Illustration Workation in New York - Part 4 - Extras

Alright! So after the library we also popped by the Grand Central Station. It was very cool, but very very busy.

And then we dashed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We only had about two hours to be there before closing so we didn't get to see everything, and the things we saw we didn't get a chance to appreciate as much as should. But here are some pictures anyhow:

Ceiling in the Greece section

That's just me

The Boxer

Some wonderful Greek ceramics

These were funny to upload to Facebook when it kept asking me to tag the faces

Egyptian wall

And a sucky cell picture of the fantastic armor and weaponry section

We saw phenomenal variety of famous paintings too, but there was no time to take pictures of all of them, and they're better documented somewhere else online anyhow.

On the last day (Saturday June 29th) we went to the Guggenheim but there were no photos allowed indoors so that's my only picture of it below:

I've got to say though - that the main portion of the James Turrell light show was wonderful - very meditative. Here's a lovely photo I've found on the internet of it...well part of it. The colour of the light changed slowly but constantly, and there were several light illusions located around the spiraling halls of the Guggenheim.

ames Turrell, Rendering for Aten Reign, 2013. Daylight and LED light. Site-specific installation, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York © James Turrell. Rendering: Andreas Tjeldflaat, 2012 © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

That's right - NO STOPPING! Go go go!

The end!

Illustration Workation in New York - Part 3 - Extras

Happy Tuesday!

Today I'll just be throwing on some photos and random stories that happened during our trip.

Let's start with the New York subway system.
First of all - it's huge! So many different lines, stations, transfers, and travel options. This makes transit in this city quite fast, but possibly confusing at times. My favourite part was that transit was super cheap, compared to Vancouver. In New York one can buy a weekly unlimited rides metro pass card for $30 dollars. And the city is huge, and there was no 'zoning' as far as we were aware. To compare in Vancouver for $30 dollars you can ride unlimited for 3 days (through most of the Metro Vancouver area) if you get a day pass for each of those days. Don't get me started on this.
Anyway - lots of fun things can happen on the NY subway. There are people who sing and even break-dance when the train is moving. And my favourite part was seeing these ads inside:

"The Cheese Dunce's Brain cannot process the bold flavors and fine, natural ingredients of Finlandia cheese. Hence the title Cheese Dunce."

"The Cheese Masochist loves the pain of denying himself the natural ingredients of fine Finlandia Cheese."

My least favourite part of the NY subway experience was having a spider fall on my arm somewhere in the tunnels. It could have been worse. It could have fallen on my head.

Now for some pictures from the NY library:

I wonder what that cluster of green lights is...a ghost?

Wonderful exhibit on historic children's books

Alice in Wonderland

Participating in the interactive part of the exhibit

Part of a book arch

Maurice Sendak section

The Blue Fairy Book

Randolph Caldecott

What pop up books should aspire to

William Blake pages

"The Frog Princess" - a Russian folktale which is one my favourite books/stories from my childhood.

In the gift shop I found this little treasure - best pun ever!

Inside the library itself:

Look! It's the ghostly green lights again!

And here too. Ok, fine. They may have something to do with my camera metering the light fixtures, but it's more fun to think of them as apparitions, so shush.

There's me, pretending to read a book. though I did actually read some of them later, as you'll see in a sec.

Glancing around at the shelves I spotted some old bibliographical dictionaries. So I looked up my last name in some Polish books, where my fathers lineage supposedly stretches from.

possible relative?

And look! My very own name twin, with a different spelling though. I like how there's no death date there.

So, when I got home I Googled this Maria Olszewska and found this Wikipedia entry. Pretty neat. We may be related, or we may not, but still a neat find. Here's a couple of nice pictures of her from the web:

Wow, ok - this post is getting long with all these pictures. So I think I'll just keep stretching this adventure on and have a post again next week about the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, and something else that I'm forgetting right now.

Cheers!