Managing Memories

Having been across the country three times in the past three years (plus drives to Florida (and back) and Virginia (and back)), I have a lot of memories! The ones in my brain are GREAT, but sometimes they need help from all my iPhotos (even though the program in OS X Yosemite is now "Photos").

Which gets us to this blog: How do I keep my Photos-database clean, and not wind up with multiple pictures of the same Claude Monet Water Lilies painting?

Feb 14, 2014




May 8, 2015





Dec 3, 2015




Of course they are all beautiful, but lets get real and clean this up.

iPhoto had a "Map" button - click it, and the display changes to a map (zoomed-out to the appropriate geographic level) that had push-pins for every location of the photos in your database. It was kind-of intelligent - it consolidated nearby pins into a single pin, so the map was not full-of-pins. Unfortunately there was no way to tell if a pin represented a single location, or multiple locations (as you zoomed-in, the single pin would dissolve into multiple pins). Unfortunately, OS X Yosemite no longer has that feature. But don't despair - click in the Search box in the upper right:



and type "Boston".



All the places associated with Boston (including Boston, VA, Boston, KY, and Boston, GA, if I had taken pictures there) become listed. I have 158 pictures at/near the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Select the MFA, and all the occasions of me visiting the MFA (3 times) appear, with their photos! From this viewing, it is now easy to compare images, and delete those you do not want.

Off to work in the woods!

New York City Day Trip

Monday, Nov 16, 2015 - Down to New York City, then the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, MA, then home:

601 actual miles; left at 6:10 AM, home at 8:20 PM.

I have discovered this in-between-area in the world of art - the space between Public Museums and Private Collections. They are the commercial fine arts galleries/Private Art Dealers (MME Fine Art in NYC) and auction houses (Sotheby's and Christie's in New York, Skinner in Boston), and they offer art-on-view for very limited times:

ArtFix Daily's announcement for MME FINE ART:


and Sotheby's website:


I left the house just after 6 AM, hit traffic on 128 South, but had clear sailing after that - I hit the NYC parking garage just after 11 AM. A nice sunny 2-block walk (it would hit 75º later in the afternoon) over to Sotheby's on York Avenue, between 72nd and 71st Streets:


Since clothes-make-the-man, I was wearing a nice suit and tie, and it was GREAT seeing Martin Johnson Heade's The Great Florida Sunset, 1887, in their 10th floor viewing space:


(Note from the future [2 days later] - The leading lot at Sotheby's Taubman collection sale on Wednesday reportedly is headed to a Minnesota museum. The founders of the Minnesota Marine Art Museum are the buyers of the 8-foot-by-4-foot The Great Florida Sunset for an artist record $5.9 million, reports the Star-Tribune. It is said to be a companion piece to Heade's View from Fern-Tree Walk, Jamaica, already on view at the museum.)

Other excellent pieces at Sotheby's included:
William Bradford - Sunset Glow on Sea and Land

detail:


Thomas Moran - Sunset, Amagansett, 1905


and two wonderful pieces by Andrew Wyeth, from the Collection of Charlton and Lydia Heston:
Flood Plain, 1986

detail:


Ice Pool, 1969


WOW - Heade, Bradford, Wyeth, Moran, Winslow Homer, George Inness, Francis Augustus Silva, plus a pair of Tiffany lamps down on the 9th floor - this is better than many museums I have visited over the past few years!

I walked past our old apartment at 108 East 81st Street:

looking a bit upscale - no air conditioners hanging out the windows.

I had a wonderful visit with Elizabeth M. Stallman and Mindy Ellen Moak, Principals at MME Fine Art, LLC, 74 East 79th Street


and they let me hold William Trost Richards - Sunrise on the New Jersey Shore, 1881


And then I got out-of-town. I was up in Connecticut before I realized that I could fit-in the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Mass., and I got up there at quarter-to-5. Excellent pieces include:

Thomas Hill - Yosemite Valley, 1889


Frederick Edwin Church - Valley of the Santa Ysabel, 1875


Thomas Moran - The Last Arrow, 1868


Charles Herbert Woodbury - Mid-Ocean, 1894


Attributed to J.M.W. Turner - Beach Scene with Nets


Edward Moran - City and Harbor of New York, 1889


also at the Berkshire Museum was a lovely Photography exhibit, including:
Ansel Adams - "Clearing Winter Storm," Yosemite Valley, 1937


3 and 1/2 hours to get home - Thank You God for a Great Day! - It Worked Out Perfectly!

