A botanical artist’s holiday blog, some botanical experiences, and some literary and cinematic tourism… and unexpected finds and treasures
I’ve written a bit about our hols and picked appropriate photos to illustrate below, it’s long, and describes the best bits of our tour… but just enjoy the photos if that is all you want to (-_-)
We needed a break…
In October 2024 Alex and I headed off to the USA for a three-week trip. We had a lot to do, here is a bit of an overview… we are very happy to expand more if you are interested…
But first a bit of work and jetlag…
First stop, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, historically a city of steel (a lot of steel) and coal, and now a centre for conference, medical and robotics development… We arrived, with jetlag at the ASBA Conference on the first morning, I didn’t really know what to expect… what we found was a room filled with enthusiastic friendly botanical artists and cheerful artist adjacent partners offering hints and tips on places to go and eat and reflecting on what we had learned or were looking forward to. We came together over the next few days, met, ate, rested, chatted, and then dispersed to classes and day trips. I taught a class, I met with old friends and new social media friends, was able to put faces to the names, and came away feeling part of something bigger.
This conference was distinguished by the 17th Hunt International Series Exhibition. The exhibition takes place in a wood-lined exhibition space in the Hunt Library, on arriving we were also able to look around an exhibition on botanical fabric design, featuring historically printed furnishing fabric and designs, which was as you can imagine just up my street. The exhibition itself was a whirlwind, bursting at the seams, Carrie and her team impressively managed to corral the exhibiting artists for photos and thanks. My painting Arisaema ringens was picked to represent the exhibition on their marketing material, it now resides at the Hunt as part of their collection, which makes me very happy, that was a bucket list item. I was also so happy to meet up with Yoko Harada, my Arisaema sister from Tokyo, and some of the students I have taught at RBGE. What a night! I should have taken more photos.
Cool in Pittsburgh
Awesome Mexican eatery ‘Gordo’s Taco’s & Tequila‘ at the top of the Monongahela Incline, which in it’s self is fun, an historic incline up to Mount Washington.
The Cathedral of Learning is the most gothic library ever!!! A Gothic Revival 42 floor skyscraper which is the center of the University of Pittsburgh. Visiting it is the most Harry Potter I’ve ever felt, and I’ve been to that lovely library in Dublin, the night visit, the atmosphere and the company made it… Thanks to John Pastoriza Piñol for the heads up, and for spending the evening with us, Andreas Hentrich and Lucy Smith, we had fun times, good food (not in the library) and a bit of a chilly taxi drive home… Pitts is chilly in the evenings!
Pittsburgh Botanical Gardens, is more of a conservation project than a traditional garden, but was fascinating nonetheless, we learned all about the heavy industry and pollutants and how Pittsburgh is working to clean up the area. I was truly feeling a bit worse for wear with jetlag, but had a wonderful time. a good nap on the grass in the sun and really enjoyed the botanical kaleidoscope, I want one!
Next stop Colorado, and now a break…
Estes Park, lots of sleep and food, good good food
We flew to Denver and then drove up to Estes Park which sits at the entrance to the Rocky Mountain National Park. I was unprepared for the flatness and cultivation of the Great Plains extending to the horizon when we flew over Omaha and Nebraska, it was truly awe-inspiring and I could not pull my gaze away from my plane porthole. And then the mountains. They go BIG in the States…
Spine-tingling in Estes park
We stayed in The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, inspiration for the Stephen King novel ‘The Shining’. This was our respite after conferencing hard, and was most welcome. Our room, 217, was perfect, if slightly spooky, with a bust of the man himself Overlook (ing) , and we were haunted, fulfilling our Shining dreams. The hotel itself has an interesting history, we took part in various tours (with fantastic tour staff), and immersed ourselves in all things ‘Shining’! I really could geek out here for a long time on this topic, if you are interested, talk to me… The restaurants in and adjacent to The Stanley were so good, that we had double breakfast on our last day, with a civilized break in between, to go to the library, and then back to the restaurant.. but honestly, fantastic food.
