wrote nouns on 10 of them, places on 10, and titles of books, movies, songs on 10 more (both sides for a total of 20 for each category). When I get stuck for an idea I pull one disk from each pile and create something out of the words I pull. This one was I Robot, red & box.

More Reflections

I like this photo - looks a bit like an abstract painting. I wonder if building designers take into account what is going to be reflected in the building they build while they're designing it. Any commercial architects out there who can answer that?

Patience

When I was in New York I went to a butterfly exhibit at the Natural History Museum (I could spend a week in THAT place). It was really breathtaking having all those butterflies bobbing around the place. There was such a variety from very small ones to one very large one.
These kids were at the last "green space" near the exit. They stood there so patiently with their hands out trying to get a butterfly to land on them. I stood there watching them for quite a while. I was amazed they tried for so long. Finally the grown-up they were with decided it was time to go so they headed for the door to leave the exhibit. They were standing by the door waiting for the docent to open the door so they could go out when a butterfly finally landed on one of the kid's shoulders. They were so excited!

LA Reflections

I like shooting water and reflections. There are a lot of fountains and pools in the city of LA. Some of them even have interesting stuff in or around them reflecting off the surface.

New York Wrap Up

This is Joey, Lisa and Jim. Joey and Jim graciously let Lisa and I stay in their home while we were in New York. It's a beautiful brownstone in SoHo - so close to everything!  Joey got us tickets for the playhouse next door to them, he loaned us his membership cards for the museums so we could get in free. Thanks so much guys for making me feel welcome!

 Rainy Day in New York

Madison Avenue and 42nd Street.

Lafayette and Spring. New York was even pretty in the rain.

Grand Central Terminal

It's a REALLY big place! Very open, very pretty. A reminder of an older time of elegant traveling. I still like our Union Station in Los Angeles better, though, in terms of architecture and decor.

They don't have a Food Court, they have a "Dining Concourse". Good food too. I had a pulled pork BBQ sandwich.

The sign at the bottom of the stairs in the photo says "Sitting on stairways strictly prohibited". I have learned that signs in New York are more suggestion than rules, whether it's this one about sitting, the walk/don't walk signs at the street corners and no honking/noise signs.

New York is a great city. I saw just about everything I wanted to see in Manhattan. Next trip I will get to Central Park. I had the most fun wandering around taking photos of the streets and buildings. Even the few times that it rained didn't spoil the adventure. I hope you enjoyed my photos and my comments.

New York - Day 8 - Sunday

It started pouring rain in the wee hours of the morning today. All in all my weather luck has been pretty good. The two times I got caught in the rain earlier this week were later in the day when I was pretty much on my way home anyway.

Didn't do much today. Had brunch with Halcyon at this hole-in-the-wall place in SoHo that you get to by going down this little alley. GREAT food! Then I went to Grand Central Terminal ("Terminal" not "Station"). Beautiful place and really big!

The rain was only very light while I was out and about today then it started pouring about 1/2 and hour after I got back to the house tonight and it's still going on. There's a skylight here in the bedroom so I can listen to the rain patter all night.

A friend of ours from High School came down from D.C. today with her husband and we all hung out and chatted about various things (mostly about theater). It was nice to see her again.

It's been a really interesting trip but I'm REALLY ready to come home now. The car is picking us up at 7:30 am tomorrow to take us to the airport. I'm all packed and It's 11:23 now so I really need to go to bed!

New York - Day 7 - Saturday

I got to see my first Broadway play today!!!! After standing in line for about an hour at the TKTS office in Times Square I got a ticket to see Chicago. I have seen the move, but not the live musical so I was really happy they had tickets. I've already seen about 1/2 of the big musicals that are still playing here when they came to L.A. - Phantom, Lion King, Wicked, Mama Mia (but would gladly have seen any one of them again if I hadn't be able to get something I hadn't seen yet).

The theaters here ( or at least the Ambassador Theatre) are much smaller than the LA theaters. Probably because they're much OLDER than the LA theaters. That's nice though because even though I was in the 2nd to the last row I could still see all the performers faces without binoculars (can't say that about the Ahmanson!)

Times Square on a weekend - not a place to be if you don't like crowds.

