Two Ridgefield Neighbors

 

The Fountain Inn looks great at night.

As does the Cass Gilbert Fountain, in a traffic island across the street.

Peeking in Windows

 Evening on Main Street.

Ridgefield, Connecticut.

Light the Lights

Ridgefield has a popular tree lighting ceremony to give the holiday season a festive start.

Black Friday

Parking lots at the mall were full.  Cars were slowly hunting for spaces.  Stores were packed with shoppers carrying full bags.  Scenes last seen before the pandemic and before online shopping won the war.  No one told the people here.

 

All I wanted was a pair of warm leather gloves to wear on an upcoming trip to cold weather countries.  Probably can't find them in Florida.  Cost more than I wanted to spend and not exactly what I had in mind, but at least I can cross that off my list.

Susie's Birthday

 

Yesterday was a big day.  Wessel made the requested strawberry birthday tart.

The girls made are at ages at which it is rare for them just to smile for a photo.  

But Sequoia is happy to pose. 

Turkey Trot

 The Boys and Girls Club of Ridgefield puts on a 5K race on Thanksgiving morning.  Yesterday's was the 41st year of the event.  The kids' one mile race was first.  It was cold!

They're off!  

Tom Turkey led the kids' race.

Two granddaughters and their friend Amalia smiled through the race.

The start of the adults' 5K went on for quite a while with ~1100 runners.

Happy Thanksgiving

 Give thanks.

All the best if you are celebrating Thanksgiving today.

Back in Connecticut for a Week

 Back to see Susie and her family for Thanksgiving and her birthday.

A realtor's office has Ridgefield posters in the window.  They are new but done in the style of posters from the first half of the 20th century.  I like some of them but can't think of where I would put one.

Unhappy Osprey

 He didn't like being disturbed.

Everglades Wonder Garden

 

For decades a big sign welcomed visitors to Everglades Wonder Garden, one of the oldest remaining roadside attractions in Florida.  In recent years, storms had battered the old sign.  When I went past recently I saw a pair of newly painted signs.

Parking Garage

 People in Fort Myers, including some on the city council, are complaining that the parking garage at the end of First Street isn't a color that fits with other buildings on the city's main drag.

Amazing the things people can find to complain about.

3. Red Reeds

 A third, and the newest, Chihuly installation is Red Reeds.  It was installed in the Norris Garden outside Baker Museum, against the concert hall of Artis Naples, as part of an exhibition from the Chihuly studio in 2020-2021.

At the end of the exhibition, Jay and Patty Baker (the philanthropists for whom the Baker Museum is named) and Jeannette and Herbert Evert combined to purchase the installation and donate it.

Red Reeds consists of a field of 145 glass pieces 123 inches (10.25 feet) in height, 512 inches (42.5) feet wide and 21 inches deep.

When hurricanes threaten Southwest Florida, like the recent visit from Hurricane Ian, Artis-Naples staff quickly disassemble the installation and store it.

A fourth Chihuly installation is a huge red chandelier in Artis-Naples' concert hall.  I will try to remember to photograph it and show it next time I visit the hall.

2. Blue Icicle Chandelier

 

A second and longtime Chihuly installation at Baker Museum is Blue icicle, a three-story chandelier consisting of 377 blown glass pieces.

It hangs in the center of the Baker Museum, bisecting the two wings of the museum.

Blue Icicle is 35 feet long.

1. Persian Seaform Ceiling

Baker Museum has four permanent installations from the Dale Chihuly studio. 

One is Persian Seaform Ceiling, which spans the length of an entire corridor on the third floor, sending vivid colorful patterns dancing across the walls and floors below as light filters in from above.

Paley Gates

20+ years ago these gates by metal sculptor Albert Paley were at the walled entrance to Naples' Baker Museum.  When the museum and its entrance were redesigned after serious 2017 damage from Hurricane Irma, the gates were placed in the same spot, but this time they are a free-standing sculpture. 

They are a nearly 11-foot work of formed and fabricated steel, stainless steel and bronze.

Nazi Drawings

 Baker Museum has a sobering exhibition of drawings by Mauricio Lasanski.  A son of Jewish immigrants who fled to Argentina from Lithuania, Lasanski moved to the USA and became a noted printmaker.  

Following the arrest and subsequent trial of Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichman in the 1960s, Lasansky was driven to create this disturbing series of 33 large-scale drawings.

Images include scenes in gas chambers and abuse of women, children and disabled. 

Lasanski criticized the Catholic church for turning a blind eye to the massacre of Jews, especially children.

Quite an emotional impact.

Mercato

 Some renovations at this upscale shopping center are going on behind decorated walls.

Linked to Monday Mural.

Fritzi

 Fritzi is a wire-haired dachshund that had recent back surgery.  His back is shaved and he is starting to walk again.  Fritzi's owner walks behind him with the dog's belly supported in a sling.  For now he walks as much as he (and his owner) can handle.  He is expected to recover fully in a couple of months.

Good luck, Fritzi.

Rosie

I like it when they do something, but this juvenile roseate spoonbill just poked around for a while.

Then it took off.  Got it!