Oh and there’s a frozen dead guy there, not an ancient bog or glacier person, a real and truly cryogenically frozen dead dude… that’s a bit weird, and they have a ‘Frozen Dead Guy Festival‘.
While up in the mountains we headed into the park to experience the Rocky Mountains (spot the elk) and the altitude, we got up to about 11,000 feet, not to be taken lightly!!! My usual yoga flow (at a mere 7,500 feet), undertaken for more than eight years at this point, was seriously tricky at 16% less oxygen. I fell in love with the golden aspen, willow and ponderosa pine. I could spend a while there getting to know some trees…
Boulder, Colorado
Well, I was excited about being in Boulder because that is where the good folks end up in Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’ (can you see a theme here) but also it’s a peach of a place, a bit bohemian and nicely laid back. We mainly trawled Pearl Street, and ate, and chilled (and looked to see if we could find Harold Lauders House on Arapahoe…)
Tea time
If you do go to Boulder, stop in at the Dushanbe Tea House, shipped from Tajikistan. The tea house is the most beautifully painted wooden structure with inner gardens and food and tea, really good tea. Boulder is also the home of the Celestial Tea company, so if you like your tea, you are sorted (we like our tea)
Denver, the mile high city!
Denver Botanical Gardens have a very impressive illustration suite, beautifully laid out with good equipment. The gardens were preparing for their Halloween festival so it was FULL of pumpkins grown at their farm on the outskirts of the city, I’d love to visit the farm, so we will have to make a repeat trip, I am looking forward to going back there some time.
Stepping into the bizarre
While there Miow Wolf – Convergence Station – was recommended to us, art immersion at its best, we partook of the crazy and thoroughly enjoyed, no spoilers here apart from the leaping dragon under the highway… if there is a Miow Wolf near you, go! It’s a serious trip!
We also went to the ‘ Wild Things‘ Maurice Sendak exhibition at the Denver Art Museum, this was pure hedonism for me, I’ve loved illustration since childhood, and had many of his wonderful illustrations in my life for as long as I’ve known how to look at books.
We stayed in a lovely B&B in Denver, the Queen Anne Urban B&B, and enjoyed gazing up at our hand painted Aspen ceiling, I picked the room months before little knowing that I’d fall in love with this tree.
We also made a trip to the Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre, where the Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains, 6,450 feet above sea level, the amphitheatre is made up of natural rock escarpments which create a perfect auditory experience. It was designed and built in 1936 by architect, Burnham Hoyt and the Civilian Conservation Corps, a program endorsed by Roosevelt, aimed at putting men to work during the Great Depression, they removed 50,000 tones of rock to create the immense staggered seating area. many many famous bands have played there, I’d love to see a gig next time (-_-)
Calling in at Portland, OR, the perfect place to chill…
We have dear friends in Portland Oregan, so we stayed with them for a week and gained a bit of balance after our whistle-stop tour of Colorado (when there’s art and plants its rude not to go see them…)
We visited Powels, the bookstore that takes up an entire city block, I got some Shirley Jackson and some Stephen Graham Jones which I have been promising myself for a long time, we went for multiple brunch, we drank kombucha… Portland standards!
New to us was the Lan Su Chinese Garden an oasis in the midst of the city. This beautiful garden incorporates the best of what I love about gardens, beautiful structure and attention to detail, allowing the visitor to hone in on the beauty of moss, cobbles, water, it was supreme, peaceful, and I could spend a lot of time there.
Visiting The Overlook or Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood
Recognise it? You should do! Thanks to Stanley Kubrick, the exterior of the Timberline Lodge is iconic in cinema history as the exterior of The Overlook, the haunted hotel in ‘The Shining’, and if you love Stephen King and you’ve seen the Shining multiple times… (-_-) you’ll love it too! I’m not getting into the book/film semantics here, I’m also a Kubrick fan, and I like the book, and the movie, and the TV series… If you want to get into them, talk to me…
I was very excited to see this building, we drove up from misty, rainy, Portland through the forest and slowly the trees began to get a coating of snow, which deepened as we climbed. The lodge sits at 6000 feet and is impressive and austere despite the beautiful Cascadian architecture which mimics the peaks of Mount Hood. It is built to withstand annual snowdrifts in excess of 20 feet lying up against the structure. I was so satisfied with the exterior, and the snow, and the whole atmosphere, that I hadn’t expected the beauty of the interior (not in the Kubrick film). It is indeed beautiful. The inside of the lodge is vast, despite its great size, it has a warmth from the all wooden structure on view, and the six-sided stone chimney stack, 90 feet high and 14 feet in diameter, with six massive hearths over two floors, is the perfect place to come in from the snow, curl up with a hot chocolate and a book.
