We’d been basically stuck at home for the past few days via snow and stupid cold temperatures. Somehow pizza sounded pretty good for dinner tonight.
Love those olives
Alfredo sauce and bacon strips!
The car was a challenge to get the doors open, wipers free and 10 inches of snow removed. But with our son’s help we got it dug out. It needed to get started anyway, so our son picked up our online order at Papa Johns. Yummy and a nice break from cooking at home.
This Egyptian vessel has survived for over 5000 years. It is amazing that you can still observe it close up in the Newfields museum in Indianapolis.
This pot is about 14 inches tall
This artifact is identified in a museum information label as a Nagada II Vessel, titled Flamingos. It is dated 3400-3200 B.C. The pictures of the flamingos and the geometric lines are typical of other pots of the same vintage.
The 2022 season at Indy’s beloved dinner theater has a Tony Award winning musical opening next week. Their press release proudly states: Kinky Boots, the Tony Award-winner for Best Musical, struts onto the Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre stage for the first time in 2022, featuring music by Cyndi Lauper and a heartwarming tale that’s based on a true story. Opening Feb. 10, this high-heeled hit will bring plenty of sparkle to Beef & Boards’ 49th Season!
This vibrant musical not only won the Best Musical Tony, but also Best Original Score for the talented music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper, along with four additional Tony Awards, and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theatre Album.
Kinky Boots is on stage for 47 performances through March 27 in the intimate space of Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre. Tickets include the dinner buffet and select beverages. For tickets, visit beefandboards.com or call the box office at 317.872.9664.
We are so looking forward to seeing this marvelous show. The pandemic stifled so many months of B&B’s productions. It will seem like finally getting to go to visit a dear friend when we see Kinky Boots next week.
De Wain Valentine was born in Colorado in 1936. He is known for his translucent glass, fiberglass and polyester resin minimalist creations. Of the same time as Robert Indiana of the LOVE sculpture, Valentine has a fine piece in the same gallery room at Newfields (IMA) in Indianapolis.
Vintage 1970 Double Concave Circle (Deep Violet-Red)
Above is the ID plaque at the museum with information about Valentines art
This is an impressive 8 foot tall circle of polyester resin. What we found fascinating was the fact that this striking red circle is a mere 20 feet or so from the Robert Indiana LOVE sculpture. Both were made in 1970. De Wain Valentine lives in California, and developed a unique resin for large scale pieces.
LOVE outside at the IMA in the early years
Robert Indiana was born in 1928 as Robert Clark. His first use of the stacked four letters of “LOVE” was created for a Christmas card in 1964 for the New York Museum of Modern Art. This design creation led to the LOVE sculpture constructed of Cor-ten steel in 1970. LOVE was first put on display at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. It made the rounds of several American cities for five years until it returned to the IMA. After needed restoration was performed due to weathering of the steel, it is now displayed inside the museum building to protect it from the elements.
Standing in front of the LOVE sculpture will give you a feel for the size of the letters
Remember 8 cent stamps?
The design was also the inspiration of a USPS 8 cent stamp in 1973. Countless copies of the statue were made and sold over the years, however Robert Indiana had failed to copyright his design, thus he did not reap the benefits.
Masks were required for admittance to the Van Gogh experience at Newfields 4th floor gallery called The Lume. We went this week, and even with masks we enjoyed ourselves immensely. You can read another post about our adventure here.
Bench seating in the gallery enabled us to sit as long as we wanted.
Sher checking out the Van Gogh bedroom table, right from the painting!
While insuring social distancing we dropped our masks for this photo op in the Van Gogh bedroom
A highlight was seeing up close and personal Van Gogh’s painting “Sheaves of Wheat”, 1890
There was more than the digital presentations at the Van Gogh experience at The Lume. An activity room was set up with a few things to do. One was an interesting device that took a picture of your face, then offered you your choice of different Van Gogh styles.
Sher on left, Maj on right, both ala Vincent van Gogh styles
Sher and I both tried this “activity”. Hopefully they will soon email the digital copies to us, as was promised when we picked our style. Our pictures were displayed prominently on the wall for a time.
It is a very cold day, highs only in the mid teens. These two squirrels were “frozen” in place for several minutes on the trunk of this maple tree. There were no predators visible from our back door, however these guys seemed to be in the classic “Don’t move or that thing will catch and eat us!”
Driving along US 50 through Lawrenceburg, Indiana, it is hard to miss the large complex of tall red brick buildings and multiple silver tanks that are part of the former Seagrams Distillery plant that straddles the Lawrenceburg and Greendale city boundaries. The current owner/operator of the facility is now MGP Ingredients, based out of Kansas.
This building has six floors (two of which are underground) of aging racks for the 550 pound barrels of whiskey
The Cincinnati Magazine published a fascinating and detailed story about the history of the Seagrams Distillery, its current owners, and the ins and outs of the distillery business around the country. Read that article here.
This paragraph is from the Cincinnati Magazine article. “According to (Master Distiller Greg) Metze, it all starts with the water. MGP Ingredients sits on an aquifer, just a short walk from the Ohio River (most of the facility is actually in Greendale). That 56-degree water—low in sulfur and iron, high in calcium, and limestone-filtered—lets MGP make a lot of whiskey, and also have a continuous source for cooling the equipment. That’s why there were so many distilleries in Lawrenceburg in the 1800s. MGP’s began life as the Rossville Union Distillery in 1847; after Prohibition, in 1933, it was purchased by the legendary Canadian company Seagram. Right next door was Squibb, which opened in 1846 (though another distillery, Dunn and Ludlow, was on that patch of land in 1807) and became part of the Delaware company Schenley in 1933.”
The tower houses multi-story continuous column stills
We drove by the facility last weekend during our day trip in the area. It is huge, and what we found was that unfortunately it does not offer public tours of this historic distillery. At one time the Seagrams plant employed over 2800 at the distillery and bottling plant. It is truly an iconic business with a rich and colorful history.
Roadtirement 