Ridgefield's very popular 3K race takes place on Mother's Day.
Southwest Daily Images
A snowbird shows photos from southwest Florida (Naples) and southwest Connecticut (Ridgefield) and New England and other places he goes.
Thursday, May 15, 2025
Run Like a Mother
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Mark Twain House
I wrote yesterday about Ron Chernow's new biography about Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens. I passed through Hartford last week, so I detoured for a quick photograph of the Mark Twain House, designed in 1873 by New York architect Edward Tuckerman Potter.
Clemens and his family lived in Hartford from 1874 to 1891. While living in Hartford, he wrote such works as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Mark Twain
The prolific biographer Ron Chernow is releasing his new biography, Mark Twain, today.
Twain was born and raised in Missouri but he lived in Connecticut for much of his adult life. Twain and his family lived in Hartford for 20 years, from 1871 through 1891, in a grand house I have shown before. many times, including here, just one week after I started this blog.
When Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain turned 70 in 1905, he began to consider where and how he would make his exit. Twain purchased over 230 acres of land in Redding, Connecticut, on the advice of his friend and biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, and engaged John Howells to design a home. Howells created a version of the Italian villa suited to the Connecticut climate and landscape.
Monday, May 12, 2025
Sunday, May 11, 2025
Saturday, May 10, 2025
Yale University Art Gallery
What a place! Beautiful pieces from every period, every country and every medium.
A room full of classical Roman and Greek busts. Marcus Aurelius is in the center, from ~147 A.D.
In another room, Gustav Courbet's 1875 bronze bust, La Liberte, is the focal point.
This lustrous marble Sienese bust is by Giuseppe Mazzuoli and is from ~1690 - 1700. It portrays a member of the Chigi Family, possibly Francesco Chigi Piccolomini (1650-1720)
I love these glazed earthenware animals -- a horse and two camels -- from China. They are from the Tang dynasty (618-907 A.D. Years ago I had two small horses like this, which I am sure were reproductions.
This is a beautiful room loaded with American paintings.
Friday, May 9, 2025
Yale Center of British Art
I visited the Yale Center of British Art, which opened recently after being closed for two years for a major conservation program. Much of the permanent collection was donated by Paul Mellon, a wealthy Yale graduate. The building was designed by the internationally acclaimed American architect Louis I. Kahn.