Sand Sculptures and Murals

Well the art here on Vancouver Island just keeps on comin' so I shall keep on posting.

These are professional quality sand sculptures on Qualicum Beach. It is a contest, of course. Then they spray the sculptures with water based glue so they will last for a few weeks. Very cool. They are at the beach but not on the beach so waves won't wash them away.
 Oh- and I added one beach shot because the beach is kind of amazing. Very very wide beach on an estuary so the water is very shallow. You can walk a quarter of a mile our and still be up to your ankles. And if you look in the distance you can see steep mountains on the mainland of British Columbia- with snow and glaciers showing. Very dramatic.

There are two in this photo- one in the foreground, one in the background

The theme of this one is kids playing in cardboard boxes. 

These two pictures are part of the same sculpture. The
first is three men sitting around eating chicken wings.
This section above is two chickens without wings
begging for spare change. They have sand bandaids
where their wings should be. 

And here are some murals from Chermanis, Vancouver Island, a small town that reinvented itself (after the lumber business faded in importance) as an arty community with lots of historical murals.

Welcome to Buenos Aires

Hi,

Sometimes when I travel overseas I get blocked out of my blog and this is one of those times. Nevertheless I thought a few of my tango buddies  might be interested in hearing about our tango experiences in Buenos Aires. As always with my blog you can let me know if you don't care to receive these emails.

We spent the first two nights in a tango house. This was a nice looking three story house that had been converted into a small hotel. We had access to the kitchen and the living room and also a large room with wooden dance floor room for practicing. They also hosted some tango practica or lesson daily. We stayed for two nights.We had planned to stay longer but it wasn't as interesting or pleasant as we had hoped. Still,the first day had some positive features- we were tired (our plane arrived at 5 AM) but we still wanted to dance. So instead of going to a milonga or practica the practica came to us, downstairs in the practice room. 

I managed to learn a nice little embellishment in the practica and also learned an important rule of the Buenos Aires tango scene; be careful who you ask for advice. Not everybody's dancing preferences are the same. In this case the recommendation to stay at this tango house came from a 30 something dancer and teacher in Portland and this tango house was perfect for her needs but not so perfect for us seniors. The practical was titled something like " brave women who like to lead"  and everyone there was young, female and a really good dancer. I do enjoy dancing with ladies so I had a good time at the practica and it was reassuring to see that I could hold my own with all these good dancers. But in general I prefer dancing with more age appropriate people. Still, it was good for the first night without having to go out when we were tired.

Later that evening there was also a lesson  with a well known dancer but that did not work out well for me. I was the only person that the lesson who was not fluent in Spanish. Now I happen to know this teacher because he taught in Seattle over the summer and I know he speaks English but  he chose not to translate one word, so I left. I thought that inappropriate  considering he was teaching in a house populated with international tango tourists rather than  his own studio.

I started this trip with the desire to dance with older milongeros rather than the international dance community. I am now revising that thought but more about that later as  dance more. I also wanted to dance in the afternoons rather than late at night. Thus the  next afternoon we danced at two matinee (afternoon) milongas, Nuevo Chique and Obilisco Tango. I like a traditional setup with men on one side of the room and women on the other.  These were both an older crowd of non intimidating friendly dancers. So that was a good start for our first day out. We danced, and after early dinner we went to the second older, local traditional style  milonga at Obilisco. 

There I made one of those milonga faux pas; I saw Franklin smiling in my direction  assumed it was a cabeseo so for me but actually it was for someone near me. I should have waited until he crossed the room. I usually do that but it was my own husband so I took it for granted he was coming for me. Oh well. Live and learn.  

The next day we again went to a local traditional milonga, this time in the evening- Sueno Porteno at Club Gricel. We had quite a good time at a Sueno Porteno dance on our last visit but this time not so much. Club Gricel is a lovely old room but the seating is difficult to get a cabesceo with long tables perpendicular to the floor and mixed seating.  Indeed I never got one cabesceo. The only dances I had were verbal invitations. It was also largely a local crowd of regulars.  I did not have a good time and will not go back, even on more touristy nights. I doubt they change the table arrangement and the cabesceo problem will be the same.

