It’s amazing how much variation there is, isn’t it? Today it was in the low 70’s…and I hope it stays like this!

On Saturday we visited the exhibit at the Arvada Center, Harencia Milenaria:  Contemporary Ceramics from Tonalá, Jalisco, México.   There were also two very dynamic collections of paintings.

The work in this photo is called “Didáctica” by Barro Bruñido.

I was reminded looking at these burnished pots of the developmental sequence and how the potter forms the clay…which pot are you?

This was outside the art museum in Portland, OR. We were reminded of the laundry we sometimes saw strung outside of city high rises in France…or kites flying in the breeze…what do you see?

I’m not the only one at my house that likes to watch the goldfinches. Good thing there is a door between.

This was in a series of these large sculptures low to the ground…here are the others…

…no idea what inspired them, but they are cool, aren’t they?

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This is a Google Map of the home of Jacques Lacan, the famous French psychoanalyst. We stumbled upon this address when we were in Paris back in 2002 and were dumbfounded to see the plaque since husband was a big fan. He asked me this morning if we had a picture of the plaque and I thought I took a photo but despite many minutes of pawing around in boxes and photo album couldn’t put my hand on it. So, I tried Googling “Lacan plaque Paris”. The first link was on Wikimedia which showed the plaque (out of context) and the address; I then put the address into Google Maps…et voilà!! You can see where it is on the street, can zoom in to read the plaque, then continue walking down to where we stopped for coffee at a café. Hmmm, that’s the place I learned never to request a large coffee…it came in a cup the size of a mixing bowl! I’m betting the waiter is still laughing about l’americaine…

Oh, you are asking why husband was wondering if we took a photo, it was for a blog post he was writing. An hour later, here I am…but I learned something new so it was all worth it!

Breathing in, I see myself as a flower. Breathing out, I feel fresh. During the time of breathing in you have to see yourself as a flower. We human beings, we are a variety of flower in the garden of humanity. Everyone of us, whether we are a gentleman or a lady. Every one of us has our flowerness that makes us beautiful, fresh, and pleasant.
—-Thich Nhat Hanh, on facebook 15 August 2010

At daybreak, the almost black clouds rolled behind the mesa like a sail being cranked down a mast. The sun eventually peeked over the edge after highlighting wisps of cloud into intense brilliance. The darkness drooped and light was shining again. But while it was too overwhelming to gaze upon, blinding in its spectacular emergence, the real story was in the opposite direction.

When I descended to the camp, I found a row of other spectators facing not to the east and the newly dawned fireball, but gazing to the west, watching the play of light upon the mountains in the distance, the hills in-between, the rolling plains. The light brought the greens to new life, to a fresh day. The blue sky cleared of haze and foggy wisps to become its own perfection.

Lesson: The story that morning was in what the light shone upon, not in the sun itself.

These are poppies on the campus  of Stanford University but they are also powerful memory triggers.  When I walked up on this field, I gasped remembering the fields and roadsides of France wheres splotches of bright red sprang up from the most surprising places…looking at them was like looking at joy.

On Fourth Street in San Francisco…

The New Guinea Sculpture Garden at Stanford University, created by ten master carvers from the Middle Sepik River Region of Papua New Guinea in the summer of 1994.  “The project is not an attempt to recreate a traditional New Guinea environment but, according to Mason [the project director], ‘an opportunity to experiment with and reinterpret New Guinea aesthetic perspectives within the new context of a Western public art space.’ ” Read more here.

An enthusiastic resident of Palo Alto…

Isn’t it cute? (And it was quite tasty too!)