THE MIDWEST

                Typical view in this territory. This is a short walk from my home.                 

HONEY BEARS

I've got some nice springtime shots in the botanical I haven't posted but I could use some new material. This wall painting faces a parking lot in the Grand Centre (they use the British spelling) arts district. The figure is a squeezable container in which honey is commonly sold here. Why pick that? I get the reference to the visual arts and the symphony hall is nearby. However, the arena where the beloved hockey team plays is two or three miles away and I don't get the top hat at all. It's not like we have a lot of white tie events and such plutocrats as we got are much more discrete.          

DESPERATION

Seen in the parking lot of the botanical garden. I saw another car out on the street yesterday with a similar sign in the back window. Could this happen in any other modern industrialized country? I really don't know. We're the only one without national or provincial health insurance. Maybe the issue is as serious everywhere else. Comments?           

YOU FIGURE IT OUT

A few days ago we saw one of these metal sculptures in the garden that was a clever representation of the rock paper scissors game. How are we to interpret, though, horse scissors crane? Maybe it's just a visual representation of the complicated and simple things you can do with pieces of paper and something to cut them.               

GALLOPING NOWHERE

This installation at the metal as origami show seemed strange to me. The figures appear to be running or prancing horses but the flat metal construction makes them look so stiff. Kind of like me some days. In any event, they aren't getting away.                 

HUNTER AND PREY

I suppose you  could make smaller versions of these figures out of paper if you had good instructions and enough dexterity (which I don't). The metal acorn lies across a footpath from the squirrel, right under its nose, so to speak. The rodent's metal joints must be too stiff to reach it.             

THE PEACE OF PAPER BOATS

Back for a little more of the metal origami in our botanical garden. The paper boat or paper hat - it amounts to the same thing - is a simple, basic example of the paper folding art. Here, two of them float without ever moving in the lake of the tranquil Japanese garden. The scene looks static but the burgeoning spring is not.