Our next afternoon we tried yet one more traditional milonga at El Arranque. This was also mixed seating and by this time I was getting tired of the tight rib crushing embrace of these older milongaros. Franklin says that a lot of women were heavy followers so I guess they reinforce each other. The dancing at all three of these events was ok but very simple tango, not at all challenging. The fact was that I seemed to be one of the better dancers at these milongas. While that was an unexpected and  pleasant surprise, I was now ready for more challenging dancing. So we walked over to El Beso for their Lujos Thursday night dance. 

El Beso years ago is where I learned tango with Oscar Casas. Learning tango was actually an accident for us. We never intended to learn tango or  become addicted. We came to BsAs six years ago as tourists and decided rather than touring the country as we had planned, we would rent a condo for a month and learn to dance. I do not recommend learning to dance as a beginner in BsAs but it just happened that that was what we did. So I was a little nervous about coming back to El Beso as a more experienced dancer wondering how I would stack up as a dancer. But we both had a wonderful time and I thought my dancing was just fine. Maybe even better than fine. Even with the difficult seating. It is a popular venue and as a newbie I was placed in the third row behind taller women (I knew about this in advance but hope in future visits they will recognize me I will get better seating.). It was ok before it got crowded but we left when more people arrived and I could not see to get a cabesceo. 

The highlight of the evening was my last dance. It was an older gentleman somewhere in his late 70s. His hands were cold which meant he had not danced previously that evening and I was regretting having  accepted his cabesceo. He started off with very tiny steps even though the floor was not extremely crowded and once again I was regretting my choice. I had violated one of the major BsAs milonga rules: Only accept an invitation to dance for someone you have observed dancing. Well. Without going into great detail let me say that I spent the tanda in  tango bliss. I have no idea who I was dancing with. Certainly someone with very subtle delicious moves. Yum. 

We are in a nice neighborhood not far from La Viruta (which we have not yet visited- I have to adjust my time to dance that late and am working on it day by day). There are several small milongas or practices in our neighborhood so we walked over to one later in the evening. It was a great idea- a small local practica for people in the neighborhood. There were only three of four couples dancing and we did not go in but I loved the idea of dancing with your partner in the neighborhood.. Don't you? 

I hope you enjoyed hearing about our experiences. Again let me know if you don't want to receive these emails. I assume I will sent another  when I have more to say. 

More Art in Public Places

I am very attracted to seeing art in every day life, rather than restricting it to museums or homes. You can tell a lot about the values of a place by how much public art they display and what kind. So I think I'll continue with that theme here.

We are on Vancouver Island for the rest of the summer. These first photos were taken in the small town of Duncan, which is decorated with dozens of totem poles all over the town. These are large sculptures of symbols and/or animals carved on wooden poles carved by indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest.

A double header! Both a mural and a totem pole

The main street

The old train station 

We like to hike and try to do this every day. We're in Nanaimo right now and these sculptures are in parks near the house we are renting. None of these are authorize sculptures, just things people have done or tacked onto trees.  

The guy that tacks up these owl sculptures is very prolific. I saw owls in two different parks here. 

This appears to be a professional sculpture. Sorry, I didn't read the plaque at the base. 

We are spending a week or so around the city of Nanaimo, which is a nice little city with a busy harbor. Not an industrial harbor but one used for seaplanes and ferries to outlying islands. Here are some art pieces from downtown.

There used to be a foundry located here. 

It's a city with a lot of harbor traffic to offshore islands. Of course there would be a mural of ocean critters. 

That's me at the Nanaimo harbor sitting on a giant dungeness crab

Tribal art. First Nation (Native Americans to us) fishing in a canoe. 

Love- always a nice notion. We have a Love sculpture in downtown Scottsdale. 

There is a festival going on this weekend. The World Championship Bathtub races where people race in motorized bathtubs. Tonight was the start of the festival with a rock concert (6 hours), food kiosks, and lots of people watching. These gals, a huge picture frame with the festival in the background- my contribution to the art of Nanaimo.

The Tacoma Bridge of Glass

We just visited Mt Rainier National Park but I am not going to write about it other than to call it- in my opinion- the most boring national park in America. It takes at least six hour to drive through the park with an occasional glimpse of some tall mountains with some snow and glaciers but mostly all you see are big trees. Big deal. Even the visitors centers were boring. 

