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By Judy Wells
Sunday, February 21, 2010
OCALA, FL. Buddy waited patiently, his huge brown eyes glued to the plastic packet in my hand. The lady with the
dog had fed him one cookie, and so had I, but the clever Clydesdale knew that Mrs. Pastures Cookies for Horses are packaged
in threes. He had another treat coming.
Buddy has had many treats since being saved from an abusive situation seven
years ago by the general manager of the Hilton Ocala. He has lived in the paddock behind the nine-story hotel ever since,
giving carriage rides to guests and tickling youngsters' hands as they feed him the cookies, available for free at the
front desk.
Like countless other horses, Buddy has found life in Florida's horse country to be about as good
as it gets. Humans like it, too, especially horse-crazy little girls and boys. Also grown-up ones like me.
The
gently rolling grassy hills shaded by moss-hung oaks don't look like classic Florida vacation surroundings, but for avid
equestrians or casual horse lovers, they are heaven on earth. The world's largest concentration of horseflesh -- 45 breeds
in 1,200 breeding and training stables on 70,000 acres -- can be found within a 50-mile radius of Ocala in Marion County,
a Rhode Island-size expanse of central Florida. Lexington, Ky., may have a few more thoroughbreds than Ocala's 35,300,
but when other breeds are factored in, Ocala's claim to be the "Horse Capital of the World" holds. At a population
of 57,000, horses don't quite outnumber people (more than 330,000) in Ocala and its county, but they are the dominating
influence.
Take the January day I visited. As I fed Buddy at 9:30 that morning, 500 of the expected 3,500 to 4,000
horses expected for this month's ongoing HITS (Horse Shows in the Sun) hunter/jumper show at Post Time Farm were already
arriving for practice.
At the Ocala Breeders' Sales complex, visitors were examining 168 thoroughbreds, eyeing
them in the walking paddock or bidding on them in the auction room in the first of eight annual sales. Access is free to all,
but taking home a thoroughbred that day cost anywhere from $1,000 to $105,000, so watch where you wave.
The busiest
part of the day was already over at Ocala Stud, a combination mating service, maternity ward, nursery, grammar and high school
plus rehab facility for thoroughbreds. The 180 2-year-olds in training had finished their workouts and lessons on the 3/4
-mile oval by 9:30 and were being cooled down, washed, walked and returned to stalls, pastures or individual paddocks.
"Morning is the primary visiting time," said farm manager Bob Noble. "It's a swirl of activity,
like a well-choreographed routine."
Yearling colts were grazing in one field, fillies in another. Stallions
were taking it easy in the barn, as were the other racehorses stabled here for remedial work, medical treatment or just a
vacation from the stresses of training and competing.
Visitors are welcome here, too. Drive in, stop by the office
and then see up close and personal what it takes to breed, raise and race a thoroughbred. Keep in mind that this is a working
farm, not a showplace. Barns and tack are immaculately clean, but don't expect fancy brass plates or paved, landscaped
paths.
Later in the morning, carriage wheels were rolling as I drove up to the Florida Carriage Museum and Resort,
a 400-acre complex in Weirsdale, just south of Ocala. A girl was driving a pony, a man in a larger cart was working with a
Gypsy Vanner, and in a large ring, the Canadian equestrian four-in-hand team was training for competition at the World Equestrian
Games in Kentucky this fall.
I could have spent half a day with the 165 European and American carriages exhibited
here, ranging from the ornate 1850 Armbruster dress chariot once owned by Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph to a tiny 1785 Venetian
sediola, one of only 11 in the world. But I also wanted to see the horses.
Of the 100 in 10 barns on the property,
18 are permanent residents. The owners of the visiting horses often fill pages of international Who's Whos, and many stay
in cottages scattered about the "Bed and Barn." I didn't have time to take in the resort, the carriage rides,
the riding and driving lessons or the fitness classes, so I gave Nicolette, the Poitou donkey, and her best friend, Gracie,
a miniature horse, a pat, admired Gordon, the black Friesian on whom the model horses in the museum are based, and drove on
to my next stop.
The working day was over for the Gypsy Vanners at Gypsy Gold Farm by the time I arrived. (Note
to self: Get a GPS unit.) The gentle giants weren't doing much of anything except munching hay and getting it caught in
their long tresses. Elsewhere, quarter horses, Arabians, Morgans, Paso Finos and Andalusians were being put through their
paces.
Horse lovers will itch to put a leg over a steed. Several stables offer trail rides, including one on smooth-gaited
Paso Finos. Most make use of the Cross Florida Greenway Land Bridge over Interstate 75, the nation's only equestrian overpass
across a six-lane highway.