The lodge was built in the 1930’s by the Works Progress Administration, another works group created during the Great Depression. Gargantuan trees were felled, squared off and used for the main structure, and everything else. It’s all wood, and there is whimsey and craftsmanship around each corner. There are carvings of local fauna capping the massive newel posts, carved wooden friezes. The furniture has been handcrafted from the same materials as the lodge, in 1930s deco rustic cabin style. The fixtures and fittings are cast iron wrought into beautiful shapes, some very art deco, check out the lamps in the photos above, some of the door furniture and some beautiful interior archways are more resonant of German Expressionist cinema, obviously made with passion and craftsmanship. Can you tell I liked it? I loved it!
We also drove to the coast and visited Astoria, do you recognise the rock from the Goonies? We were quite bemused by the tsunami warnings, slightly unsettling when visiting the beach, we finished our day out with a trip to the wreak of the Peter Iredale.
Last Stop – New York
ASBA 27th Annual International exhibition
I had two pieces at the Society of Illustrators in New York, so we stopped in to see the show. I think one of the things I loved most about this trip was the joy of finding new places you didn’t expect to love. The world is a wonderful place. The Society of Illustrators houses various exhibitions in different exhibition spaces, but there are illustrations everywhere, you have to be careful not to fall up or down the stairs because you are admiring the work on the walls! The exhibition space for ASBA was on the top floor, a lovely airy space, with a bar and seating areas, opening out to a small rooftop garden, another lovely hideaway in a big city. The exhibition was lovely, the calibre of the work high, and ASBA and the Society of Illustrators had created a program to include demonstrations, and illustration classes given by various artists which is fabulous to expand the reach of botanical illustration and to make it accessible to a larger audience. I hope that the membership of the Society of Illustrators came away with a renewed interest in botanical illustration.
When in New York…
With just a couple of days in NYC, we did our best to pack a few more things in…
New York Botanical Garden – notable for its parkland and extensive tree collection. It was pretty cold so we made our way to the glass houses once the sun had shifted behind the clouds. We had to depart the train to NYBG via a drawbridge, which was novel (-_-)
We found an Island in the Hudson, completely by chance! We were heading to the Whitney* which we had spied, but not gone into, on an earlier trip. We veered off course, ending up walking down 10th, decided to wander down that way, and then spied a fantastic planted island sitting on varying height stilettos in the river. So we had to check it out! Little Island is a centre for nature and art, with built in performance areas, pathways and nooks to sit quietly, among greenery and stunning views. The island is built on the former pier 55, the height differences allow for a topographical journey over the 2 acres and allows sunlight to proliferate into the water below, what a fantastic redevelopment, we walked all over it soaking it all in.
*On our way we passed the Flatiron building and encountered some extremely large Tyson & Paul marketing materials… 🙂
Portable Orchard #5 at The Whitney was a fantastic experience, this concept dreamed up in 1972 has been revisited, and boy did it tick my boxes! Portable Orchard #5 explores the need for a productive and sustainable food system in an imagined future where natural farming practices are obsolete and cannot be taken for granted… ummm. I also love The Whitney, it’s now at the top of our list to check what’s on in NYC if and when we can visit.
Finally, we walked the High Line, a 1.45-mile-long elevated linear park and greenway created on a former New York Central Railroad, back into the city and encountered the Giant Pidgeon (of which we had heard rumours), actual name ‘Dinosaur’ by Iván Argote. 16 feet tall, sitting on a display black at a junction of the Highline, surreal, and very pleasing!
And that’s it folks, thanks for reading (-_-)