One Lovely Blog Award

I love reading the blogs of talented, intuitive, inventive artist-types. While in the midst of Summer School (I am the instructor) there is a real time crunch, so I have been very late in announcing I have been honored with the “One Lovely Blog Award”. I am so humbled by the other folks that have also received this award, artists like Catherine Witherell over at Happy Day Art who honored me and Beth Hemmill at Hint Jewelry who has one of the blogs I regularly follow.

After all my school work is done, I like to spend some time reading the blogs you see listed in the left-hand column. I feel connected to these lovely people whether or not I comment on their blogs on any kind of regular basis.

Now, since I have this opportunity to acknowledge their inspiration for me, I would like to honor the following artist/bloggers with the “One Lovely Blog Award” I just received:
Lynn Davis
Richard Shilling an earth/land artist
Cluny Grey
Clever Endeavor
all the lovely folks at Art Bead Scene, the very first blog I followed

and Nina Bagley at Ornamental (though she doesn’t “do” these awards, you still need to see her blog)

To accept this award the Rules are simple: Acknowledge who honored you with the award in a post on your blog. Pass the award to 5 -- or more -- other bloggers that you have discovered (and think have a Lovely Blog), then contact them to let them know they have been chosen.
Please check out the honored links. You will see they are, indeed, lovely and very eclectic.

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As I have said, Summer school has been fast a furious since my husband and I have returned from the Netherlands. I am three-fifths through the five week session and the class is going well. I have barely had time to think of all the lovely, wonderful things we saw and did in the Netherlands.

We went to Haarlem to the Frans Hals Museum and visited the cathedral at the center of the great market. We traveled with a tour group to Delft to see how the famous pottery is made and then to The Hague to see the seat of government.

We return to The Hague on our own to visit the Mauritshuis Museum to see the incredible collection. This collection has many Rembrandts, Rubens, Breugels, and three magnificent Vermeers. The View of Delft was surprisingly large, and the Girl with the Pearl Earring was exquisite. With the three Vermeer paintings at the Mauritshuis and the three at the Rijiksmuseum we saw this trip and the other one that we saw last year, I have seen 8 of his 35 known works.

We also visited the van Gogh Museum for a wonderful exhibit of his night paintings.
We traveled to Ghent to see the Ghent Altarpiece (see previous post), which is everything and more than I had imagined. I knew it was large, but I had not envisioned just how large it is. The “little” Adam and Eve figures are about five feet tall!

Our friends Vijnand and Anneke came to Amsterdam for the day and took us to hidden places most tourists do not know about. We had great fun finding the hidden catholic churches amongst the store front and in the Red Light District. We spent some time in the Begijnhof a sort of "lay" convent for pious women. We also tasted local fare in the croquets served at a very popular deli. It was lovely to spend time with them.

We also visited Utrecht, which is a beautiful cathedral town. We spent quite a bit of time in the cathedral and in the museum in the former Catherine Convent (Catharijnecovent), where there was a fantastic exhibit of illuminated manuscripts as well as a fine permanent collection of religious arts.

It was very difficult to return home after all such an engaging vacation. We had the opportunity to see so much art, but we also soaked up the culture – Amsterdam is an incredibly beautiful city and I am sure this was not the last time we will visit there.