Dinner Outside

The Hammer Museum Biennial

Kenzi Shiokava's sculptures are part of the Hammer Museum Biennial.   He is a retired gardener (one with a Master's of Fine Arts degree) who uses found objects and plant materials in his art work.

This is a "Curiosity Box" with materials chosen by shape and color (from thrift shops or the streets)

and this: a collage of dried flowers.

His totems are made from discarded telephone poles, 

twigs, branches and tree trunks,

dried leaves,

and wire and feathers.

July in my Neighborhood

Some July blooming plants in my neighborhood are: Nerium oleander,

Cape Honeysuckle (Tecomaria capensis,)

Gazania,

and Bougainvillea 

in various

colors.

Hippeastrum

Hippeastrum or Amaryllis grow in pots in my garden.

Usually they bloom in late spring

or

early

summer.

Green Fruit

I am looking longingly at the unripe fruit on my trees: fig,

pomegranate,

orange,

avocado,

persimmon,

and olive because before they are ripe, the squirrels will have eaten almost all of them.

Neighborhood Blooming Plants

July in my neighborhood does not have the abundance of flowers of April, it is a little too warm and too dry.  But these plants are blooming: Senna,

Pelargonium peltatum,

Dietes bicolor,

Leptospermum scoparium,

New Guinea Impatiens (Impatiens hawken),

and Lobelia erinus.

Agapanthus

Agapanthus africanus blooms in my garden in June and July.

It is native to South Africa where it grows along streams and the edges of lakes. 

It is sometimes called African Lily

or

Lily of the Nile.

Columns, Windows and Other Objects at the Metropolitan Museums of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is a very crowded place on a Saturday in the summer. When visiting at that time my strategy is to go off to the peripheral galleries.  This one is the American Wing with a statue of Diana from 1893 by Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

The American Wing has stained glass windows by Frank Lloyd Wright

and

Louis Comfort Tiffany.

This is a Tiffany designed and decorated column.

Looking out to the ground floor from the mezzanine.

Close to the American Wing is the Egyptian Temple of Dendur from 15 BC.

Nearby are columns whose capitals are in the form of lotus blossoms.