Sidewalk puddle montage
The puddle in question had some kind of plant matter—cottonwood seeds, perhaps, or sawdust—floating in it in great eddies. The photographic result made me think of clouds, waves, nebulae. Taken on Larimer Street, River North Art District, Denver. Cropped, with some color adjustment, and montaged.
Today I dropped off a photograph for an exhibit at RedLine Contemporary Art Center in Denver (yay! finally got into a Denver show!). Afterwards I headed up Larimer Street for a bite to eat and found myself in what is now called the River North Art District (RiNo for short). It appears to be a rundown industrial warehouse district now partially converted into a trendy, edgy place full of brewpubs, coffee houses, smoke shops, and clubs, many of which host little art shows. It’s the kind of place where you may need to know by word of mouth that there’s an entertainment venue behind a particular unmarked door.
I got a burger at Denver’s recently opened Shake Shack, a chain I hadn’t heard of until the local news channels trumpeted this arriving business as if the second coming was at hand. Then I wandered a few blocks down Larimer Street to Denver Central Market, which houses various eateries and places to buy gourmet foods. In between I took photographs of some of the abundant street art in this district, mainly vibrant murals many of which take their style and inspiration from graffiti.
RiNo seems to be a rapidly changing area. To help label some of my images I consulted Google Maps, which had photos dating to June 2017 and September 2017. Already some of the murals have been reworked and many more appear to have been added. I hope someone is systematically documenting the street art in this area. It would make an interesting book.
The Bloch Building at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art endlessly fascinates me with the angles made by its ramps, windows, skylights, and corridors. Perhaps someday I can photograph it with a better camera.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City recently acquired a re-casting of Lorenzo Ghiberti’s “Gates of Paradise,” a 15th-century work. Bringing in this massive piece, which is several feet across and—I’m guessing here—maybe 12 feet high required taking down some of the windows that make up the wall of the Bloch Addition and the use of an industrial elevator. The photo of the overall work, which I adjusted for perspective as best I could in Photoshop, doesn’t come close to capturing the magnificence of these doors. I also don’t know who the figures are in the relief and bas-relief details shown; an interpretive key would have been helpful. It would be quite an interesting contrast to see a good reproduction of the Gates next to a reproduction of the “Gates of Hell” by Rodin.
Last weekend I took my sister to the annual Denver Chalk Art Festival in Larimer Square. We went on Saturday; as we discovered, most of the pictures are not finished until Sunday, so that’s when we should have gone. Here’s a sampling of what we saw. Unfortunately, I don’t have the artists’ names for any of them. The portrait of the woman in white was especially interesting: The picture itself was oddly elongated, but a piece of paper taped to the ground in front of it directed you to stand there and look through your camera lens. And voilà, the picture appeared in proper perspective. It’s funny to think of the thousands of photographs of this picture that now exist in Colorado. Other chalk artists set themselves the task of reproducing a painting; the photo of the American Indian with the buffalo robe shows a detail of one of these.
Altar, Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis
Central dome, Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis
Narthex, Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis
It isn’t new—in fact, it was dedicated in 1914—but St. Louisans sometimes refer to the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis as the “New Cathedral,” in contradistinction to the much smaller, historic “Old Cathedral” on the riverfront. These iPhone photos have been improved as much as my middling Photoshop capability can make them. The Wikipedia article about the cathedral has immensely better photographs. The Cathedral Basilica contains one of the largest collections of mosaics in the world. It’s something of a hidden treasure in the heart of St. Louis, not far from Forest Park.
Breakers
Closeup of textured stainless steel on one of the sculptures in Benson Sculpture Garden, Loveland, Colo.
