new york chagall and genzken

toast value progression

Marc Chagall at the Jewish Museum on a very cold and snowy day. 

Isa Genzken: Retrospective at the MOMA

and  a little landscape drawing

Ink and Enamel

 New York City and Ink. 1.

Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China

  Duan Jianyu (and Odilon Redon)

 

Project to Extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters: Project for Extraterrestrials

Cai Guo-Qiang

 http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2013/ink-art

 Christopher Wool Guggenheim Museum 

Orizaba: descent

 I wanted to lower into the crater to explore, but we had no rope. Don had been trying to get me to climb this mountain for years, and so there we were, at the top of the mountain.

 This is the Whippet, on the way down I stopped to talk with everyone who was still climbing up the mountain. In addition to our party, there was a group of Mexican army mountaineers climbing the mountain below us.  I stopped to talk with them also, to practice my Spanish. I was feeling quite elated, especially since my feet were warming up and I was climbing down. So I decided to start bounding down the mountain, showing off advanced crampon leaping technique. Unfortunately, one of my crampons got caught on my gator, and I was heading head first down the hard icy glacier.  Both my pole and Whippet had flipped out of my hands, and I was sliding with 1500 feet of glacier, then a cliff below me.

Spence at the summit

 I managed to turn around in the self arrest position, but did not dare put my crampons down, which would have caused a back flip and probably a broken leg, so I drove my knees into the snow and ice and somehow came to stop 40 feet below the Mexican army climbers. I am sure they thought...what is he doing!!??
I think the angels saved me again. 

Darren and Jennifer

 We took the same jeep blanco down the trail, our car went first because we had all the altitude sickness sufferers. It is a beautiful landscape. I was so happy when we got down, I took the much needed shower and went out to buy some mole poblano for the dinner that they were making for us. On the way home, the next morning, there was an endless pilgrimage along the freeway and the streets of every city toward the basilica of the Virgin of the Guadalupe. 

People were riding bicycles, families were riding in the back of trucks, there were icons and pick up trucks made into shrines.

Orizaba: the summit

I knew it was going to be cold and the last thing I did was melt the snow and boil the water to put in the water bottle in the bottom of the sleeping bag. It was completely dark by 7, and we planned to get up at 3:00 am to start the hike. I was up at 12:30, set the alarm for 2:30, and then methodically got ready in the dark.  I had put everything in the sleeping bag except for my boots and I knew immediately that my feet were going to be cold. I made the hot chocolate, and Don set off first to stay warm while Spence and I got ready. It was dark but a clear night.  We put on the crampons, helmets, they had ice axes and I had Whippet.
 The first problem was finding the route up the mountain in the dark.  We knew there were several routes, but we found some flags marking the way.  The second problem was hiking at that altitude, which required many traverses up the huge glacier.  The most worrisome problem was my feet, which were very cold, I could not stop for even a minute. Slowly the sun begin the lighten the sky, and we saw the headlamps of the rest of the group far below us.  They had stayed up all night and started hiking around 1:00 am. It was cold, but my down mittens worked great, I just did not want my toes to freeze off. After many long and beautiful hours, I reached the rim of the volcano, where the sun was shining.

 The rim of the crater of a volcano!  I walked along the rim of the crater toward the summit, and stopped just below the summit to wait for the others.  I make a platform where the volcanic soil met the snow, and took my boots off to warm my feet in the sun.  18, 461 feet.  In the distance, Popocataptl had a large plume of steam. The Mexican climbing group we met yesterday said that they climbed it frequently and would be glad to take us up. Next project: climb an active Mexican volcano.

 After a while, we were joined by a few other climbers, and unfurled the Brighton banner. Along the way, we could see the shadow of the mountain being cast into the distance.