Gleanings of the Week Ending May 03, 2025

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Foraging Violets – I have a lot of violets growing in my yard…and I am going to start harvesting them for salads. Why buy fresh greens when there is such a plentiful supply that I can pick just before I eat them?

The Unexpected Science of Staying Happy – An article about the World Happiness Report. The U.S., Canada, and Switzerland—all once top 10 contenders—have dropped out of the top 20 for the first time since the report began. That decline is linked to a drop in social trust and a rise in what researchers call “deaths of despair,” especially among men over 60​.

The 120-Year-Old Tiny Home Villages That Sheltered San Francisco’s Earthquake Refugees – A different perspective on history….more substantial than tents.

Exquisite Street Photography Celebrates the Different Moods of New York City at Night – More umbrellas than I expected.

Emily Cole, Daughter of Hudson River School Icon, Shines in Overdue Museum Show – She became a porcelain painter (botanicals) and painted in her father’s studio…. exhibiting her work a what is now the Thomas Cole National Historic Site.

Relics of a Red World in Bighorn Basin – Satellite image of “red beds” in northern Wyoming and Southern Montana formed when the land was part of Pangea and there were extreme wet/dry seasons causing hematite in the rocks to oxidize (rust). The area is rich in fossils and oil/gas reserves.

Tree Rings Bear Witness to Illegal Gold Mining Operations in the Amazon, New Study Finds – The miners use liquid mercury which is then burned to obtain the gold….releasing toxic mercury into the air. Core samples from trunks of fig trees show the mercury levels…when they ramped up and how substantial they were/are.

Smoke from US wildfires, prescribed burns caused premature deaths, billions in health damages - Researchers estimated that smoke from wildfires and prescribed burns caused $200 billion in health damages in 2017, and that these were associated with 20,000 premature deaths. Senior citizens were harmed the most.

Check Out the First Confirmed Footage of the Colossal Squid, a Rare and Enigmatic Deep-Sea Species – This was a young one….only a foot lot. They can grow to be 23 feet long

The Only Ancient Greek Theater on the Ionian Islands Is Finally Unearthed – It was discovered in 1901 but was reburied after their survey…and olive groves and makeshift warehouses eventually covered the site. The site was abandoned during the reign of Roman Emperor Augustus.

Springfield Art Museum – October 2023

One of my favorite places to enjoy with family that visits me is the Springfield (Missouri) Art Museum. This time it was the backup plan; we had originally planned a visit to the botanical garden, but the day was cold and wet.

The museum was not busy, but we weren’t the only people there. We wandered through the Tradition Interrupted exhibit (August 19-November 12). I enjoyed the pieces….recognizing many of the traditions and enjoying the descriptions about the way they were interrupted. Trying to capture the pieces photographically is always part of a museum visit for me; I keep a small camera that fits easily in my purse rather than lugging my bridge camera; it provided optical zoom giving me more options than my phone does. My favorite piece in this gallery is one called Teardrop (middle image below)…a metal piece that imitates embroidery or lacework. The lighting is part of the work and I was only able to capture the shadows immediately behind it; there were also shadows on the ceiling and floor!

The museum is also hosting a series of exhibits in collaboration with Missouri State University. The one showing now is titled Blue on White (July 22 – December 3) – featuring Chinese ware (with connections to Persia)…appropriated through imitation and export to Japan, Europe, and the Americas. Curated by MSU students.

The Creating an American Identity exhibit is a semi-permanent rotating exhibition from the museum’s collection of over 10,000 objects. The middle one below is an early Jackson Pollock – created in the 1930s before he became famous for ‘drip’ paintings!

There is a copper sculpture that I’ve seen every time I have visited the museum. It is difficult to photograph because the background is always so cluttered. This view is about as good as it gets!

The Survey of Ceramic Art is also a semi-permanent exhibit. Even if many of the pieces are ones I’ve seen before, I like ceramics so much that it is probably my favorite exhibit/gallery in the museum. This visit, I thought about how lighting of objects makes a big difference….but often reflections from glass cases is problematic; it’s more apparent in photographs but it distracts even when simply viewing the pieces.

I waited until the end to photograph the Chihuly chandelier in the foyer of the museum. It’s titled Autumn Persians and Feather Chandelier. I zoomed in to eliminate a spotlight; the lighting of the piece is required…but it can also be a distraction.

Most of the plantings around the museum were fading fast…and it was too wet to walk around for botanical photography.

The museum was a great way to spend a wet fall afternoon!

Springfield Art Museum

I’ve been to the Springfield Art Museum several times. There are new exhibits often enough to make it a great activity anytime but particularly on a hot afternoon or a rainy day. I always enjoy seeing the Chihuly piece (glass) in the foyer and Anne Lindberg’s tilted sky (Egyptian cotton thread stretched over a hallway) again.

The first gallery we walked through had appealing vessels – my two favorites are the ones with wavy decorations that reminded me of prairie grasses/flowers.

I experimented with different perspectives of the fountain in the courtyard. My favorite is probably the most magnified…the way the water flattens and swirls once it makes the leap from above.

In another gallery, ceramic swirls caught my attention. Some were 3-D spirals…others more complex interlocked curves.

As we walked outside, we noticed the plantings done to control erosion now that the renovation along Fassnight Creek has been completed.

A butterfly and ladybug were enjoying them too!

Every visit to the museum includes something new – new exhibits or just noticing something that I didn’t during the previous visit.

3 Free eBooks – November 2019

So many wonderful books available online. Here are three I explored this month.

Freer Gallery of Art. Arthur M. Sackler Gallery; Smithsonian Institution. Annual Records for 2003-2010. Asiatica 2003-2010. 8 volumes available from Internet Archive here. Images (and short articles) from the annual record of these museums. I choose a sample image from each of the 8 volumes.

Mason, Otis Tufton. Aboriginal American Basketry: Studies in a Textile Art without Machinery. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1904. Available from Internet Archive here. A large book – over 800 pages with over 200 plates (a few in color). Some of the baskets are simple and utilitarian…other are works of art (and maybe still utilitarian as well).

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Cort, Louise Allison. Seto and Mino Ceramics. Washington: Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution. 1992. Available from Internet Archive here. Dark-glazed, conservative Chinese-inspired ceramics from two Japanese ceramics centers.

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