Music:

from the iPod, of course I had to start with
Day Trip by the Pat Metheny Trio, 2008


then albums from the purple nano:

"Panic in Detroit" from Aladdin Sane by David Bowie, 1973


Aja by Steely Dan, 1977


All That You Can't Leave Behind by U2, 2000


America by America, 1971


Hard Promises by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, 1981


Blows Against The Empire by Jefferson Starship, 1970


Bookends by Simon & Garfunkel, 1968


The Best of by Quicksilver Messenger Service, 1990


Hard Nose The Highway by Van Morrison, 1973


The Pursuit by Jamie Cullum, 2009


Houses Of The Holy by Led Zeppelin, 1973


Hot Tuna - 1st album by Hot Tuna, 1970


High Tide and Green Grass by The Rolling Stones, 1966 (their 1st Greatest Hits album)


Harvest by Neil Young, 1972


L.A. Woman by The Doors, 1971

The Title Track is an EXCELLENT driving song!

Shameless Plug: if you enjoy this blog, you may like my other one about Hiking the 4,000 footers in New Hampshire (I have done 41-of-48 thru October 2015)
hyperlink: dixonheadingnorth
http://dixonheadingnorth.blogspot.com/

Philadelphia - Two-Day Round Trip: Day Two

Saturday/Sunday, Oct 24/25, 2015 - Down to Philadelphia, and back:

Ok, so I threw a few extra stops in there - 782 actual miles; left at 6:30 AM Saturday, home at 4 PM Sunday.

Sunday Morning - up and on the road at 6:30 AM to get up to the New Britain Museum of American Art. Wendy and I had visited two years ago, but I wanted to see some "old friends":

Albert Bierstadt - Seal Rock, c. 1872-1887


Thomas Moran - The Wilds of Lake Superior, 1864


John Frederick Kensett - Rondout Creek, 1862


Jasper Francis Cropsey - Lake Wawayanda, Sussex County, New Jersey, 1870


Martin Johnson Heade - Ipswich Marshes, 1867


William Bradford - Fishing Fleet off Labrador, 1884


William Trost Richards - Sunset West Irish Coast, no date


and there were some "new friends":
Rockwell Kent - Toilers of the Sea (Toiling on the Sea), 1907


Frederic Edwin Church - Niagara Falls, 1857 Chromolithograph


Donald Demers - On the Morning Tide, Somes Sound, Maine, 2005


Francis Coates Jones - Annisquam, late 1880s


Andrew Wyeth - McVey's Barn, 1948

detail:


I then went up the road to Hartford, for the Butler-McCook Homestead, which has a painting by Albert Bierstadt:

Scene near Olevano, Italy, 1860


Ran some errands on my way home - Thank You God for a great adventure!

and once I got home, I dashed down to Dana Beach to take a picture:


It is pretty cool to see that not much has changed since Fitz Henry Lane painted Dana Beach, Manchester 155 years ago (1860!) [down in the Philadelphia Museum of Art]

(well, he has Sunrise, and I have Sunset).

Music for these 2 days was albums from my iPod - Day Two:

Ghost Writer by Garland Jeffreys, 1977


Giant Step by Taj Mahal, 1969


"Six Days on the Road" lyrics:
Well my rig's a little low, but that don't mean she's slow
Got the stacks blowin' fire and the smoke's blowing black as coal
My hometown's coming in sight
If you think I'm happy, you're right
Six days on the road and now I'm gonna make it home tonight

and then it was pretty cool that, as I was going past Giants Stadium - Bruce live:
Giants Stadium - July 27, 2008 Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band


"No Surrender" lyrics:
We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school
...
I'm ready to grow young again
...
I want to sleep beneath peaceful skies in my lover's bed
with a wide open country in my eyes
and these romantic dreams in my head

Girl At Her Volcano by Rickie Lee Jones, 1983


Give It Up by Bonnie Raitt, 1972

Once upon a time, at Penn, I went to a concert at Irvine Auditorium - Little Feat opened for Bonnie Raitt. Solo, on acoustic guitar, she asked for requests, so I called out "Been too long". She smiled and rolled right into "Too Long At The Fair". Very sweet song.

Go-Go Boots by Drive-By Truckers, 2011


Shameless Plug: if you enjoy this blog, you may like my other one about Hiking the 4,000 footers in New Hampshire (I have done 41-of-48 thru October 2015)
hyperlink: dixonheadingnorth
http://dixonheadingnorth.blogspot.com/