I was in downtown Phoenix Saturday evening to attend a symphony performance and this group of demonstrators were marching in front of symphony hall when we arrived. They were part of a hospitality workers strike from the Hyatt Hotel across the street.
Earlier in the day, I spotted another lovely hibiscus blooming on the complex grounds. I can never resist a hibiscus photo.
Those pretty purple and white flowers that I posted yesterday weren't the only wildflowers blooming at the Desert Botanical Garden. There was a nice patch of Mexican Hat coneflowers to admire.
Some Baja Fairy Dusters were scattered about.
The Indian Blanket flowers were making an appearance.
And there were plenty of chocolate daisies pushing their way above all the other flowers. There was certainly an explosion of color along the wildflower trail Thursday evening. Seeing all those wildflowers will make up for the fact that I missed the prime cactus blooms. My timing was off when it came to catching them this year.
The Wildflower Garden was overflowing with these pretty flowers. I believe they are Doubtful Knight's Spur but there was no sign to confirm that.
The occasional coneflower was popping up among the purple, white and pink to add a splash of yellow in the background.
I went to the Desert Botanical Garden Thursday evening to see the light show they have going on at the moment. There were all kinds of neon-like lights making the garden glow with color.
In addition to the light displays, they had colored spot lights lighting up some of the cacti and trees.
The plant to the left is that same plant from the Heard Museum.
It's still producing lots of blooms.
Sometime last year, the Heard Museum acquired a second desert rose plant. That one has no leaves on it but it does have some pretty blooms.
My friend Glenda was with me when I took these photos and she said she felt a bit jealous of these two plants. Hers still hasn't produced a bloom. I told her to keep the faith. It will one day.
Romero created box like structures to highlight photos of young women in various native regalia. This one is a photo of Naomi and is themed California Culture.
This one is a photo of Julia surrounded by nature's bounty. I loved how she created these elaborate borders around each box setting.
This photo is another obvious take on the famous Annie Leibovitz photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. She calls it "Two Virgins".
The exhibit was broken into several themed sections. The section above dealt with female empowerment.
This was by far my favorite costume from the exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum. Not because I would have ever worn it but because it is just so wildly creative.
This design was created by a Native American artist who goes by the name of "Son of Picasso". He began his career as a painter but expanded in 2018 to found a fashion label called "Products of My Environment" which is centered around the ethos "Made on Native Land By Native Hands." He repurposes garments into something entirely new.
This was a recent purchase by the Phoenix Art Museum's fashion collection.
There were also less radical selections from the collection on display like these lovely vintage gowns. The one in front by Christian Dior from 1957.
This pretty gown is by Escada and was from the 1999 collection. This one is timeless.
I can't leave this exhibit without showing you these wild and crazy shoes. I didn't catch the designer's name but wow, how about those big bows and golden toes! I do love a nice pair of shoes but there was never a time that I would have coveted this pair.
It was a busy weekend. On Friday I saw that the Phoenix Art Museum got a mention in the New York Times about a spring exhibit called "Color Wear: Kaleidoscope of Fashion." It was curated to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Phoenix Art Museum's Fashion collection. I'll have a few photos to share in the coming days. On my way to see the exhibit, I passed this sort of Calder-like mobile sculpture. I discovered it was created by Tuan Andrew Nguyen from metal scraps from unexploded artillery and bomb shells salvaged in Viet Nam. If you look closely, you will see my reflection in one of those discs.
I was at the Heard Museum yesterday for one of the Artful Mornings lectures and I was surprised to see all these colorful flags flying above the courtyard. I'm not sure why they were there and silly me, I forgot to ask someone. Regardless, they made a pretty addition to the museum's courtyard area.
A single yellow tulip was on the table at a place I had lunch recently.
At another place I found a very large white rose adorning the table.
At yet another place, there was a single colorful, blushing yellow rose.
I'm seeing a trend in restaurants decorating the tables with single flowers and I like it.
At a recent trip to the nursery, I encountered these beautiful ceramic pots. I was tempted to purchase one even if my luck with plants is notoriously bad.
One of these would look good in many a garden.
We had our art challenge meeting at my friends Julie and Dave's house last weekend. While I was there, I took a photo of the protea blooms Julie has in her kitchen. I think there were four of them in the vase and they are all artificial but they look so real.
They saw the real protea plants on a trip to South Africa last year and liked them so much, they brought these silk ones home to decorate the kitchen.
They look so exotic.
Remember those three dogs that belong to my friends David and Riley? Well here is a photo of that little one, Alexis. Riley recently sent this one to me.
He said on weekends when they are doing things around the house, they tend to be going up and down the stairs frequently and many times the dogs follow. At one point, Alexis decided it wasn't worth it going up and down all the time. She decided to stay at the top and just listen to see if anything happened to make it necessary for her to come down. (The necessary things might be activity in the kitchen or the door bell ringing.)
I thought it was an adorable and humorous photo. It's also a great follow-up to my staircase collage that I posted yesterday.
I had to think about this one a while but I soon realized that stairs play a big part in many of my dreams. Even as a little kid, I used to dream that I could fly down the stairs at our house.
I started looking through my photos and discovered I had an inordinate number of photos of stairs. It seems I tend to photograph a lot of them. I decided to do a collage of just a few of the photos I found. My collage contains about half of the photos I had printed so I could have made this even bigger than the 24' by 18' canvas I used.
I can't believe this was our 84th challenge. This art challenge experience has been such fun! It gets those creative juices flowing.
My Art Challenge Group met on Saturday evening and because I missed the last meeting, I had two challenge subject to present. Today I'll feature the first one.
I missed the meeting a month ago because of a schedule conflict but I had my piece ready to go. The challenge subject was "A False Memory". I chose a memory that I really don't know if it was false or not.
I won't go into the whole story but because I grew up in a house with more than a normal share of creeks and groans and other mysteries, memories of some events are a bit nebulous.
I'm not much of an artist when it comes to drawing but I drew this scene anyway. It's an image of a lady I saw just silently walking through my parents bedroom. I would see her from time to time when I was in the next room.
I took a photo of my drawing and decided to try a few artistic renderings using my photo editing application. There is one application that does some AI work with the photo but it's based strictly on the photo with no added suggestions. It gives multiple options and I can choose the one I like. When I saw this one, I was a bit taken aback. It represented what I remember perfectly. It even changed the tree photo I drew to a family photo hanging on the wall in the room where I was sitting. So I presented both my drawing above and this edited photo version at the meeting.
P.S. I was never afraid growing up in that house. All the curious things were just normal events to all of us.
Tomorrow I'll show you my piece for the April challenge.
Just spending 30 minutes walking around the grounds of the Hermosa Inn reveals an abundance of southwestern images to share.
Walking around this resort is a lot like walking the streets of Santa Fe New Mexico. There is something to catch the eye wherever you look.
The Hermosa Inn is close to where I live so whenever I'm in search of photographic inspiration, I can always stop by for a little walk.
