Saturday, May 29, 2010

New Hampshire and Boston

Grove Street, Peterborough, New Hampshire. In 1938 Thornton Wilder wrote the play “Our Town” based on this town and others nearby. Good food and drink at Harlow’s Pub!


Twelve Pine Cafe, Peterborough. I was drawn to this scene by the collection of pitchers above the window. The view out the window is just behind the pub in the last drawing.


This is the side garden with wisteria vines and a small portion of the wonderful rock garden at the Fells Historic Estate in Newbury, New Hampshire. This was the summer home of John Hay, private secretary to Abraham Lincoln, Ambassador to Great Britain, and Secretary of State to Presidents McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.


Another nearby garden, this one is behind the Tracy Memorial Library here in New London. This is my third attempt to draw the beautiful but complex fountain by Dimitri Gerakaris. The lilacs are still in bloom.


The green at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. It was finals week, and multitudes of students were studying, chatting, and sunning themselves.


A bronze statue of John Harvard, founder of Harvard College, located in Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Students touch his toe for good luck, so it is all shiny and polished. The original home of John Harvard is still standing in Stratford Upon Avon, England.


The home of famed silversmith and patriot Paul Revere in Boston, Massachusetts. A rare North American example of an urban wooden structure, built 1680. It was restored in 1906.

This part of Boston is called the North End, and it is now the Italian section, full of wonderful restaurants and pastry shops. The street is cobble-stoned.



Old gravestones at Copps Hill Burying Ground, North End, Boston. There is fashion in everything, including mortuary art. The oldest slate stones have skulls and crossbones, then comes the skulls with wings. Then after 1800, the urn and willow, and the obelisque in white marble were popular. The slate have weathered far better than the marble. My paternal grandfather, Aimé Lapierre, was a stonecutter born in Quebec Province. I come by my love of stones and design through him.


A grouping of fiddleheads, the immature tops of edible ferns. They are ready for cooking for supper. A little garlic and butter in the pan will be all they need. I read that most of them come from Nova Scotia. Our wooded yard here is full of ferns, but they are the inedible variety. I found that out the hard way.


I just wanted to end this post on a very colorful note, so I drew my radishes. These radishes and the fiddleheads are both on sushi plates (slumped glass) I made in a class I took at the Columbia Art Center, Columbia, Maryland.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Edmonton, Baltimore, and New London



Three versions of springtime!



It’s not a visit to Canada without a trip to Tim Hortons, a chain coffee and donut shop and restaurant. Here I am about to have a maple pecan braid.
It’s not a visit to Canada without maple!


We try to go to the Muttart Conservatory in Edmonton at least once a year. The building has three pyramids: one tropical, one temperate, and one desert zone. And one more of seasonally changing exhibits. We brought our 2 granddaughters this time. We lingered and they drew pictures of the plants.


Here is a drawing made at the Muttart by granddaughter Noelle, age 6. Her mama was happy to see that they share an interest in Mexican type pottery.



Another way to get a rush on spring in Canada is to visit garden centers. Here is our 2 year old grandson having fun in a fountain. He got very wet, and of course, didn’t want to go home.


We took all 3 grandchildren to the Alberta Gallery of Art one Sunday. Here they are enjoying themselves in a room full of soft but sturdy building blocks.


Waverly Farmers’ Market, Baltimore, Maryland. We bought lunch, and fixings for supper. I am drawn to colorful row houses. They are probably 120 years old, and made of porous brick that was meant to be covered with a protective layer of paint.


Broadway, Fell’s Point, Baltimore. One of the oldest parts of the city, once an area of shipbuilding. There are still boats and water activities there, as well as bars, shops, and restaurants.


Rawlings Conservatory and Botanic Gardens, Baltimore, 1881. Such a graceful,delicate looking building. It is near the zoo, and sits on a curve of the street. It always takes me by surprise, like a woman in a ball gown.


Four doorways in a row, on East Baltimore Street, Baltimore. The building material is rough cut limestone and marble steps. All the houses near Patterson Park are elegant.


Lilac is the state flower of New Hampshire. And it is lilac season. This scene is the garden behind the Tracy Memorial Library here in New London. The perennials are just popping up. The yellow building is wood frame with a painted wooden siding, recently replaced. Townsfolk devoted a Saturday morning to painting the 10,500 feet of siding before it was installed, saving the town over $7000.


Zoë, Karin and Dan’s cat.