Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Weird And Wonderful

This week, Ann-Christine is looking at the Weird and Wonderful as a theme for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. I guess I’ve seen some weird and wonderful things in my time and the following artwork could possibly qualify for Cee’s Photographing Public Art Challenge too. The first place that springs to mind is the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. The exterior and interior are decorated with crop art murals made from corn husks and other natural materials.

Closer to home, in Chicago’s Millennium Park, Anish Kapoor’s sculpture, officially titled Cloud Gate but more affectionately known as The Bean, could definitely be classified as weird and wonderful.

But the prize for the most weird and wonderful, from my perspective, has to go to House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin. This place is truly awesome, with it’s fantastic and bizarre collections carefully displayed for maximum effect. Here is just a sample of what you might see there, from the Infinity Room to dolls on carousels.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Street Art In Duluth

This week, Patti is looking at Street Art as the topic for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. I hope I will be forgiven for including a few pictures that do not pertain to street art but I thought it might be interesting to show why the art that I’ve chosen is so apt for the city of Duluth and Canal Park in particular. They also serve a further purpose as I’m linking them to two other photo challenges; Photographing Public Art and Pull Up a Seat.

According to Wikipedia, the Port of Duluth is the world’s farthest inland port accessible to oceangoing ships. As we walked up the street that leads to the massive aerial lift bridge (more on that in a future post) three paintings that were attached to a wall on one of the buildings caught my eye. Unfortunately, I cannot find the artist’s name but until that moment I hadn’t fully appreciated the part that shipping plays in this city. I quickly realized, however, that one of the main tourist attractions in Duluth is to check out the shipping schedule and Take a Seat in Canal Park in order to watch these vessels arrive and depart.   

The second piece of artwork (top left) from just outside Canal Park is a sculpture entitled ‘Determined Mariner’ by artist Richard Salews.

Photographing Public Art – In Skokie

Cee is hosting the Photographing Public Art Challenge this week and featuring some interesting art finds in Oregon. I didn’t go quite so far afield for these shots, just a 30-minute drive up the road to the Northshore Sculpture Park in Skokie.

The Gandhi Memorial Sculpture is actually located in Heritage Park which adjoins the Northshore Sculpture Park. I thought I’d photographed the name of the artist but apparently not. I tried Google to see if I could find it but none of the articles that I read mentioned his or her name.

Inside Plant by Andy Zimmermann

Trinity by Fisher Stolz

Trunnion ll by Dale Graham

Baile de Alacran by Ted Garner

The parkway, that runs parallel with the north branch of the Chicago River and McCormick Boulevard, makes a pleasant walk and the sculptures give it an added interest. It’s been a few years since we were over this way so there were one or two new pieces to see, along with some familiar ones.

Reverie by Sheila Oettinger

Lazarus and the Rich Man by Aaron Lee Benson

International Leader by John Himmelfarb

Shadow by Lucy Slivinski

Clio by Sharon Loper

Fairy Circle by Mark Chatterley

La Souterraine by Robert Smart

Shown here are just a few of the sculptures on view to the public in the Skokie Northshore Sculpture Park here in Illinois.

Photographing Public Art – In Rockford

This week, Cee is featuring metal art as she hosts the Photographing Public Art Challenge. I found some interesting pieces of artwork, some of which were made of metal, at Sinnissippi Gardens in Rockford the other day. I don’t know if the last image qualifies as artwork but I like to think of it as such, with the artist using flowers as their medium.

Photographing Public Art Challenge – In Colorado

This is my first entry for Marsha & Cee’s Photographing Public Art Challenge. Buried deep in my ‘places’ photo files, I came across these two images that I captured some years ago at the Grand Junction Visitors Center in Colorado. I don’t think I’ve ever had the opportunity to show them before so, thank you, Marsha, for this challenge. Unfortunately I didn’t make a note of the artist’s name. We only made brief stops in Colorado as we were on our way home but I thought these two pieces merited a few shots.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Large to Small in Chicago

This week, Patti is challenging us to pick a color and go from large to small for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. I decided on blue for the color and took Chicago as the setting. Plenty of blue in the big city beginning with blue skies reflected in the waters of Lake Michigan.

Overlooking the lake, on Michigan Avenue, the Roosevelt University building really stands out in the crowd.

Next up, the Evening Star, built in 2001, part of the Shoreline Sightseeing fleet, offers Architecture and Classic Lake Tours on the Chicago River and Lake Michigan.

If you have ever visited the Art Institute in Chicago, you will probably have seen Marc Chagall’s ‘American Windows’ which debuted there in 1977 and were made famous 10 years later by an appearance in the film ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.’

The skies may not have been blue the last time I went to the Air & Water Show downtown but there were a few blue umbrellas to keep the rain off.

It’s always nice to see a swath of blue in the Lurie Garden at Millennium Park. I’ve really missed my trips downtown this past year but I’m hoping to make the trip again soon, once I figure out how the trains are running now that things are slowly returning to pre-COVID conditions.

No piece about The Windy City would be complete without mention of the Chicago Cubs and cubbie blue. Even long- time rivals, the Milwaukee Brewers, were decked out in blue.

I’m now down to the smallest blue items for this topic which are paperweights at the Chicago Art Institute, some of the 1,400 paperweights in the Arthur Rubloff Collection.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Capital

This week, guest host Viveka has given us the topic Capital for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge.  We have visited a few State Capitals on our travels around the US so here is my take on the subject.  Living in Illinois as we do, Springfield would be the obvious place to start.

Madison, is about the halfway point between our house and where our daughter and her family live in Wisconsin, so we sometimes meet there to visit places like Olbrich Botanic Gardens and the Capital Building.

We have family living in Indiana so a trip to Indianapolis is usually one of our destinations. Just my luck, one of the sharpest pictures I ever took was one of the steam plant, which is the only reason I include it here. Also pictured, The Soldiers and Sailors Monument, White River Gardens and a fountain at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

A recent visit to St. Paul, Minnesota resulted in some pictures of the Capital Building, the Cathedral of St. Paul, and the Conservatory at Como Park Zoo.

Our youngest daughter and her husband lived in Salt Lake City, Utah for a brief period so we spent a week there taking in the sights which included the Capital Building, Temple Square and the College of Pharmacy.

Our visit to Cheyenne, Wyoming was only a short one as we were on our way to Utah, but we stopped long enough to visit the Capital Building.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Seeing Red In Chicago

This week, Patti has asked us to Find Something Red for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. I can’t wait for the weather to warm up so I can take a leisurely stroll around downtown Chicago with the camera.

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Creepy

This week, Ann-Christine has chosen Creepy as the subject for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge.  I’ve always had a fascination for visiting old houses, especially unoccupied houses that have a history. We have been to quite a few and there were some where I could definitely feel a presence as though past residents were watching us wander through the rooms, which at times can be rather creepy. One such house was the Lincoln Tallman House in Jaynesville, Wisconsin. We were the only visitors there at the time and although we were accompanied by a tour guide, I definitely got the feeling that someone else was there with us.

Stairways in particular have a strange feeling about them like this one at the Taylor House in Freeport, Illinois.

The chapel at the Cuneo Mansion in Vernon Hills seemed like a place that might get a visit from a spirit or two.

Ghosts don’t wait until night time to make themselves felt, and Glensheen Mansion in Duluth, with its macabre history, was definitely a place where you might expect to feel the chilly presence of a restless spirit.

Another house that had rather a creepy feel to it was the Dole Mansion in Crystal Lake. It must have been a beautiful place when it was first build but when we visited it a few years ago it was badly in need of renovation and many rooms were inaccessible for safety reasons.

The Biltmore Mansion was too full of tourists to get any kind of feel for the place but I imagine at night you might come across one or two spirits wandering the hallways.

As you have probably guessed, I am still unable to get about owing to being on crutches, especially now that we have several inches of snow on the ground, so I had ample time to add a few ghosts to the images.

Art Lines

Here are a few lines at the Milwaukee Art Museum for Becky’s Square Lines Challenge.