Metropolitain @ NGA Sculpture Garden

This striking Hector Guimard "Metropolitain" Paris Metro station entrance, with its Art Nouveau flourishes, fits perfectly into the garden with its organic forms. I defy anyone NOT to like this.

Photos by Karen Carstens

There are so many interesting angles hidden among the endless twists and curves of this Guimard masterpiece.

I really could really never tire of looking at it! (Except when the park is overflowing with tons of folks during the summertime Jazz in the Park concert series, which is fun, but can get CROWDED! I prefer the park in its more peaceful, "normal" state, with DC residents and tourists alike trickling in and out of this beautiful oasis right off the National Mall - it really is a sculpture garden intended for the entire nation to enjoy!)

 FYI the Hirshhorn's sculpture garden is also interesting.

Spider @ NGA Sculpture Garden

I also love this spider that always freaks people out a tad when they first step into the garden. It looks like something out of a vintage Steven Spielberg film - "Invastion of the Spider Snatchers!" Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. (All photos by Moi + Photoshop ... )

Spider (1996), by Louise Bourgeois - Normal

Spider - Super Saturated

Spider - All Hued Up

Silver Tree @ NGA Sculpture Garden

I love this silver tree in the sculpture garden. I had not noticed it before it shimmered in the sunlight on Easter Monday, its forever smooth and naked "branches" twisting up towards the sky like a slick trick we are trying to play on nature. (I wonder if any birds have ever perched there?)

Photo by Karen Carstens

Easter Monday @ National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden

Yesterday (Easter Monday) the National Mall and the museums that make this city so marvelous were jam-packed with tourists viewing everything from aircraft to live insects to whisper-weight vintage silk gowns once worn by first ladies.

The National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden provides a welcome oasis of calm and is a great place to stop and rest inbetween visiting other museums on or near the National Mall.

The sculpture garden is an oasis of calm (Photos by Karen Carstens)

One of several entrances to this marvelous magical garden that enchants young and old alike.

Even the iron gates of the garden are like works of art.

The fountains and pool at the center of the garden invite people to relax and while away a few minutes - or hours - in reverie. La Reve. Der Traum. Il Sogno. Something we all long for.

These diagonal lighting effects were captured unintentionally, but I kind of like them.

The sculptures on view inside the garden never cease to fascinate - revisiting the garden is like rediscovering them every time. (Each sculpture is followed by its description stone - these little plaques are discreetly yet visibly placed near each work of art.)

This rabbit (Thinker on a Rock, 1997) could have many connotations - Rodin's famous "Thinker" of course springs to mind, as does Alice in Wonderland and even Giacometti (the Paris-based sculptor from the Italian Swiss Alps - he had several brothers who were also artists and designers). But it also reminds me of that outlandish "Donny Darko" film in which a juvenile yet deeply disturbed Jake Gyllenhall was haunted by that evil rabbit which represented death/the grim reaper (?) It's a Mad World!

Could this be a stair- um "chairway" to heaven?

This playful and quirky "Cheval Rouge(" (Red Horse) by Calder makes me think - only because of its title - of the Blue Rider Expressionist movement that was centered around Munich in 1911/12. When Franz Marc painted his famous "Blue Horse," people were shocked. Today it is a modern masterpiece.

Cool Building @ Manhattan

This building caught my eye as a work of art when I was strolling around Manhattan last weekend. Located in the NoHo area east of Washington Square and NYU, it was partially covered in a kind of free-flowing, sculptural "latticework" of sorts that was reminiscent of the organic, swirly stylings of Art Nouveau, but reinterpreted for a 21st-century urban setting.

Organic "latticework" just outside the building (Photos by Karen Carstens)

Front entrance with "latticwork" on either side

"Latticework" adjacent to front entrance

Mirrorred surface with a pattern that mimicks the "latticework"

Peering through the "latticework" on to the street

More of the mirrored surface

More of the grey "latticework"

A different type of mirrored surface

Somehow I also photographed myself taking photographs of this really cool building with my UMD iPod.

Karen Carstens (Photos by Karen Carstens)

I decided to play around with this image with Photoshop, making it "grainier" (ie "adding noise") ...

... as well as converting it into a black-and-white version. The sky really is the limit with Photoshop!

Here are some more of those funky "reflections" ...

As I lingered around the building and snapped these pics with my UMD student-issued iPod, a couple of young urban hipster types walked by. They also stopped and stared at the building for a minute. Then I heard one of them knowingly tell the other something along the lines of "Ah, yes, this is clearly by (so-and-so)."

But I did not, alas, quite catch the name of the artist or architect he was referring to.

It was a blustery day.