Nauvoo Sculpture Garden

Bathed in a heavenly light

Outside of the Nauvoo Visitor's Center is the sculpture garden which contains 13 life size bronze statues in honor of womanhood. The gardens are beautiful and the statues are inspiring. I snapped this one and later was surprised to see the light effect. I didn't plan it and couldn't reproduce it even if I tried. I think it is really cool and quite appropriate. We had such a good time on the trip. I had wonderful traveling companions and everything went smoothly. But, I'm glad to be home and won't be doing any long car trips for awhile.

A Few More Nauvoo Pix

Me and the girls in front of Lucy Mack Smith's house

Wandering around outside Brigham Young's house

The mighty Mississippi viewed from the eastern shore

Nauvoo Temple

Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum

Nauvoo Temple

The original temple was destroyed a short time after its completion. The church rebuilt and dedicated it in 1994, I think. Anyhow, the only thing remaining from the 1st temple was 2 sun stones. One of them is in the visitors center, the other is at the Smithsonian. The statue represents Joseph and Hyrum looking back at the temple as they rode by for the last time. They never got to see the temple completed. Very sad.

New Friends

Mick and Chad

Nip and Tuck

Me and the church ladies left last Thursday morning, Sept 10, and drove to the church history site at Nauvoo, Illinois. We went on a couple of wagon tours....I posted the pictures here of the noble beasts who hauled our fat, lazy butts around the town. These are Belgians and Percherons, I think....I forget which is which, but each animal weighs about a ton. They are huge. I'll be posting more photos from the trip.

Sketch Crawl

Sam and  his sketch of the Lucky Strike tower

Triangle Sketch Crawl meets monthly at various locations for a couple hours of drawing, then we gather for show and tell. It is a lot of fun. We met this weekend at the American Tobacco Campus in Durham. It is a fantastic place. It used to be a tobacco warehouse and has been converted into shops, restaurants and office space. It has a beautiful layout with lots of water features. It's gorgeous. Anyhow, I did a couple of watercolor sketches. Nothing great, but it does force me to keep producing. You can't force creativity, but sometimes you just need to keep doing SOMETHING until the creative urge returns. I feel uninspired right now, but hopefully I'll get my mojo back. So someone posted this photo of Sam (not his real name) and me at an office studio called "Little" where we gathered to compare notes. It was a big group this month, about 20 people. They are a talented bunch. Am I intimidated? Not really, because I am not competing with anyone. We all do very different things and it's all just for fun.

The crew

Mal, James One, Jon and Lila on UNCG Campus

And now for something completely different

"My 3 Sons" 

untitled

"The 3 Tenors" "Today I feel..." and "Madonna and Child"