110/365: Nice surprises!

May 1st

Today was a good day! It is Beltaine for one... we went to see Snowhite and the Seven Dwarves by the Tallahassee Ballet. Mika was mesmerized and couldn't stop commenting on what was going after she got used to the setting.

Jack was one of maybe ten boys in the theater that seats close to 400 but my philosophy is "A bit of culture won't kill him"; and to his credit he did sit through it without complaining.

Afterwards, David took us to a place he swore I would absolutely love and he was right. It is on Railroad Avenue in Tallahassee, it is an art park but also a place where the city gave space to FSU Art Department Students/ graduates to open shops.

It has such a lovely communal feel, we scrounged through a vintage store and I found a couple of really cool broaches. It is a also a place where the original Cosmic Cat is and since today was a National Free Comic Day we grabbed some free comics too. There's also a rock gym, a co-op, a bike shop and those are just the ones we had time to visit. We will definitely be back. The peace art is from there.



Later this evening we also found out that Macak, our cat that wondered off about a year ago is back.

The second lovely surprise came when David entered the shed only to have a bird fly out and just barely miss his forehead.

On the shelf where I keep all of my gardening stuff and empty planters a mama bird decided to make a nest in one of the empty planters, as you can see she is keeping busy. I'm not sure how she managed to survive the cats so far and I worry how to protect the little birdies from them....

108/365: Tlingit

April 29th

Remember that American Indian Art show I mentioned earlier?

It is a very good exhibition, interesting because they focused on the tribes NOT typical for this area. The mask in the photo is a Tlingit Shaman's Mask from 1920's.

The jewelry and ivory figurines were most impressive but without flash it's hard to get a good photo.

The Mary Brogan Museum

77/365

Today was Springtime Tallahassee's big event, all of downtown was turned int a pedestrian zone for the parade, concerts, kids activities and the artist avenue in Bloxham Park on Park Avenue.

The artists are regulars every Saturday as part of Market Days, and one of the regulars are the gals from Campfire Creations (also known as my mother-in-law & sister-in-law :)

They make glass bead jewelry with all the beads being done by hand using a torch and burned in a kiln afterwards. My favorite part of their work are the pendants that they call "Serendipitous Art" because you don't know what kind of shapes the glass will create until you pull it out of the kiln.

In the picture you see Dana (sister-in-law) doing a demonstration with the torch on how they create the beads. The crowd was unbelievable, I couldn't really get good shots because of the amount of people; the picture in the right corner of Sherrie (mother-in-law) was the best one I got under the circumstances.

You can read more at campfirecreations.org

74/365

Today was apparently "Chalk Walk".

The students occupied a very small area, maybe 20 "chalk paintings" in all, but each was individual and interesting.

It doesn't look like they have a website, it's a pretty small event happening as a part of The Heritage Week in Florida.

I really hope it continues and grows.