Providence, so close

Providence, Rhode Island is only an hour from Boston and I recently made a one night jaunt there with my son Matt. Home of Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and Johnson and Wales Cooking School Providence has beautiful old houses, great restaurants and a colorful history.

We stayed in the pleasantly quirky, tastefully minimal Dean Hotel,

which I am only mentioning here because I found it interesting--

there was fresh creativity and thoughtfulness in the design, such as

bunk beds in some of the rooms, nice not only for children, but young adults (or old adults) can share a room dubbed "the classmates" with two sets of bunk beds for $120 a night.

As the mother of three young adults, that kind of thinking impresses me, 

and as someone on the costly Boston---New York axis, the prices delight me.

John White Alexander, The Blue Bowl 1898

We had lunch at the charming Duck and Bunny,

across the street from a restaurant that advertised 

Ethiopean and Eritrean Comfort Food,

and I couldn't stop thinking about the phrase

Eritrean Comfort Food,

wondering who are the souls in need of it.

We spent a lot of time in the RISD Museum,
 a large, rambling place

with an encyclopedic collection. 

It was a little haphazard and a lot of fun.

Mary Elizabeth Furber (11 yrs) and Matha Nelson Furber (3yrs)
painted by self-taught traveling artist Joseph H. Davis, 1830's.

A room of classical art bumped up 
against one of contemporary minimalism,

and then suddenly you were in Egypt!
Or Provence! Or surrounded by 1950's design icons!

Striding Lion, Babylon 604-562 BCE

Foreground: Joan Mitchell Mooring 1971
Background: Grace Hartigan Homage to Matsse 1955

Andy Warhol,  Race Riot Birmingham, 1963

Buddha, Japan circa 1150-1200

It was a pleasant evening for wandering. Galleries were open,
we found a good dinner and a river walk.

Breakfast was at a cafe where little two-seater tables

had charming flower arrangements .

I love it when people care so much about flowers.

         

a florida weekend

When I got off the plane in Florida it was like walking outside after a matinee movie. Bright and startling, an altered universe from the cold and snow I left behind. One day I want to find what's left of the Florida wilderness, go to the Everglades, the Keys, some little islands that will show me what it was before it was paved over, something swampy and scary with wild orchids and alligators. Alligators are around--on golf courses for example, but I'd like to see one in its native habitat. I don't even know if those places still exist outside of books and movies.

You probably know by now how much I form my images of the world by reading. The last time I went to Florida, two years ago, I wrote a post about that, sort of. (here) In that post I also wrote about my brother in law's bit of Florida wilderness.

Since then, he's added goats and a donkey to his menagerie.

Anyway, this trip was about family. You know my father in law recently died, and we went to spend time with my mother in law. I grew up in a small, quiet family, and now I have almost no family, but the one I married into is big and noisy. And it turns out that big and noisy can be good for mourning.  There was more laughter than tears mixed in with the memories, the presence of the absent.

I saw herons and lizards and lots of pink flowers

 and ate some really good fried chicken,

outside, at a picnic table.

"It can look brand-new and man-made, but as soon as you see a place like the Everglades or the Big Cypress Swamp or the Loxahatchee you realize that Florida is also the last of the American frontier. The wild part of Florida is really wild, the tame part is really tame…fifty acres of Everglades dry up every day, new houses sprout on sand dunes, every year a welt of new highways rises. Nothing seems hard or permanent; everything is always changing or washing away. Transitions and mutation meld into  each other, a fusion of wetness and dryness, unruliness and orderliness, nature and artifice."

--Susan Orlean, The Orchid Thief

Venice in Winter

Canal Grande

Twilight soccer, Campo San Giacomo 

Titian, Basilica dei Frari

Canals, calles, and campos.

The continuous echo of church bells and lacy palazzos. 

Venetian red.  The Bridge of Sighs.

Boats and cobblestones, no cars.

An empty museum.

 Ethereal, fragile.

The Learned, The Fat, and The Red

Bologna: La Dotta, La Grassa, La Rossa. 

The Learned, The Fat, and The Red. 

The famed university, oldest in Europe (and many bookstores). 

The food! (more on that later) 

and (depending on who you ask) 

its red rooftops or its far-left/Socialist/Communist political leanings.

A vital, thriving, non-touristy city. 

Exceptionally walkable with 40 km of porticos,

and severe limits on center city traffic. 

Beautiful, medieval, small, complex.