In downtown Ocala, I found ample outlets for foodies and shoppers. La Cuisine has a
Florida Trend Golden Spoon award, Stella's Modern Pantry satisfies your sweet tooth, carnivores love Mark's Prime,
and Pi on Broadway is known for its tapas, pizza and beer. The Paddock Room is an Ocala institution for all gifts horsey.
In the eclectic collection at the Appleton Museum of Art, I admired equestrian-themed works, from romantic portraits of Arabians
to staid British hunting scenes and a beautifully glazed Tang dynasty horse. And around town, 36 life-size, painted fiberglass
horse statues are constant reminders of the area's claim to fame.
But the true draw here remains the real thing.
As Winston Churchill said, "There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man."
Wells, a freelance travel writer in Jacksonville, Fla., blogs at http://www.travelonthelevel.blogspot.com.
Art Meets Nature at Atlanta Botanical Garden's Henry Moore Exhibit By Judy Wells
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, September 13, 2009
ATLANTA, GA. A mother and daughter stroll together through a lush tangle of orchids, speaking in hushed tones as
they point out specimens to each other. Embedded in the tropical foliage, as if watching, is Henry Moore's sculpture "Mother
and Child." Shadows on the bronze surfaces enhance the protective gesture of the mother, while sunlit open planes emphasize
the curious interest of her child.
Is it life reflecting art or art reflecting life? More accurately, this is sculpture
where it was meant to be seen, not isolated within the marble halls of museums but comfortably ensconced in the landscape
of life.
"Moore in America," at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, not only is the largest special exhibition
of the late sculptor's work on display in the United States, but it also opens our eyes to the synergy between nature
and art. Not to mention the pure pleasure of it. As the artist once said: "Sculpture is an art of the open air. . . .
I would rather have a piece of my sculpture put in a landscape, almost any landscape, than in, or on, the most beautiful building
I know."
He would like "Moore in America."
I watch as children and their adult companions
unconsciously reach out to pat the rounded flank or shoulder of a reclining figure. Years of cautionary warnings make the
grown-ups stop their hands and their children's, but they needn't. There are no "Do not touch" signs, merely
small bright-pink placards with a picture of a mother-and-child sculpture and the words, "Thank you for not climbing
on us."
Moore meant his work to be part of our lives, a dynamic addition to the landscape or a soft buffer
to our hard-edged modernist buildings, as much of a welcoming presence as a parent. His reclining figures invite contemplation.
The popular mother-and-child images, begun by the British sculptor after the birth of his daughter in 1946, are a counterpoint
to the actions of contemporary mothers wheeling their young around in strollers or trying to keep up with toddlers and tots.
And all about, there's the glory of nature's creations: trees, plants, flowers.
The overall impression
is of a seamless whole, but that's an illusion, says John Atkinson, a Botanical Garden volunteer. He tells me it took
three cranes to install the exhibition, but he thinks the extra toil was worthwhile. "We have a great advantage. You
can stand here," he says, indicating the clusters of bright pink, red and magenta perennials, "and see three major
sculptures, too."
Visitors can see 20 Moore sculptures while touring the gardens, the ponds and the Dorothy
Chapman Fuqua Conservatory and Orchid Center between now and the end of October.
It's a special way to appreciate
Moore's art and Atlanta. From one angle, "Oval With Points," a large elongated and rounded bronze form that
almost touches at the center, frames the city's skyscrapers. From another angle, it becomes a part of them.
Moore's
work invites exploration by eye as well as by hand. I'm fascinated as a young woman circles around "Locking Piece,"
examining it from all sides. She looks at it through her camera lens, trying all angles until finally she sits down in front
of it, rests the camera in her lap and just looks.
I was moved by the exuberance of the gardens (the colors, variations
in size and shapes, the movement of flowers and leaves in the occasional breeze) and at the same time taken with the still
presence of the sculpture. Sometimes it was hard to decide where to look, but finding a bench in a shady spot and taking it
in as a whole solved that. A minute or two and I was ready to focus on the parts again.
The gardens had art before
the arrival of Moore's work. "Reclining Figure: Angles," one of my favorite Moore sculptures, shares the parterre
with a writhing blue Dale Chihuly fountain. A contemplative copper frog sits on a bench as you start through the gardens.
The entrance gates and those to the Children's Garden are superb examples of metalworking.
For a fun interlude,
diffuse the fierce Southern heat with a splash or two in the fountains of that delightful Children's Garden. I did and
could have gone back, but the two hours I had allotted were over.
