MoseleyWorld

Saxon’s pre-school, The Learning Tree School, is having their Spring Auction and Party,Bella Notte
on Thursday, April 8.

Somehow, I got volunteered to be in charge of the class art project that will be auctioned off. I collaborated with Saxon’s teacher, Ms. Ruth, and her class to create a work of art called Learning Tree Hands.

If you guessed that I was trying to create a photograph of a clean, perfectly-symmetrical circle from their little hands, you would be absolutely correct. Seriously, what was I thinking? Initially deflated at my inability to nail the shot I had preconceived, but when I returned to the studio, I realized three and four year olds are rarely perfect and rarely clean. So, I thought this was a perfect portrait of little Learning Tree Hands, illustrating both the independence and the differences/similarities of the children.

Using the image, I created the class art project (titled, Learning Tree Hands) as a limited-edition, ready-to-hang (no frame required!) metallic gallery wrap. Hopefully, parents will see this as being perfect for their child’s room, playroom or some other fun place in their house and start a bidding war for charity.

Learning Tree Hands | 16×24 Color Metallic Gallery Wrap | Limited edition of 10. (#1 of 10)
Photograph made on long-lasting metallic paper and “wrapped” around a 1.5″ hardwood canvas stretcher frame.

P. S. Saxon’s little hands are at the bottom, 6 O’Clock, pink sweater.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…No, not Christmas. March Madness.

Check out expert picks at ESPN. Stop whining about time. Surely you’re not busier than Prez Obama who had time to fill out his bracket that features KU, Villanova, Kentucky and K-State in the final four.

The MoseleyWorld competition is here. Play me?

It’s becoming almost as popular (at least by the media) to hate Google as it is to hate Wal-mart. But, I challenge you to watch the Google commercial that aired during the Super Bowl and not find it endearing. Google did a great job of giving a personality to a HUGE company while demonstrating not only what their product is, but how well it works.

Sorry, this ad contained no talking animals or babies, gonad punching, football or guys in their underwear (whoa!). But maybe that’s why it was a breath of fresh air, a departure from the lowbrow tone taken by most of the commercials aired during the big game. BTW, who dat!

A couple of pictures of the girls, fresh out of the camera. Have a great weekend.

samantha - 17 months

saxon - 3 years old

More photos from the September trip to Europe with my father (part one here ). It’s been difficult to narrow down a large set of photographs to a user-friendly number!

breakfast at a Viennese coffee house, Cafe Pruckel, which opened in 1903. The cafes in Vienna were the meeting spots of day in late 19th century / early 20th century.

what year is this? 1955?

take your pick of newspaper to read, a daily offering at cafes for decades.

A statue of Mozart found in the Burggarten (court garden) which was made after Napoleon’s army demolished the defensive structures which previously occupied the land. It served as a private royal garden for the Habsburg family, from the time of its design (1818) until the end of the empire in 1918. The Neue Burg section of the Hofburg Imperial Palace is in the background.

The way to fold the Imperial Palace Napkin is still a closely-guarded secret. The "royal bread holder" is still used at state dinners today. Only two people know how and they pass it down to the next generation of royal napkin folders before they die. The silver collection tour at the Imperial Palace was one of my favorite museums. Seeing all the different serving pieces and the centerpiece dessert service with ceramic cream cups Queen Victoria sent as a gift of friendship to Emperor Franz Joseph in 1851 was fascinating.

People hanging out at the Museums Quartier (called "the MQ" by locals).

lunch at the Naschmarkt Deli. Spinach salad with a disk of grilled goat cheese, fresh-baked bread and a glass of Grüner Veltliner. The Naschmarkt is Vienna’s open-air, mile long food market.

St. Stephens (Stephansdom ) Cathedral. Consecrated in 1147. The towers were finished in 1433 and are still the highest point in the Vienna skyline. The pattern on the roof is comprised of 230,000 glazed tiles.

We took a train to Salzburg, which is about 150 miles from Vienna. Salzburg, the 4th largest city in Austria (pop 150,000), is famous to Americans as the setting for the Sound of Music, you know as in "the hills are alive with…"

Salzburg is famous with Europeans for being the birthplace of Mozart and the location of the world-renowned music festival, the Salzburg Festival . In the middle of Mozartplatz (Mozart Square) they had a wine bar with some very relaxing-looking seating. Even though it wasn’t five o’clock (11 am?), I decided I better investigate.

so, while i hung out with Mozart, dad, segway-ed his way around Salzburg. Salzburg is a fun little city. We were only there for a day, but could have spent 2 or 3 days there seeing everything. Some more sights from Salzburg follow: