Art on Sunday #32
Bull Elk Sculpture, “Black Timber Bugler” created by Tim Shinabarger, National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson, Wyoming (photo: July 17, 2010, Pentax K10D)
“Black Timber Bugler”
Bronze Edition of 7
10′ H x 10’6″ W x 7’6″ D
$125,000
(Tim Shinaberger)
American lady butterfly and black-eyed Susan blossoms, June 18, 2013, West Central Arkansas (Pentax K-r)
We usually have plenty of flowers that attract butterflies and moths, especially the black-eyed Susans and purple coneflowers and see a lot of the American lady butterflies.
American lady (Wikipedia)
The American painted lady or American lady (Vanessa virginiensis) is a butterfly found throughout North America.
Vanessa virginiensis lives in flowery habitats, usually in mountains. The larvae feed on various Asteraceae, especially the cudweeds of genus Gnaphalium. All stages of the life cycle can be found throughout temperate North America as well as Madeira and the Canary Islands. Occasionally individuals can be found as far as southwest Europe.
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Firehole Spring, Firehole Lake Drive, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, September 12, 2007 (Pentax K10D)
A very colorful pool, Yellowstone’s Firehole Spring is actually a small, perpetual spouter geyser. It is almost always churning and spouting due to superheated boiling in the plumbing of the geyser with large large steam and gas bubbles rising from the depths. It is located in the Lower Geyser Basin.
Firehole Spring is constantly bubbling. Early explorers thought the large bubbles looked like flashes of light – hence the origin of the spring’s name. The spring passed the name on to Firehole River and Firehole Lake and eventually to Fire Hole Lake Drive.
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Safari Trek Class A motorhome (circa 2004 model) on Utah highway 12 at Red Canyon Visitor Center, Dixie National Forest, October 4, 2015 (Pentax K-3 II)
This motorhome was headed in the direction of Bryce Canyon. We were too, but had stopped at the Red Canyon Visitor Center on our way through the canyon and had taken a short hike. The photo was shot from the visitor center parking lot.
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Tulips, Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, Texas, March 13, 2011 (Pentax K-r)
There are a lot of photo opportunities at arboretums and botanical gardens. In March 2011, we had gone to Dallas for their annual quilt show. While we were there, we also took in the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, where I took full advantage of the opportunities to take pictures.
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Roof of General Store, Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, October 8, 2015 (Pentax K-3 II) 37°37’55.3″N 112°09’54.6″W
Bryce Canyon General Store2
The General Store is open in April thru October. The National Park Service and Forever Resorts have gone to great lengths to maintain this and other Bryce Canyon Lodge buildings so they appear as they did when they first opened for business in 1925. Designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, these buildings are his only surviving architectural creations on the Colorado Plateau.
Notice the wavy pattern in the roof? This optical illusion is created by cutting each shingle uniquely. This was another part of Underwood’s plan to help the buildings blend in with the forest of wavy pines.
Chinking and log detail from old building, Bannack State Park (ghost town and first territorial capitol), Montana, July 30, 2010 (Pentax K10D)
Buildings made of logs are more than just the logs. The logs used in the construction primarily only touch at the ends, at the notching point, with a space between the logs over most of their length. Logs fit perfectly together along their entire length would result in excessive binding and twisting as the seasons change and the logs expand and contract. The space between the logs is called the chink. This gap, left to itself, would let in air and small pests. To seal the chink, yet allow the logs to expand, contract and breathe, a variety of materials were traditionally used such as clay, mud, sand, and other common resources, with an inner layer sealed by a mortar-based “daubing” on the outside. This material used to fill and seal the gap came to be known as the “chinking.”
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Rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa), Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, September 14, 2009 (Pentax K10D)
Rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa) is a North American shrub in the sunflower family (Aster). It grows in the arid regions of western Canada, western United States (from the western Great Plains to the Pacific) and northern Mexico. A 2′ to 8′ perennial shrub, the shrub reproduces from seeds and root sprouts. It blooms from August to October, producing pungent-smelling, golden-yellow flowers. Flower heads are made up of 5 small, yellow, tubular disk flowers, and occur in umbrella-shaped terminal clusters
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Art on Sunday #31
Excavation at Night, 1908, George Wesley Bellows, Oil on Canvas, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, August 1, 2015 (Pentax K3-II)
Museum signage:
George Bellows was attracted to gritty urban scenes. He painted several images of the construction site of Pennsylvania Station in New York. In this night scene, the cavernous excavation pit is deeper than the height of the dimly lit tenement buildings surrounding its edge. In the foreground, a small campfire sends sparks into the night air. While this project led to faster, safer travel, the construction displaced thousands of poor and working-class families.
Provenance:
Estate of the Artist, 1925; to Emma Story Bellows [1884-1959] (Artist’s wife), New York, NY, 1925; to Estate of Emma Story Bellows, 1959; (H.V. Allison & Co., New York, NY); Albert L. Sylvester [1903-1973] and Elizabeth E. Sylvester, Boston, MA, 1961; to Estate of Elizabeth E. Sylvester, by 1976. (Berry-Hill Galleries, New York, NY), by 1992; to (Sotheby’s, Inc., New York, NY), 2004; purchased by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, 2004
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2010.77 (info on this work)
Bighorn sheep rams, Garden of the Gods, September 8, 2011 (Pentax K-r)
It’s pretty rare to see even a single bighorn sheep ram, so we were excited to see three of them in one place. Although we had already been to Gardens of the Gods earlier in the day after arriving in Colorado Springs, we had to decided to go back into the park after supper. We spotted the bighorns around 7:30 PM. .
We were camped at Garden of the Gods RV Resort in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The RV “resort” is adjacent to Garden of the Gods, which has long been a Colorado Springs city park. Four-hundred eighty acres were conveyed to the city in 1909 by the children of railroad executive Charles Elliot Perkins to be operated permanently as a park, open to the public without charge.
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