Wonderment in the Arb

When one wanders upon beautiful unexpected treasures it warms the heart. This is a big thank you to all who leave their mark in a positive way in public places for all to enjoy. I found this installation in the Arb a week ago and have been sharing my find with everyone who will listen. This is one of the reasons I love the Arb as much as I do. Art among nature is way cool.

More Arb images

Easter Island Heads

I found these sculptures in the Nichols Arboretum in the spring of 2007. If you look closely you'll see that they are small heads fashioned after the mysterious stone carvings on Easter Island. This mystery has always been of interest to me, so you can imagine my delight to encounter these while walking one afternoon. I loved this piece so much that I wanted to make a flip book showing the approach to the sculptures while walking toward them. Unfortunately my camera broke after this photo was taken, so this will have to do in it's place. It's as close as I could get before it's demise.

I was never able to find out who made these delightful pieces. They remained in place for about two or three weeks and then disappeared. This is my personal thanks to the artist for sharing their vision with the rest of us.

Yellow is the IT color!

HAPPY MAY DAY!

Yellow is the color you are going to see a lot of this spring. On who, has yet to be seen, but it's in all the stores and magazines. The word is, if you can't wear a yellow dress, than wear yellow accessories.

Even my dog, Cooper, is catching on to the trend

 as seen here at the Arb. These daffodils (all 20,000 of them) were planted in 2003 and bloomed for the first time in 2004 as part of an art installation by Susan Skarsgard. It is a spectacular sight to behold. Now is the time!

Finally, click here to see a beautiful dance by yellow costumed dancers as pictured here. This is quite a lovely and magical clip. The "fan" behind the dancer is really many, many arms. Watch and see the mirage come to life!

Squirrels in the Arb

The Arb is a 123 acrer park in the middle of Ann Arbor. A fabulous place to go and get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Lower Michigan recently had an invasion of the Emerald Ash bore which crawls between the bark and cellulose of a tree and kill it. As a creative way to deal with the left over stumps, squirrel art was born! 

This other photo is a close up of a tree that has been killed by this bore and it's aftermath. People have also taken a little liberty with the lower part in the picture.