Steph's Adventures in Oz: In the Garden

So it's been a busy couple of weeks, full of loooong car drives on the weekends. Lots of quality time with the podcasts. (What did I do before "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" and "Radiolab"?! Nothing good, I tell you!)

In any case, I had some quality time with old friends and family in Cincinnati and Peoria and so this weekend was all about my couch.

First I had to find it of course, (three weekends away and your tidy house becomes a wreck! I blame der elves in der night)and Saturday was cleaning day, which thankfully didn't last too long so I had date night which included the bargain bin at Hollywood video and nachos from Taco Bell and for under $25, I was set for a long long time of couch love.

This morning though I had had just about enough of the couch, so I hopped in the car and went to Garfield Park Conservatory, which is having a special exhibition of sculptures of Niki de Saint Phalle . Truly outstanding mosaic sculptures distributed throughout the conservatory (which is beautiful in it's own right). Oh Bother, I should just show you I guess.

You step into the Palm House and are greeted with this lovely lady:

Through to the fern room (breathtaking in its own right- designed by Jens Jensen, very famous landscape architect in these parts) to the central pond and these three ladies appear (you can see the reflection of the third toward the top):

And two trumpet players, who we all know I have quite the weakness for:

And now we have made it outside to the city garden, with its wide open spaces and on a bright sunshiny day like today, I had to play with the glittering mosaic.

You can see me in these two, you know.

And I just kept thinking that this was a great way to look at lines and shapes and textures and light, and before you know it, I'm applying everything you are supposed to think about in art, but doing it all at once- and totally second hand. Like I had just taken the integral of it or something. Can you go from 3D to 2D with a twist and get 4D?