Minneapolis Institute of Art

A wander around the Institute’s permanent collection followed the visit to the Martin Luther exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Here are some of my favourites.

The hanging sculpture is Ahab by Alexander Calder (1953). If anyone knows what the piece on the wall is, I’d be grateful to hear from you.

I’m a sucker for ancient Chinese horses. Here’s Celestial Horse, a 1st century creation from the Eastern Han dynasty.

This is Duluth Living Room created by John S Bradstreet in 1906.

Who doesn’t enjoy anything by Chuck Close? This is Frank (1969).

In the gallery of works by artists from Minnesota is this painting by Julius Holm. Tornado over Saint Paul. (1893)

the essence of a rainy day’s driving

Just because the rain decides to hang around for the day doesn’t mean there isn’t beauty to be found on a road trip. We followed the Mississippi River south from La Crosse to Prairie du Chien this morning, and ran into some heavier rain later in the day which saw me having a play with the lights coming onto the windscreen from oncoming traffic. In a few short hours we drove from Minnesota via Iowa into Wisconsin.

I spotted a bald eagle today, not in the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge but on a median strip on the I 90 E. We saw a large flock of pelicans as we met up with the river and what may have been white geese at the Brownsville Lookout.

We wondered, “Why are most barns painted red?”. We enjoyed the autumnal orange of seasonal house decorations with pumpkins as the hero.

We saw houses on stilts along the river near Harper’s Ferry. We dodged a falling rock near Marquette. We felt for the raccoons and other critters that didn’t quite make a successful road crossing.

We heard the story of Indian burial mounds at the Effigy Rounds National Monument and ventured out of the visitor centre in the rain to see those closest to cover.

A coal-fired power station sits right on the river at Lansing. The further east we go, the more red splashes appear on the trees. The leaves lie wet on the bitumen after they fall. A wet day. A good day.

snapshots from a moving vehicle – Minnesota

It’s pork, corn and soybean. It’s ethanol production and wind farms. It’s barns and small holdings. It’s waterfalls and the history of the first people of the nation.