Heat of another kind lies just beyond this arboreal
refuge which, along with Piedmont Park, the exclusive Piedmont Driving Club and the upscale Ansley Park residential area,
is a leafy buffer to the buzz of midtown Atlanta. Urban entrepreneurs have turned midtown into a happening locale. The Woodruff
Arts Center, home of the High Museum of Art, Alliance Theatre and the Atlanta Symphony, finally has company after dark.
The High is always worth a visit. Its Leonardo da Vinci show opens Oct. 6, and its permanent collection is stunningly
displayed. Alliance Theatre's stage has Twyla Tharp's "Come Fly With Me" through Oct. 11, and on Peachtree
Street, the Fox Theatre's offerings now through October include "The Color Purple," a Beatles tribute and Celtic
Thunder.
Finding food is never a problem in Atlanta; deciding where to get it is. South City Kitchen is midtown's
power lunch spot. Near it is Fuego Spanish Grill. Locals are buzzing about three hotel restaurants: Spice Market in the W
Atlanta-Midtown, Pacci Ristorante at the Palomar and Livingston in the Georgian Terrace Hotel (where Clark Gable and Vivien
Leigh stayed for the "Gone With the Wind" premiere). For a cheap, fat-filled meal -- chili dogs, burgers, french
fries, fried pies -- at a local institution, try the Varsity.
Kristi Sanders, my gal pal about midtown, tells me
that Opera is the hottest club in the area, although you wouldn't think it from the locale: the Atlanta Woman's Club's
historic opera house. The Laughing Skull Lounge is the destination for progressive stand-up comedy shows. Flanking the Fox
are two Sanders-recommended clubs: Bazaar, which she describes as "a funky, exotic loungey bar where the music's
so good you'll be up and dancing after a couple of drinks," and Churchill Grounds, with a roster of jazz musicians
and torch singers.
That, too, would please Henry Moore. Art wasn't practical to him. Rather, he said it was
"to live a fuller human life." Seeing his work in a garden in the middle of Atlanta's midtown will certainly
make your life fuller.
Judy Wells is a freelance writer in Jacksonville, Fla.
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The Impulsive Traveler: In St. Petersburg, more than a brush with the
art of Dali
By Judy Wells
Special
to The Washington Post
Friday, February 11, 2011; 3:02 PM
Paving
stones forming Euclid's golden rectangle, a hedge labyrinth based on the one at Chartres, limestone boulders reminiscent
of rock formations in Cadaques, Spain, and cooling mists blown from a wall of plants: all indications that you're not
entering an ordinary museum.
THIS STORY
The Impulsive Traveler: In St. Petersburg, more than a brush with
the art of Dali
The Impulsive Traveler: Details: Where to go, what to know in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Inside, a helical
staircase spirals above you like half a strand of DNA. And the "Glass Enigma," a variation of Buckminster Fuller's
geodesic dome, breaks up the waterfront like a kaleidoscope.
Welcome to the Dali Museum - or Dali World, as some
have dubbed it - the new $36 million museum in St. Petersburg, Fla., built to display the Salvador Dali work collected by
the artist's friends, Cleveland industrialist A. Reynolds Morse and his wife, Eleanor. The museum's 2,140 pieces -
including 96 oils, eight monumental canvases and, of course, the lobster telephone - make it the largest collection of Dali's
works outside his native Spain.
Touring the exhibit, from Dali's earliest work as a teenager through his brushes
with impressionism and cubism and beyond the surrealism for which most of us know him, is a bit like following a double helix.
The man missed nothing - medium or method - as he evolved his own style in the effort to give form to his psyche.
In his self-portrait at age 17, a pallid, bug-eyed Dali stares out in profile from beneath a dramatic, wide brimmed hat,
illustrating his conviction that an artist must dress and act like an artist. Other convictions and influences - from Millet's
"Angelus" and Miro's playful iconography to Dali's obsession with an older brother who died in infancy,
his fascination with the work of Sigmund Freud and his hatred of bureaucrats, especially his father - emerge in work after
work.
On a recent visit, I found myself listening in on a docent-led AAA tour through the main gallery
and was tickled by how much the visitors enjoyed the treasure hunt for Dali's iconic images in later pieces. You could
almost hear their brains clicking and whirring as the docent explained the themes to be found in the huge, 10- to 14-foot-high
canvases informed by Dali's later-life fascination with Catholicism and science. Like the negative-positive images you
find in the "Do you see the old woman or the princess?" tests, it requires stepping back, sometimes taking off your
glasses and even squinting to see the multiple layers of subject matter, from the matador amid Venus de Milos in "The
Hallucinogenic Toreador" (1969-70) to the large portrait of America's 16th president in "Gala Contemplating
the Mediterranean Sea Which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln- