Happy Holidays

I am traveling in the Pacific Northwest for the holidays and will be posting again after the New Year. I will have some wonderful Field Trips for you when I return! Enjoy your holidays.....

Winter Walk to Audubon Center, Prsopect Park

Winter Walk to Audubon Center, Prospect Park

Red Balloon/We interrupt....

Do yourself a favor, if you are in the NY vicinity, here's a Field Trip I advise you take for yourself. BAM Cinemas is currently showing a restored print of 'The Red Balloon' by Albert Lamorisse (paired with his earlier piece 'The White Mane' [1952]). It is a 'childrens' film' but really it's not, it is one of the most beautiful films ever on screen. It won the Palm d'Or in 1956, and despite having about six lines of dialogue in the whole film, incredibly, it won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar as well.

Showing daily at BAM Rose Cinemas Dec 22-Jan 1 at 1 PM.

Read the NY Times article on the reissue;
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/movies/11raff.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

BAM info; http://www.bam.org/film/firstrun.aspx?id=1058

Ok, enough talk, just go see it.

Winter Walk to Audubon Center, Prospect Park

Winter Walk to Audubon Center, Prospect Park

Winter Walk to Audubon Center, Prospect Park

This week is a winter walk to the Audubon Center in Prospect Park and it's environs. The Audubon Center was originally built as a boathouse in 1905 that fell into disrepair but was restored and reopened on April 26, 2002, the birthdate of both John James Audubon and Frederick Law Olmsted (Prospect Park was designed by Olmstead and Vaux who said -- paraphrasing here -- Central Park was a trial run for Prospect Park, for all you keeping track of the Manhattan v. Brooklyn discussion!). Its design was inspired by the lower story of Sansovino's Library of St. Mark, built in 16th-century Venice.

It is my favorite part of Prospect Park, mostly for the fact that (as most people reading this blog will know) M. and I were married here a few years ago, but also because they offer nature classes, programs for kids and launch electric boatrides through the Prospect Park lake from here during warm weather.

You can find out more about the Audubon Center here -- www.prospectparkaudubon.org.

Pratt

by Dan Fisher (American, Pratt '74).

Pratt

This is 'Welcome' by Raphael Zollinger (South African, b.?), the most overtly political of the pieces currently displayed on campus. He says he used 'archtypical images to comment on the abuse human beings visit upon one another'.

Pratt

Color figures by Sung Ha No (South Korean, b. 1976).

Pratt

You wouldn't know from my previous posts that I live in a large and bustling metropolis. In fact, I live in New York city, but I am lucky enough to live in the borough of Brooklyn, a sort of oasis just a 10 minute train ride from the madness that is Manhattan. Brooklyn is something of a personal utopia for reasons that are sure to reveal themselves through future posts.

Here is one. We have the Pratt University campus in our very own backyard. Pratt, founded 1887, is mainly known as an arts and architecture school. It also has a sculpture garden to rival some of the best across the country. Do you have a sculpture garden near you? Which would you recommend?

This sculpture is one of my favorites. It is called 'Victorian & Eucantha' (1988-1993), a large-scale head by Phillip Grausman (American, b. 1935). Actually, this is Eucantha, they used to be a pair, but Victoria has gone traveling, off to another exhibit, I suppose.