There's a large, stepped seating area above the TKTS booth in Times Square. I don't remember that being there last time we were here (about 6 years ago). I also don't remember a couple of blocks of Broadway between 45th(?) and 47th streets being blocked off to auto traffic. But then, sometimes I don't even remember what I had for breakfast so I'm not too sure about my memory. AND a lot can change in 6 years. I was tempted to go to Madame Tussaud's but we have one in Hollywood now and I have to pick and choose what I can and want to do here because I just can't do it all.

I used to watch TV on New Year's eve and think it would be so much fun to be there in Times Square. I don't think that anymore, unless I could be at a small, private party on a really high floor in one of the buildings there. I certainly wouldn't want to be in the crushing sea of people on the street

So, one more day left here in the Big Apple. The only places I haven't been to but would like to see are Central Park and Grand Central Terminal. Hopefully I'll get there tomorrow, but if not, I'll have something for my next visit. And next time I want to go to Niagra Falls. Just wasn't in the cards for this trip.

New York - Day 6 - Friday

Battery Park and Ellis Island today. Last time my sister, niece and I were here we went to Liberty Island and walked around the statue so I didn't really feel any need to do that again. But I did decided to go over to Ellis Island.

The original wooden building burned to the ground in 1897 and the brick building that stands today was opened in 1900. This is the front entrance and the registry room. The have photos of the room when it was full of rails that looked like cattle chutes and (later on) rows and rows of benches where the people would sit waiting to be called. Ellis Island officially closed in 1954. Limited access to the island was allowed from '76 to'84 when preservation and reconstruction work began. It reopened as a museum in 1990.

This building is part of the hospital and contagious disease wards. I didn't get to go over there as I went late in the day any only had a short time to look around. This island was abandoned for many years and falling into decay. There are photo in the museum of those times. I would have liked to have been on the island taking photos then when it was quite and uncrowded - listening for the voices of the people that had passed through there. I would very much like to go back again and explore more.

I love to see things that once belonged to people long ago. This was a wedding dress from Italy from 1914. The other photo is a spinning wheel from Norway dated 1894. My friend, Jill is a spinner and I thought she's like to see this wheel. I would love to have a spinning wheel like that!

My ancestors on my mother's side of the family were originally from Scotland, then they went to Belfast and from there to the U.S. so they must have come through Ellis Island. I will have to look that up when I get home. The one name that I know didn't come up on the search kisok they have on the island and I was more interested in looking at the place than researching my family history on the computer.

This is certainly a place I will come back to next time I get to come to New York! If you are going, I suggest you buy your tickets the day before as the lines in the morning are REALLY long. Wait until late morning or early afternoon to go get your tickets for the next day.

Since I'm always walking around with a camera hung on my shoulder people will usually ask me to take their pictures for them. One such person in Battery Park yesterday was a man from Egypt. When he found out I was from California he said "oh, so you come here all the time". I thought that was funny. Distance is relative.

I have a friend who lives out here in NYC and I finally caught up with him today. He stayed at my sister's house for a few months many years ago when he was having "family issues". I vacationed at his place for a week when he moved up to the Bay Area, but we lost touch when he moved to New York.  He took me out to dinner and to a couple of his favorite haunts on the Lower East Side and we caught up on how our lives are going and just generally had a really nice time.

New York - Day 5

Now I can finally catch up! The internet on this computer is very iffy - some days it works fine, other days it takes 5 minutes just to load a page!
So, we're up to Thursday now.
Thursday I went up to Midtown Manhattan and to MOMA - Museum of Modern Art. There is a Tim Burton show there (which is the reason Lisa wanted to do this trip in the first place). I recently found that that I went to BHS (Burbank High School) with Tim Burton. Lisa showed me his picture in our yearbook. He was in her class, a year behind me. Who knew!

The exhibit was great. He is a prolific illustrator/doodler! I had no idea that 1) he worked at Disney and 2) he was involved in a lot of films I've seen but didn't know he was involved in them - Big Fish (LOVED that movie), Batman, Beetlejuice and a bunch of others.  They had some of the stop-motion figures from Nightmare Before Christmas (Oggie Boogie, Santa, Jack Skellington - will all 20 or so of his heads, Zero and the toys he left for the kids on Christmas eve). They had a lifesize figure of Edward Scissorhands (which I believe I saw when I got to tour Stan Winston's studio a few years ago). It was a really great exhibit and I'm glad I got to see it. Wasn't allowed to take any photos though.

