We also made a stop at ‘The Map House’ of London in Knightsbridge where we found a fantastic collection of maps and prints. The staff was knowledgeable and happy to open any drawer and share it’s bounty. www.themaphouse.com

Then we found the wonderful Wallace Collection. www.wallacecollection.org  The museum is highly decorated in the period style, with fabrics, clocks, mantles, fringe and paintings on every wall. We caught the end of a exhibit called ‘Time Regained’ by Kevin Cotes, who is an artist goldsmith. His work was crafted to delight and challenge the viewer. In my eye many of his works were artist books, but as we know that definition is blurry.

Then off to the Isle of Jersey and on to France.

Brooklyn, (DUMBO), NY – Opening September 15th at CENTRAL BOOKING art space is Now You See It…Color and the Mind’s Eye, an exhibition that brings together 17 artists in their exploration of color. They examine the eye, play with sight, have us wonder at what it is we are seeing, or question the “how” as well as the “why.”

Chuck Close, a modern Pointillist who builds images from mere scribbles of overlapping colors, takes the concept of the photographic dot into a new realm. Martha Hayden plays with our brain’s perception of color as space, with the variation on the eternal push/pull of the figure/ground question. The videos of Berlin artist Gerhard Mantz parade colors and shapes before us as they appear to morph from one plane to the next. Kate Temple takes her extensive studies of color theory, from Goethe onwards, to create atmospheric filterings through space, to see or not to see bare glimmers of landscape; David Ambrose layers color upon color until we see the glowing vibrations of transparencies ready to burst forth beyond the rectangle- or back into it. Yet the space in Nola Zirin’s paintings becomes a space of blue, as our eye winds around from deep space to the surface – or does it? But Sarah Stengle may be blue but blue still has its deeper meaning in a quest for what it does mean to be blue. Katherine Jackson creates a lens for us to stand and look through, as it regards us noncommittal while Jo Yarrington’s sculptural piece models the eye through a lens lightly. Paul Tecklenberg turns optics on its head as the lens becomes a glass becomes a lens and Adrienne Klein, with echoes of Warhol, brings insight into the four-channel experience beyond the mere rods and cones of the title.Master printer Ruth Lingen plays with the illusions of color on a daily basis while when working with Jessica Stockholder, color becomes a plaything. Peter Thomashow, a psychologist in his own right, lends his medical expertise to his playful assemblages. The book works of Julie Shaw Lutts explode from the boxes that contain them, this one dealing with a whimsical view of the science of optics. Kirsten Hoving may have a photographic historical outlook on the ocular, but W. David Powell manages with his witty collages of juxtapositions from historical textbooks to bring a contemporary perspective to the matter. Gareth Long takes his impulse from his library and gives us a reading on levels of perception. All in all, these artists journey into the world, our world, colored by perception, psychology and the senses.

A catalog of Now You See It…Color and the Mind’s Eye is also available as part of the September issue of CENTRAL BOOKING MAGAZINE: http://centralbookingnyc.com/magazine/september-2011/

Ukraine Wedding/ Fields in Germany/ Ukraine Castle/ Stained Glass/ Ukraine Cemetery/ Butterfly from Prague Natural History Museum

This spring I was lucky enough to be invited to a wedding in Ukraine of a young couple so dear to us that we traveled days to celebrate with their wonderful family & friends. It was a truly beautiful 16 hour fabulous wedding!
On our way there we stopped in Germany, Czech Republic, and Austria.
One of my favorite places we visited was in the Czech Republic, called the Strahov Monastery Philosophical Library in Prague. Amazing beautiful space with the oldest books I’ve ever seen.
(pictures below)