Tag: outdoors

de Cordova Sculpture Park

After years of hearing from various people how cool the de Cordova Sculpture Park & Museum was, we finally visited, using a museum pass from the library. (Ask at your local library – lots of Friends of the Library groups provide museum passes to local institutions so library users can get free or discounted admission.) It was a lovely, sunny, not-too-terribly-hot day, so we spent most of it in the sculpture park.

I didn’t take photos of everything we liked. The musical fence was a neat one, appealing for all ages, and there was a piece that looked like a large branch or piece of driftwood set upright that made an interesting shape against the sky. Here are some others:

One of the Two Big Black Hearts
(One of) Two Big Black Hearts, Jim Dine, 1985
Newspaper sculpture with flora on top
Big, with Rift, Steven Siegel, 2009
Big metal leaf sculptures
These leaf sculptures aren’t listed on the de Cordova website – maybe they’re new or temporary?
Ice sculpture close up
Closeup of Elegantka, Ursula von Rydingsvard, 2010
Marble head in profile
Humming, Jaume Plensa, 2011
White marble statue of a face in front of some trees
Humming, Jaume Plensa, 2011

It seems like a sculpture park would be a great way to get young kids interested in art, more so than walking around a museum. However, it’s not a playground: there is absolutely no climbing on the art.

Steel cylinders, stacked on a gentle hillside
Lincoln, DeWitt Godfrey, 2012
Sign reading "Absolutely no climbing on the art"
Tower, Monika Sosnowska, 2014

Dogs are welcome in the sculpture park, which is also pretty cool. We left Sudo at home for our first outing, but we may bring her if we go back, weather permitting.

Sudo on couch, with a stuffed blue dog resting on her back
“I can come too?”

 

Sheepshearing Festival at Gore Place

Goats and sheep running toward the cameraThis is what happens when you find a flyer in the library. Or at least, when Ben does. He was intrigued by this sheepshearing festival, and the weather was nice, so off we went. We saw a herding dog demonstration, some other animals (chickens, a baby lamb, oxen, a llama), trapeze artists, and lots of wool products.

Ben standing next to a sign that reads Sheep Shuttle StopA black-and-white herding dog crouched in the grassTrapeze equipment and netsA 2-year-old white ox tied to a trailerThe two-year-old oxen were not that impressive, size-wise; a sign said they weighed 1,200 pounds each, which is about the same as a Thoroughbred horse. But around the other side of the trailer…

Full-grown white ox tied to a trailer…an ox suitable for Paul Bunyan. Or for pulling the trailer – I don’t know why they bothered with the truck.

A llama lying down in the dirt, head up, facing the camera
Dentists’ nightmares are full of llama teeth.
A sign of "Diet Tips"
Click image to enlarge.

Outside the fudge tent (of course there was a fudge tent, what self-respecting farm festival doesn’t have a fudge tent?) was this sign of “Diet Tips,” which may as well be my family’s motto. It’s a little long for a motto, but it can be summarized as “Mmmm, chocolate.” (Sub-motto: “This is mine, get your own.”)

Blue sky with white cloudsAll in all, it was a lovely day, if five or ten degrees colder than we might have liked. At least the wool merchants were happy.