Shared Experience - Mirror Lab

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My daughter sent some pictures from a recent tour of the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab at University of Arizona where she is a graduate student. The ease that we can take and send pictures now makes it so much easier to share experiences across distances.

The picture at the left has some orange stairs toward the right of mirror being constructed; they give some concept of the scale of the place. These are large mirrors! The mirrors are made of borosilicate glass - which is what Pyrex used to be before the 1980s. At the very last their reflective surface will be coated with aluminum.

See the slide show below for other pictures of the lab.

Quote of the Day - 03/12/2012

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The sun was low in the west. The last of its light struck gold from the shale wall and turned the subdued greens of the desert a brighter shade. Above the cliffs, the sky was a turmoil of clouds, round and fierce, their bellies sagging close to the mesa. Sunset fired their edges and cast deep purples into their ephemeral canyons. - Nevada Barr in Borderline (An Anna Pigeon Novel)

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Nevada Barr writes mysteries set in National Parks - in this case, Big Bend National Park.

This description reminds me of vacations in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona….and that it would be good to be there again. What about you?

Earrings as Travel Mementos

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Spoons, shot glasses or mugs are popular mementoes of travel. I've chosen earrings. They don't have the state or country name emblazoned on them...but they bring back good memories quite well. Some other advantages they have as mementoes:

 

  • they're small so easy to pack
  • they're relatively inexpensive, and 
  • I get reminded of a travel adventure every time I wear them! 

 

Some of my favorites are shown below.

 

 

From Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico in the past decade...but also reminding me of earlier visits. The first was in the 1970s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the Black Hills of South Dakota more than a decade ago. It was an early summer visit: baby buffalo, pink granite outcrops, pine pollen dust everywhere, delicate crystals in a cave, gold mine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Corning and Ithaca, New York. Many trips in the past 5 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Falling Water (Frank Lloyd Wright house) in Pennsylvania. It was a road trip taken when my daughter was learning to drive - a stop on the homeward bound part of the loop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From a very short visit to Key West, Florida with my sister. We were late driving down from Fort Lauderdale but the drive back across the causeway the next afternoon was glorious.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From a quick trip tour of Phoenix, Arizona. It was one of the few times I took an afternoon to tour before catching a plane home from a business meeting. These were from the Heard Museum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Stillwater, Oklahoma. These are from a mid-1970s wedding held outdoors. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Tucson, Arizona purchased during my last road trip.

Quote of the Day - 1/11/2012

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To say nothing is out here is incorrect; to say the desert is stingy with everything except space and light, stone and earth is closer to the truth. - William Least Heat-Moon

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When we think of deserts, sand dunes are likely the first image we have…space and light…sand (a phase of stone turning to earth dust)…the blueness of the sky a welcome change from the mono-color of the sand.

Another image is of a lone saguaro cactus. I’ve made several trips to locations within the Sonoran desert (the saguaro’s desert) over the past year; while the saguaros don’t grow as closely as trees in deciduous forests, there are indeed forests of them. And there are lots of plants growing in the rocky soil around them. It would be hard to walk cross country and not be caught by the thorns almost all the vegetation seems to have. The vegetation creates a fortress for the land. There is a beauty in these places that hold their own before casual interlopers.

Do we look at land and see ‘nothing’ because it isn’t in a form we know how to exploit - to grow food, to generate energy? The desert is a place to recognize that too often we decide to change something before we understand it. 

Art in the Tucson Airport

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Airports are usually hectic, stressful places. There is a lot of 'hurry up and wait' going on prior to finally getting on a plane. Our mental checklists for boarding pass, drivers license, easy off/on shoes, to check or not check luggage, food, etc. often consume our attention.  

There comes a point that the checklists are satisfied as well as they can be; rather than diving immediately into escapist reading - take a deep relaxing breath and a look around. I'm highlighting what I saw in the Tucson airport recently in the pictures below...but just about every airport has art. Does it ameliorate the stress and chaos of the airport? Maybe not completely but is certainly is a step in the right direction and I appreciate the airport authorities that have made it available.

 

The picture above is the front and back of a shirt in a zippered suitcase sculpture -  tucked under an escalator near the baggage claim area. I almost walked past it because the lighting is so subtle and its shape fit into the slope of the escalator. After a few steps past, it registered that it was something a bit different and I went back to look at both sides of it.

The group of pictures below shows glass, stone, and wood grain close ups.The top two are simply panels on walls. They are practical art. I've always liked looking at wood grain because of the suggestions the grain makes for other images. Iridescent glass tiles appeal to me too. Their color changes with different lighting. Photographing them from different angles provided some artsy moments for me! The pictures at the bottom were from a mual made of polish shells, stones and glass. The overall mural depicted elements of Arizona (birds, fossils, cactus, etc.); I enjoyed the whole but chose my favorite parts to photograph.