October 2015 (Art, Out-of-Towners, OHNY, and KC/Omaha)

I know it's been a month since I posted anything, but it has been the most gorgeous fall here. I couldn't bring myself to stay inside and write when I could be outside. So here's a synopsis of what I've been up to since I last wrote...

I promised I was going to visit the Neue Gallerie to see Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer (no photos allowed, and the Cooper Hewitt to see the Thomas Heatherwick exhibit. I have to say - I'm not really a big fan of Austrian and German art (Klimt excepted), but I really enjoyed the Cooper Hewitt. The house is gorgeous, the permanent collection is unusual, and Thomas Heatherwick is a visionary. Here's a model of Pier 55, the Diller-Von Furstenburg project coming to Chelsea in the next few years.

Every fall, there's an event called Art in Odd Places that takes over 14th Street in NYC. Ed and I took a wander to look for some of it, and I loved John Craig Freeman's installation. You had to look through your cell phone camera to find it.

Another artist (can't remember her name) posted poetic descriptions of surrounding billboards. 

My good friend, Annette, from Dallas came to visit, and introduced me to my favorite new NYC thing to do: SoFAR Sounds. (Songs From A Room). You put your name on a list (or buy a $15 ticket to guarantee yourself a spot) and get to see three up-and-coming artists perform. We knew in advance we'd be going to the Lower East Side, but didn't know the location until 3 days before and didn't know the artists until we arrived. It's BYOB, and you sit on the floor, but the music was great, and it was over by 10:30. So fun!! This is a photo of Marlon Williams, a New Zealand balladeer who was amazing. We also saw Briana Marela and Motopony.

On Friday morning, we headed to the 9/11 museum. This is one of those things that was incredible and moving and that I will never do again. They really need to have Kleenex boxes available.

The rest of her visit included watching the Royals win and the Rangers lose, 

...checking out the Archibald Motley exhibit at the Whitney with Ed's uncle and aunt and his aunt's cousin, 

...having lunch with two other college friends, 

...plus lots of eating, drinking and girl talk. Heaven!

That weekend was Open House New York, one of my favorite weekends of the whole year. OHNY arranges to have over 200 sites across the country open to the public. You can see Eero Saarinen's TWA terminal at JFK, go up in domes and bell towers, see inside of offices, churches, college campuses...And it's all free (or $5 for advanced reservation sites/tours). This year, I was a district coordinator, so I spent all of Saturday and Sunday in the north and east Bronx. My sites included the Bartow Pell Mansion, the Museum of Bronx History, Lehman College (which has amazing public art, including this sculpture of an Olmec king's head)

And gorgeous collegiate gothic buildings

The Poe Cottage

The New York Botanical Garden (these are photos from their Frida Kahlo exhibit)

And Woodlawn Cemetery, which opens a number of its mausolea for the public to wander through.

Even if you can't get into them, you can see some really amazing monuments.

The weekend after OHNY, Edward came for his second NYC visit. We'd done the normal tourist things the last time he was here, so this time we did some new ones. Discovery Center had an exhibit of costumes and props from the Hunger Games films...

The New York Historical Society is showing Superheroes in Gotham, complete with a Batmobile.

We also visited the Frick Collection and the Intrepid. And of course we had to order his special pizza (crust and bacon - no sauce, no cheese). The first time he came, I placed the online order (Domino's - there was NO WAY I was going to call a NY pizza parlor and order that!) and within 30 seconds, the phone rang. A great Brooklyn accent said, "So lady...That bacon pizza...How you want me to make that happen??" We watched the Royals and the Flash and talked and talked and talked. Yet again, he ran me ragged. :) 

Last weekend, my very dear friend got married in Omaha. So I figured, as long as I'm going to the Midwest, I may as well visit Kansas City! So I got to catch up with some friends and check out some art while I was at it. The Nelson-Atkins had a Day of the Dead installation:

And a really great Thomas Hart Benton in Hollywood exhibition (no photos allowed). I've always loved him, probably because he was a Missouri boy. I had lunch with a girlfriend at Cafe Sebastienne at the Kemper and loved the colors in this Helen Frankenthaler.

Friday, it was off to Omaha for a mini college reunion and the wedding of the century.

The bride was gorgeous, the groom was beaming, and if you wait long enough, you might just get to see video of the wedding party + me doing the Thriller dance. There was lots of dancing and drinking and fun, fun, fun!! (But not a lot of photo-taking by me, apparently. I'm going to have to raid everyone else's photo albums.)

Oh and WAY TO GO, ROYALS!!!!! :)