More Norton Simon

Whoever designed the garden is a painter, also.  Purple trees against pure green trees, large leaves against small leaves, a lily pad pond (Monet lives) and constrasting and complementary colors.  It was awe inspring and a wonderful place despite hearing the freeway close by. 

Natural lady with nude and bamboo.  A male friend, who has never said anything complimentary to me in his life, (a sure sign of friendship) asked what happened to my "beautiful, long red hair."   Time, honey.  Time.  That and living on a boat..........
Nearby is the Huntington Gardens/Library where other incredible paintings are displayed and the garden is huge.  I am more attracted to the scale of the NS as the layout is a painting with surprises around each curve.

Most young girls have a fascination with ballet - well, perhaps young girls from another age as Justin Beiber has taken over the young female consciousness.  I drew and sketched famous ballerinas  as an early teen and when cleaning out stuff for a move, found  drawings of Maria Tallchief and other famous ladies in my hopeless chest.  Degas had more than a fascination, and with the  amount of small statuary and paintings in the collection, it is safe to say he  was obsessed with them.  Or Norton Simon's curator was - as they dominate the Impressionists room.  We spent more time circlelling and staring at these until we looked like potential burglars.

Cultsha.....

This is a new model for Henry Moore.  Years ago I went on one of Robert's business trips with him to Toronto.  Froze, but found a museum that was packed with Henry Moore sculpture - so much so that it was hard to move between them.  It was more of a store house than a museum, on  a second floor which had to have been reinforced to take the heavy weight.  At the Norton Simon, the sculptures are all over in a garden and inside the building, in such a way that they appear to have always been there.  The paintings were astonishing for a collection that had been built over 30 years - dating from the 1300s to the 1990s:  names and images that are famous and fantastic.  We were in awe - and were able to get our noses right close  to the work.  Photos were allowed, also - without flash - we loved the place.  We had been to an exhibit of Diebenkorn at the Orange Country Museum and the guards kept telling us to keep three feet away from the work.  Back away from the work, lady! Of course some of the precious stuff had barriers but we were able to breathe in the colors and sense of the work.  Awe doesn't cover our feelings - it was almost religious in there.
As an aside, the brochure said the museum was remodelled in the 1990s by Frank Gehry.....couldn't tell at all.  He must, with his giant ego, have sublimated something to make the whole place magic and serene.  And then we had to hit the traffic on the freeway to come home but were high on the experience until Lincoln Blvd.

Monet's work is so famed for the water lilies that this garden was another fascination spot in the museum.  People would get so close and then just stand there.  I did, too...this isn't one that is seen very often and is joyous in color, but painted in a time when he had all sorts of life changing events that were not positive.  I tried to talk to Robert about why shadows are blue, why concrete is pink and got nowhere.  He looked at a painting by Ingres, and said "this is real art."  Humph. 

2

My new bff. People were enthralled with this guy - called simply, A Peasant. Me, too.  The color is so vivid that it glows in a room with limited light.  Not one that is found very often in books about the artist.
I have been in the major museums in Washington DC, but was not as excited and thrilled as I was yesterday at the Norton Simon.  The Art Institute in Chicago is another emotional art experience with all their Monet's....but the entire setting of the NS, with the beautiful garden and exhibit galleries is pretty hard to beat. I may just like this area, after all.

Swimmng lessons......

Murray wears a harness now during the daytime as he had an adventure that caused great stress on both himself and me.  He slid, with his klutzy self backwards off the dock.  Earlier in the day the boat had been rocked furiously by a wake and I went out to investigate.  A seadoo, naturally.  I had some words with the young man and he apologized, and then proceeded to tow another man who was in the water back to the ramp.   We had errands to run and on the way out, Murray went butt end, right in the water.  "There was no way I could get him out and it appeared he didn't know how to swim as he flapped his paws a lot.  He would disappear around the boat and I raced back aboard trying to find rope or something I could tie to him to effect a rescue.  The men I yelled at were across the channel and came over to help.  Murray swam to one, put his paws on either side of the man's shoulder while the man held onto the dock.  The other leaped off the seadoo, which went its merry way up the channel, and tried to pull Murry out with me helping.  We couldn't do it as it was 80 pounds straight up.  My heart was pounding and the poor dog was frozen in postion.  I finally got his harness on him and we were able to pull him out, whereby Koa gave him a ration of crap for causing trouble.
Then the seach for the seadoo becan, with one guy asking what the wind was and the other swimming off into the channel.  Seadoo found, they headed out on what they called their maden voyage, not having any idea of how relieved and happy Murray and I were.  Koa was still pretty disgusted with him.  What was amazing was the instant trust Murry had for the stranger who nestled him close and how he didn't move, even when I wrestled the harness on him.  It is a picture that will stay wil me for a long time, and a reminder of goofy as dogs are, we are really their minders.

End ties are pretty special and expensive (but not for us) here in the marina - and supposed to be easy to get in and out of when leaving the dock.  We have current (at tide times) and always a westerly wind behind us, and now we have a power boat immediately in front of us.  And Murray, checking out the scene.  This is his harbor, his boat, his dock but damned if he wants to claim the water.

Where the big bears roamed.......



White lilacs are supposed to be pretty rare, and I was excited to see a bush at Neal and Stu's house in Big Bear.  We were up there to housesit and watch Norman, a German Shepherd with a goofy sense of humor.  Not only were there white lilacs all over, but there were all types and all types of purple.   It was magic, seeing all the lilacs and wondering how they had adapted at that altitude.  The magic did not last. We had gone back to spring in travelling up to about 7000'.  Getting away from the boat was a good idea, but then we started sneezing, noses dripping and eyes itching to the point of catatonic behavior.  Spring had sprung its dirty trick on us in big ways.  Here we were with all sorts of wonderful things to do and we were crippled by an unseen terror: pollen.  We were ticked.  But there was tv to watch - we only get five regular channels on the boat and 65 Asian channels.

A lot of development has occurred since the lake was created but we were able to find this vacant lot across the street to let all the dogs sniff and run and do their thing.  This side of the lake has every type of house possible, with an enphasis on mountain syle, but there are still little cabins hugging rocks that you need to take a boat to or hike in.  The road up makes the road to Lake Edison look puny, with horrendous drop offs and I kept looking at the map to see if there was another way down, as all I could envision was something out of a horror movie with the car blasting loose, no brakes and loud screams on the return.

Looking toward the dam.  We rented a runabout and the engine had fits but in our short exploring we found a more deserted area of the lake across the way.  We took our bikes over and huffed and puffed alongside the lake, with stops to breathe through the pollen.  An old hotel across the lake was built in the 20's and we wondered at how the early visitors were able to get their cars up what had to have been the road from hell.  We left early with poor old Norman in the car with our dogs and met Neale and Stu at thier plane at LAX, just so we could breathe ocean air.  No.  It was just so we could breathe.  Anytime pollen overcomes meds, there is trouble - and we found it at Big Bear.