Go lion hunting on your next walk. Here are a few clues to help you find this guy and a few of his pack.
Ready? Click through to find the answer.
Our Monday Post, "No Way for Ducklings" reminded us to tell you about the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) current exhibition "Make Way for Ducklings The Art of Robert McCloskey."
The MFA says:
"With art from Make Way for Ducklings at its center, the retrospective presents more than 50 works, including studies for other books written and illustrated by McCloskey: Lentil (1940), Homer Price (1943) and Centerburg Tales (1951), which recall his youth in rural Ohio, and popular Maine tales including Blueberries for Sal (1948) and Time of Wonder (1957). Works are drawn primarily from the rich, but rarely exhibited holdings of the May Massee Collection at Emporia State University in Kansas.
"An exhibition highlight is the miniature bronze model for Nancy Schön’s Make Way for Ducklings sculpture, commissioned for the Boston Public Garden in 1985. As well as celebrating McCloskey’s achievements as author-illustrator, the retrospective also includes a selection of his independent work connecting him to prominent American painters such as Thomas Hart Benton and Edward Hopper."
Sounds like a good reason for a visit to the MFA!
Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon
Details:
Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino
Our Monday Post, "No Way for Ducklings" reminded us to tell you about the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) current exhibition "Make Way for Ducklings The Art of Robert McCloskey."
The MFA says:
"With art from Make Way for Ducklings at its center, the retrospective presents more than 50 works, including studies for other books written and illustrated by McCloskey: Lentil (1940), Homer Price (1943) and Centerburg Tales (1951), which recall his youth in rural Ohio, and popular Maine tales including Blueberries for Sal (1948) and Time of Wonder (1957). Works are drawn primarily from the rich, but rarely exhibited holdings of the May Massee Collection at Emporia State University in Kansas.
"An exhibition highlight is the miniature bronze model for Nancy Schön’s Make Way for Ducklings sculpture, commissioned for the Boston Public Garden in 1985. As well as celebrating McCloskey’s achievements as author-illustrator, the retrospective also includes a selection of his independent work connecting him to prominent American painters such as Thomas Hart Benton and Edward Hopper."
Sounds like a good reason for a visit to the MFA!
Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon
Details:
Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino
May in Boston is dominated by what we call “Graduation Season.” This is the time of year when students graduate from more than 100 colleges and universities in the Greater Boston area. Friends and families arrive to attend the ceremonies and treat the new grads to meals around town.
Families also come to Boston to pick up and move out many of the 250,000 students who spend the academic year around here. That can mean traffic issues and parking headaches in some neighborhoods.
All year long, the locals who volunteer to assist visitors over on the Boston Trip Advisor forum explain that these May happenings and other events explain the scarcity and high cost of hotel rooms.
Here is our post with all dates for many of this year’s graduations.
Boston Area Commencement Dates, Spring 2015
This is one of the very best things about May. We look forward to great local food and the wonderful community that exists at our local farmers markets. The tremendously popular and busy Copley Square Farmers Market opened on May12th.
We have a post with all the dates: Market Report: Summer Farmers Markets Opening Dates 2015
Reservations at area restaurants will be harder to find May 8th through 11th with Mother's Day and 5 commencements, and scarce May 15th through 18th when 15 schools, including BU and BC, will hold ceremonies. Harvard commencement is May 28th and MIT June 5th – each of these schools is large enough to have an impact on its own.
Mother’s Day is Sunday May 10th. You have a short time to make plans to celebrate if that day is on your calendar. On Mother’s Day, you'll find special menus in many restaurants. If you have suggestions for places not doing this or alternative dining suggestions for Mother’s Day please add them. Here's a link to our post with suggestions for places to dine on Mother's Day.
Memorial Day is Monday, May 25. That means the long weekend to kick off summer will begin on Friday May 22nd. If you are staying in Boston consider taking advantage of the Museum of Fine Arts annual Memorial Day Open House with free admission and special programs throughout the day.
April 29-May 2: American College of Physicians Internal Medicine 2015, estimated attendees: 7,000
May 6-7: UBM Canon – BIOMEDevice / Design & Manufacturing New England / Electronics New England 2015, estimated attendees: 6,050
May 14-16: Heart Rhythm Society – 2015 Annual Scientific Sessions, estimated attendees: 15,000
May 26-28: NAFSA: Association of International Educators 2015 Annual Conference & International Education Expo, estimated attendees: 7,000
Watch for our upcoming post on what we’re looking forward to in May. We'd love to include some of your suggestions. Add your thoughts in the comments below. Tweet them to @BostonZest or send us an email.
Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon
Details:
Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2012-2015 Penny & Ed Cherubino, Graduation photo from iStockphoto.com
May in Boston is dominated by what we call “Graduation Season.” This is the time of year when students graduate from more than 100 colleges and universities in the Greater Boston area. Friends and families arrive to attend the ceremonies and treat the new grads to meals around town.