However, I am a fan of art in public places so on our way back to Seattle we stopped in Tacoma, Washington to see the Chihuly Bridge of Glass, a pedestrian overpass in downtown Tacoma, Chihuly's hometown. Dale Chihuly is a famous glass artist. You may have seen some of his pieces in the lobby of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas or lots of other places including several special exhibitions at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix over the past few years. 

The city built a 500 foot long pedestrian bridge which is sort of a free museum. It connecting their art museum to downtown Tacoma. This post consists of photos of his work on the bridge and in the courthouse. 

There are three art installations on the pedestrian bridge, including a ceiling made of 2,364 glass objects suspended in midair a few feet above our heads. It is like a coral reef of beautiful and colorful glass:

An evening view

Close up of some of the panels: 

S

Another section of the bridge features an 80 foot wall displaying 109 glass sculptures:

Here are some close up photos:

At the end of the bridge is the old train station which is now a courthouse.  The elegant lobby has more Chihuly glass piece.  

I hope you enjoyed looking at them. I certainly did. 

Independence Day, 2016

We have been in Seattle for a few days and for Independence Day we decided to take an side excursion to see Mt. Rainier, the tallest mountain in the continental United States. En route we spent the night in the small town of Enumclaw, the last town before entering the park.

The residents here are really, really into Independence Day. Or maybe they are really, really into fireworks. On the way into town we passed at least 5 tents along the road selling them. And where we were staying it seemed like there was a house on every block setting off fireworks- beautiful ones. There were both ground displays, and aerial displays. These were private parties at houses- for family and friends- maybe a dozen people watching at most.  I have no idea what fireworks cost but an hours worth of fireworks sounds expensive to me. And I didn't realize it was so easy to do; I thought it required special equipment to launch them into the air. But judging by the number of people doing it in Enumclaw, it must be relatively easy to do. 

One house near our hotel set off fireworks from six until 10- nice ones. They were the first to start so we walked over to watch. Since it wasn’t dark yet they started small, with ones that made noise then switched to ones I had never seen before- large balloons with candles inside. 

I was not expecting this so I didn’t have a camera with me, just a cell phone. These don’t take very good fireworks photos. Sorry for the blurry images.

We saw about 10 fireworks shows simultaneously within less than a mile. We were literally surrounded by aerial firework. Five fireworks displays were very close-- one was even in our hotel parking lot. 

Our hotel parking lot

As you can see there are only half a dozen people around. No crowds.

  Our hotel was right next door to the county fairgrounds. We sat on some large rocks on the edge of the fairgrounds and by turning around we could watch five different fireworks displays at the same time.

 There were two different groups setting off fireworks next door at the fairground. The most interesting thing about the evening was there didn't seem to be any crowds or audience for these shows except us, the people shooting them off, and their friends. There was literally no one at the fairgrounds next door to watch them. They just did it to please themselves. This photo was at the fairgrounds and as you can see there is no one around to watch the show except the us. Our own private fireworks show. 

Notice the parking lot at the fairgrounds is empty except for one truck and one family. No one watching except the guys setting them off and us.

Now- just a few more things about Enumclaw. We were staying in a rural part of town, as I said, next to the fairgrounds, on the road to Mt Rainier. There were two restaurants nearby, however both were closed. It turned out every restaurant in town was closed for the holiday. Rather than starve after our drive from Seattle I was planning to go to the next town, to Safeway and buy a frozen dinner to heat up in the microwave. Then the woman at the hotel desk called me- some guest had bought an extra pizza- would we like a free pizza? You know we would, so we had a large free pizza (still warm), outside on a picnic table, then watched all these great fireworks shows. A pretty good Independence Day celebration. 

Are you under 18? Please do not read further. 

 You see, there just one more thing. As I was writing this blog I was thinking Enumclaw is a rather unusual name and googled it to find out how the town got this name. The meaning of the name is a little uncertain, although it seems to be of Salish Indian origin. However, while looking it up I came across this small town’s only claim to fame. Apparently about a decade ago there was a horse farm (this is horse country) where a man died after having sex with a horse.