STRANGE ART STUFF

This is Marina Abramovic (the figure in red). Among other things she is a performance artist and this is a art performance in progress. People came in and sat down in the chair across the table from her and they just started at each other. And it was being filmed. Talk about watching paint dry! Apparently she's a very famous artist or they wouldn't let her be doing this in the museum.

There was also an exhibit of the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson that was just breathtaking! Most of his photographs were published in the 50's and 60's and he was in all the magazines back then - Life, The New Yorker, etc. His prints are so technically beautiful - wonderful tones and contrasts! It was very exciting to see his actual work as I remember studying him when I was working on my Art Degree at CSUN. Sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time to get treats like that.

After I gorged myself on museum exhibits I went over to Rockefeller Center. As I passed NBC studios, what should I see parked right outside the door but President Obama's limo. Apparently he had addressed Wall Street that morning (I hope he told them to get their shit together or no more bailout money!). I didn't stick around to see if he was going to come out any time soon. That's the 2nd time I've gone some place and the POTUS shows up. I went to a conference at the convention center in LA a couple of years ago and Pres. Bush (GW) showed up and gave a speech. That was interesting. I had wondered why they made us go through metal detectors just to attend a conference.

Went back to the museum and looked around a bit more. Then it started raining so I headed for home. The two time's it's rained while I've been out & about here it's been in the 70s and hasn't rained hard so as long as I could protect my camera in my bag I wasn't bothered by it.

Fortunately I wasn't all that far from the subway.

New York - Day 4

They have some really random signs here. These struck me as funny or just interesting.

Who gets to decided if its unnecessary or not? They also have signs that say things like "don't honk except for danger" or "Fine for Honking $240" but very few people seem to pay any attention to them.

Where DO some people come up with the names for their businesses???

I would think that if they're targeting an audience that doesn't speak English that the sign would be in ANY language other than English. Is that just me???

I thought this was cool. It says "Brush up business with paint, paste, paper, push and there's a hand with a paint brush on the other side of the windows. I think they're trying to entice a business (or businesses) to renovate and occupy the building.

Random things that tickled me:

This little filly was tied up outside a children's clothing store.

I don't think we have a Balloon Saloon in LA. To the left side were giant animals. All the bright colors caught my eye.

This is the Jefferson Market Courthouse in Greenwich Village. It was built in 1876 as a "women's court until 1932". What, women's issues were too trivial to try in men's court? It is now a public library. BEAUTIFUL building!

9/11 MEMORIALS At St. Paul's Chapel

Firefighters, police, first responders from ALL OVER THE WORLD are still leaving their patches at the memorial for those who lost their lives on 9/11. The priests wear vestments with these patches on them when they preach their sermons as an homage. The text in the top left corner of this display reads:

"I remember looking at their faces when they walked in the church...their faces were so blank, almost like a deadened look on their faces. But after a while, they talk, and eat, and sit, and you'd see them leave smiling." Tara Bane, Victim's Wife and Volunteer

I think this memorial (all of the displays in total and the reason for them) offers testament to the absolute worst and best humans can be.

The red cranes you can see in the background on the left are the ones building the memorial at Ground Zero. The bell in the center is rung every September 11th and whenever there is a major terrorist attack, such as the subway bombings in London in solidarity for the victims as well as the people who help rescue/comfort them.

Work continues at Ground Zero on the memorial. There will be two giant pools with waterfalls in the footprints of the twin towers. They are not going to put buildings there.

This tree was so bright and vibrant in all the green grass and red brick of the church. I thought it was so pretty!

I have walked more in the last three days than I think I have in the last 3 years! Hopefully I'll come home from this 10 lbs. lighter, LOL! I made it all the way down to battery park today then it started to rain so I got on the subway and headed back home. Contrary to popular belief, I will not melt if I get wet, (nor will I spontaneously regenerate) but rain is very bad for cameras. Fortunately I could stow it in the bag I was carrying and it didn't start raining in ernest until I got off the subway only a short block from where I'm staying.