Families also come to Boston to pick up and move out many of the 250,000 students who spend the academic year around here. That can mean traffic issues and parking headaches in some neighborhoods.
All year long, the locals who volunteer to assist visitors over on the Boston Trip Advisor forum explain that these May happenings and other events explain the scarcity and high cost of hotel rooms.
Here is our post with all dates for many of this year’s graduations.
Boston Area Commencement Dates, Spring 2015
This is one of the very best things about May. We look forward to great local food and the wonderful community that exists at our local farmers markets. The tremendously popular and busy Copley Square Farmers Market opened on May12th.
We have a post with all the dates: Market Report: Summer Farmers Markets Opening Dates 2015
Reservations at area restaurants will be harder to find May 8th through 11th with Mother's Day and 5 commencements, and scarce May 15th through 18th when 15 schools, including BU and BC, will hold ceremonies. Harvard commencement is May 28th and MIT June 5th – each of these schools is large enough to have an impact on its own.
Mother’s Day is Sunday May 10th. You have a short time to make plans to celebrate if that day is on your calendar. On Mother’s Day, you'll find special menus in many restaurants. If you have suggestions for places not doing this or alternative dining suggestions for Mother’s Day please add them. Here's a link to our post with suggestions for places to dine on Mother's Day.
Memorial Day is Monday, May 25. That means the long weekend to kick off summer will begin on Friday May 22nd. If you are staying in Boston consider taking advantage of the Museum of Fine Arts annual Memorial Day Open House with free admission and special programs throughout the day.
April 29-May 2: American College of Physicians Internal Medicine 2015, estimated attendees: 7,000
May 6-7: UBM Canon – BIOMEDevice / Design & Manufacturing New England / Electronics New England 2015, estimated attendees: 6,050
May 14-16: Heart Rhythm Society – 2015 Annual Scientific Sessions, estimated attendees: 15,000
May 26-28: NAFSA: Association of International Educators 2015 Annual Conference & International Education Expo, estimated attendees: 7,000
Watch for our upcoming post on what we’re looking forward to in May. We'd love to include some of your suggestions. Add your thoughts in the comments below. Tweet them to @BostonZest or send us an email.
Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon
Details:
Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2012-2015 Penny & Ed Cherubino, Graduation photo from iStockphoto.com
Okay team, it's time for us to share some of the pastimes and events that we're looking forward to this February.
Abolitionist Lucy Stone gazes at slave Phillis Wheatley on the Boston Women's Memorial on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.
This month has a theme, Black History Month, that fits into Boston's historical culture. The people of Boston were an important part of the abolitionist movement. We have a wonderful Black Heritage Trail and this year the Museum of Fine arts has some exceptional offerings like the Gordon Parks exhibition. In a city with so much history, it can be good to focus on one aspect like this, from time to time.
Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison sits two blocks away on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.
If you're a visitor to Boston, you should know that we have a long weekend on February 14-16 to celebrate Presidents' Day.
That weekend is also Valentine's Day so restaurant and hotel reservations may be a bit tighter. And, Valentine's Day is an event where many restaurants have special prix fixe menus offering less choice, higher prices, and often lower quality. Here's a link our post: Where to Dine Valentine's Day 2015 – Ideas for Romantic Dining in Boston.
On the other hand, some hotels will be offering special romantic packages since this is not the busiest month of the year. Locals might consider a staycation weekend tucked into a romantic hotel in the city.
On the convention front, there are just two events that might impact hotel prices. One in the seaport area, where it will have much less impact on the lives of Bostonians and visitors, is projecting about 16,000 visitors from the 4th to the 6th. And, at the Hynes in the Back Bay, 5,000 conventioneers are expected on the 26th and 27th.
Penny has started this same conversion over on the Trip Advisor Boston Forum to give some background for visitors to our fair city and for the locals who volunteer on that forum to trade ideas with one another. You'll find additional ideas at this link.
Your Turn
We hope you'll join in and make this a conversation here. Add your comments below or follow us on Twitter and send your ideas to us there. Just put @BostonZest in your message and we'll get it.
Who's next?
What are your favorite February pastimes?
What events are you planning to attend this month?
Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon
Details:
Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2015 Penny & Ed Cherubino
A very special and timely exhibition, Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott, will open tomorrow at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MFA). In addition, the MFA has announced a free open house on Monday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The MFA Says:
Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott (January 17–September 13, 2015) traces Parks’ return to his hometown of Fort Scott, Kansas and then to other Midwestern cities, to track down and photograph each of his childhood classmates. On view in the MFA’s Art of the Americas Wing, the exhibition’s 42 photographs were from a series originally meant to accompany a Life magazine photo essay—but for reasons unknown, the story was never published. The images depict the realities of life under segregation in 1950—presenting a rarely seen view of everyday lives of African-American citizens in the years before the Civil Rights movement began in earnest.
We Say:
This has been on our calendar since we first read about it. We have so much to learn from this multi-talented man.
