Academic Excursion, Part 2

The second leg of our trip took us to the Huntington. I could not take photos of the Ellesmere Chaucer or the Gutenberg Bible, naturally, but I did take some of various art pieces that caught my eye.

So delicate and detailed.

A detail from a tile piece about Cinderella. Quite unusual, rustic, and utterly enchanting.

Detail from stained glass piece.

A crazy European family played in the sprinklers, fully clothed, from children to mother (pictured here) to grandmother. It was hot, in all fairness. They made a fun spectacle.

Stone gazebo (or whatever it's called) and roses

Nice ass!

Nice, uh, triton!

From the Japanese garden

Walkway detail from the new Chinese garden. Love the intricate stone work.

Bridge from the Chinese garden. Overexposed, but it seemed unthinkable to exclude it.

Design from Chinese garden.

Design from Chinese garden.

The giant greenhouse, with surprisingly visible mountains behind. (It was a quite a clear day.)

Lovely.

Lovely.

More news

I just learned that Pauline Baynes, illustrious illustrator of Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia and the Middle Earth wall map, among many other things, died this week. How sad. The official obituary her friend published is very thorough and quite moving, but I found his blog tribute more powerful because of the images of her artwork that he included. I cannot tell you, in looking at the tribute, how many of her images are fused into my brain from childhood exposure! Is it weird, then, that one of her images is what I was considering for my tattoo (or at least as a starting point for it)?

[I initially learned this at my friend's blog, The Painful Nowning Process. Thanks, Elizabeth, for posting about it. I hadn't known.]

Pottering About

POM's latest projects -- for a primitive pottery class. These are not fired yet; she's burnishing them. ShopDog takes advantage of the cool garage floor on an 80-plus degree day.

Diversity Week

Don't our students kick ass?! We're celebrating our annual Diversity Week (*not its real name), and we always start the week with a daylong diversity-themed chalk art festival. I never fail to be impressed. Here's a sampling.









We really do enjoy a broader sense of diversity than most campuses can conceive of. We truly are a majority of none. We are so fortunate.

Icon

I made this at a retreat, after an iconographer spoke with us about the work of icons. A good spiritual exercise, and a good reminder of a number of things, not the least of which was a wonderful retreat that introduced us to a new community of women. I am thankful.