La Passeggiata,

that occurs every evening in villages, town, and cities throughout Italy.

Families and friend stroll, gossip, chat, flirt, pause 

for a gelato, espresso or aperitif, to admire a baby or a small dog.

I adore this ritual, observed it, happy and envious.

I got sick right after I returned. A cold, a virus, but also 

my reluctance to return here from there, 

my way of stretching out the space between,

 savoring it, imprinting it deeper, 

so when I fully return I will be a little different than when I left.

And the food. Oh, the food. The freshest, most flavorful pastas, 

deeply savory cured meats and cheeses. 

The challenge of ordering from salumerias and formaggerias

with my thirty words of Italian.

Fruit and vegetables from hot wild places to the south.  

Every day I bought clementines from Calibria, 

the leaves still fresh, the fruit so sweet.

The scent of political engagement everywhere, especially in the university quarter.

Memorial to the victims of the 1980 Bologna train station bombing that killed 87, 

and the victims of two train bombings. 

The horror in France occurs while I am in Italy, 

and I am reminded how small and strong and vulnerable and unique these countries are.

A room with a view.

(If you missed it, my previous post was about New Years Eve in Bologna.)

Buon Anno!

Happy New Year, friends! A little late, but traveling gives me a fresh perspective on things, and I return with resolutions, born of new experiences. One is to get out more and let myself have fun. 

I spent New Years Eve in the 13th century Piazza Maggiore in Bologna, where precisely at midnight the ritual of burning away the old year, symbolized by a huge sculpture that a different artist makes every year, began. It was spectacular and I really enjoyed the whole scene. 

I'm home now, and will be back with more soon. xo, Jen

back to Provincetown

Four days of harbor, bay and ocean; sunrises and sunsets, fishing boats, cottages and art galleries. I took a painting workshop with Christie Scheele at the Provincetown Art Museum. Christie's paintings are stripped down, luminous landscapes. I've long admired her work and felt I could learn a lot from her, and I did. After painting steadily for a year, noodling (phaffing, Amanda?) around with different styles, I may be getting to a place of my own in my paintings. Will post more on this in the Orchards in Space blog…

Summer is truly winding down. I look forward to some autumn weekends in the country and another trip to Brooklyn. For once I am not dreading winter, am looking past my usual stacks of books (a/k/a safety net) and into burrowing into my studio and painting. I hope this time of transition is going well for you too.

xo,

Jen

More Provincetown posts:

In Provincetown

Charming Houses, Secret Gardens

Sunset Anarchy

Cafe Solo

London bits & bobs

Five days in London. Glorious weather--low 70's, just a bit of rain, so I spent a lot of time outside.
The river path along the Thames is a beautiful way to see the city. (Thanks to Petra for the suggestion.)

Riding the bus is another great way to view the city.

This is the only cat I saw in London.

English English.

Boot sales, wellies, lorries, elevenses, whip rounds
and summer tidys.

It seems a gentler language than American English 

where boots are trunks and wellies are boots.

Another peek at the glorious flower market.

The amazing food markets. I went to the Borough Market twice in five days.

I wish I could have taken some of these home to my sausage loving sons.

Kew Gardens. Deserves a post of its own.

(prepare for an abundance of roses and water lilies)

 Street art, East End.

Really my favorite thing to do in a city is walk.
See the various neighborhoods, watch the people,
look for the small things that give a place character.

Browsing the used books stores on Charing Cross.
(Here, gifts for the son who loves classic mysteries
and the one who loves language and politics.)

A Turner sky

and a Turner painting, at the fantastic Tate Modern,

which also deserves its own post

(maybe on the other blog).

Best sign ever.

London flower market

I slipped off for a long weekend in London.

The Columbia Road Flower Market stole my heart.

A narrow charming street in London's East End

packed with flowers.

The call of "Two for a fiver" and "Three for a tenner"

echoing down the street

                                                        like a choir in a cathedral of flowers.

I agonized over what to buy, to brighten my hotel room,

and settled on purple stock, yellow freesias, and thistles.

Three for a tenner.

Great people watching too.

The sight of all those flowers made me giddy, 

but watching the interactions, choices, conversations,

listening to the wonderful range of accents

made it that much better.

 One day I'd like to tour England's gardens, flowers shop and markets.

Is it surprising that in a city of great historic sights and museums

one of my favorite things is the flower market?

What sorts of thing light you up when you travel?