The MFA gives you some tools for learning about an exhibition like this on it's website. We often rely on the press releases they send out to understand why a particular subject was selected and about the people and organizations that make an exhibition possible. Here's a link to the press release for Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott.
For each of its exhibitions, the MFA sets up a page that gives the details and often adds some resources that allow you to learn a bit about the topic before you attend. For this exhibition, they have a slideshow that lets you preview a few of the images and a short video by the curator, Karen Haas.
The museum has also announced the publication of the book Common Wealth: Art by African Americans in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
And, if you want to attend the exhibition at a time when there is something special scheduled around the topic, you'll find a "More Events" button near the top of that page.
We've also taken advantage of the Boston Public Library's resources on Gordon Parks and are reading some of his poetry and his memoir.
Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon
Details:
Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2015 Penny Cherubino, And screenshots courtesy of the MFA
The sculpure of Bacchante and Infant Faun with its ring of sparkling, splashing water add a refreshing, lively note to the Boston Public Library Courtyard in summer.
She is one of my favorite photo subjects. Every angle offers a new challenge to capture the vivaciousness of this work of art with my camera. The architecture of the courtyard creates a perfect backdrop and, in the photo above, an arched frame.
Here is the only photo I could find of the original artwork in place in the Courtyard in 1896. (From the Boston Public Library collection.) It was on display for just two weeks in November of that year.
The original statue, given to the library by the architect Charles Follen McKim, is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The notes on it in their collection include this information.
"After a great storm of public protest stirred by temperance unions, clergy, and other angry Bostonians against the statue's "drunken indecency," McKim withdrew the gift and then offered "Bacchante" to the Metropolitan in May 1897. The Board of Trustees enthusiastically accepted it, and the bronze was displayed for many years in the Museum's Great Hall…"
The statue on display in the BPL Courtyard today is a casting made in 1993 from a second bronze in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts.
How barren the courtyard looks in this 1927 photo. It lacks the statue, furniture, and people we find there today. (From the Boston Public Library collection.)
While Bacchante's dance upset Bostonians, Emerson College students were allowed to perform the Butterfly Dance in the courtyard in 1926.
Don't forget, this year's free Concerts in the Courtyard continue through August 29th.
Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon
Details:
Words: Penny Cherubino
Photography: © 2014 Penny Cherubino with historic photos from the Boston Public Library Collection used under this creative commons license.
The sculpure of Bacchante and Infant Faun with its ring of sparkling, splashing water add a refreshing, lively note to the Boston Public Library Courtyard in summer.
She is one of my favorite photo subjects. Every angle offers a new challenge to capture the vivaciousness of this work of art with my camera. The architecture of the courtyard creates a perfect backdrop and, in the photo above, an arched frame.
Here is the only photo I could find of the original artwork in place in the Courtyard in 1896. (From the Boston Public Library collection.) It was on display for just two weeks in November of that year.
The original statue, given to the library by the architect Charles Follen McKim, is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The notes on it in their collection include this information.
"After a great storm of public protest stirred by temperance unions, clergy, and other angry Bostonians against the statue's "drunken indecency," McKim withdrew the gift and then offered "Bacchante" to the Metropolitan in May 1897. The Board of Trustees enthusiastically accepted it, and the bronze was displayed for many years in the Museum's Great Hall…"
The statue on display in the BPL Courtyard today is a casting made in 1993 from a second bronze in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts.
How barren the courtyard looks in this 1927 photo. It lacks the statue, furniture, and people we find there today. (From the Boston Public Library collection.)
While Bacchante's dance upset Bostonians, Emerson College students were allowed to perform the Butterfly Dance in the courtyard in 1926.
Don't forget, this year's free Concerts in the Courtyard continue through August 29th.
Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon
Details:
Words: Penny Cherubino
Photography: © 2014 Penny Cherubino with historic photos from the Boston Public Library Collection used under this creative commons license.
This is the weekend to kick off summer in Boston and the Museum of Fine Arts invites you to include a free visit with plenty of color and entertaiment to the festivities.
Here are a few of the details the MFA provided:
"The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), celebrates Memorial Day with free admission for all on Monday, May 26, 2014. From 10 am to 4:45 pm, visitors are invited to celebrate a “Season of Color in the Americas” with a fun-filled day of vibrant music and colorful activities. In honor of the holiday, a 55-piece US Coast Guard Band will perform a selection of patriotic songs and American Standards at the Museum’s historic Huntington Avenue entrance on Bank of America Plaza. Later, performance art by Venezuelan artists Nascimento/Lovera brings together local hip-hop artists and a Brazilian drum troupe with the Coast Guard ensemble. Inside, families can feel the rhythm of Latin American culture through Cha-Cha dance workshops and dance along (or learn how to dance) to Latin American beats with Edwin Pabon y Su Orquesta and Riobamba of Pajaritos. For visitors who love classic American show tunes…" Read more here.
Hope you have a wonderful weekend and perhaps take advantage of a free visit to the MFA.
Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon
Details:
Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Screenshot courtesy of the Musuem of Fine Arts