Notre Dame Goes to China!

The Keeper of Notre Dame by Loomax
Used With Permission

Check out Loomax by visiting his website HERE. Stone Parliament of Art is enraptured by his photography!

He's heading to CHINA and we are going to follow him!

Hesburgh Library Tip & Clouds
by Pascal Calarco ~Used with permission

Last October my cousin Pascal "wrote a grant proposal to the in-house grant program....at the Hesburgh Libraries at Notre Dame, which provides funding for research in librarianship for its library faculty." In it he "proposed to study and contrast the formal and informal education of systems librarians in the United States and Canada with those of China."

You can read the rest of it HERE ~ Pascal's Place on Wordpress. It's very interesting and he'll be documenting and sharing his thoughts on his blog as much as he can during this trip. Stone Parliament of Art plans to follow Pascal in China!We wish him a safe and successful venture!


About Pascal Calarco
Pascal leads a team of 10 professionals providing enterprise computing systems and services for a consortium of five academic libraries around South Bend, IN, USA and hosted at the University of Notre Dame. Services include Integrated Library Systems, resource discovery, metasearch, citation linking, digital asset management and digital library programming, application and project development, and server and database administration, amongst others. Read more HERE.

** We also think that Pascal is a pretty good photographer and hope to see some of his shots of China when he returns!

Image:Hesburgh Library HERE.

Tell'em Charlie Trotter invited ya! My kind of town, dada da da.....Chicago is!

Too many choices, not enough time! That's the feeling when you visit Chicago! Much to do and see all squished into a few days and you're zooming! It was much slower paced in the windy city this time than the previous time. The person showing me the sites knew his way around the city and familiar with some of the coolest restaurants. Visiting Chicago you'll have no problem finding superb places to dine. Eating experiences with wine pairings that make any French chef stumble around in the kitchen...they do sip the wine you know! *smile* One of our favs among a couple of others was Charlie Trotters. When you 'burger' you burger, but when you 'dine' it MUST be white linen!

Pictures range from October, 2009 to March, 2010.

Wonderful rainy sort of day on the river cruise.

Ha! Do I even have to say it? When you're in Chicago you must have a Chicago style pizza! But don't order a large...it's TOo much. I swear the person I was with was trying to fatten me up! As you can see, it wasn't 'white linen' all the time, we did rough it a little bit!

This structure is Amazing Architecture-Circular parking garage at Marina City in downtown Chicago. The Corn Cob!

Chicago Night. Beautiful!

A blend of old and new.
For more reading on Chicago Architecture click HERE and then follow the other links.

From Washington DC

Beauty is found even in the icy waters of the Potomac as one gazes out the window from the warmth of public transportation. Can life get any better than this? We're often in a blurred hurry and don't stop to smell flowers....sometimes flowers are just not available so look around. When there are no flowers and you don't seem to be able to whiff the sweet scent of spring, feast your eyes on what is available... on winter's cover. You may surprise yourself at what you see! No better place than Washington, DC. this time of year because you can smell Spring! Soon it will be apple blossom time!

LIGHT ME BLACK!

Not a secret that Stone Parliament is partial to white. Our regular readers can attest to reading mention of this often...from white linen, white terry robes, white dishes, white towels to white marble during the amazing all white bathroom reno. Yes, we LOVE white!

So, it should be no surprise when an art installation highlighting WHITE & BLACK in an almost insitutional like setting, sparks our interest and anticipation is spurred! It's a 'not to miss' event at the AIC. Monica Bonvicini's installation entitled "LIGHT ME BLACK" is buzzing! In art, she explores the relationship between gender, power and space, both by drawing, collage, video and sculpture.

Monica Bonvicini (center) supervises the installation of her exhibition Light Me Black.

Another installation shot from the first Focus exhibition in the Modern Wing.

"Equal parts beautiful and menacing, Monica Bonvicini’s sculptures, installations, videos, and drawings provoke an acute awareness of the physical and psychological effects of institutional, particularly museum, architecture. Favoring industrial materials that reference the modernist canon, such as metal and glass, often combined with the trappings of sexual fetishism—leather, chains, and rubber—Bonvicini confronts the power structures and contradictions inherent in built environments. "

Text was quoted from a variety of sources, including literature, psychoanalytic theory, popular music, and architects’ own words, adds yet another layer to her wry commentary. More than any other artist working today, her projects aim to expose the disparity between the sexy, utopian, and avant-gardist claims of certain—largely male—“starchitects” and the realities of the spaces they create.

A few of you may be more familiar with this conceptual artist's transparent public toilet in Basel, Switzerland.
This toilet, called "Don’t Miss a Sec," first shown in December 2003 and was immediately called "Loo with a View" by the press.

The photos show this transparent glass toilet at the Messeplatz in Basel, Switzerland at a major exhibition centre, were the largest exhibitions about watches & jewelry called ‘Basel World’ and the ‘Art’ (one of the biggest art exhibitions worldwide) take place.


From the outside looking in, it appears to be nothing more than a monolith made of mirrors; from the inside looking out, it’s a fully transparent 360-degree window on the world.
Although the stainless steel potty within the glass cube is fully functional, it’s still more a work of art than what you’d call an ‘official’ public toilet.

Surfer Dude

Photo: Francesca - CAFREL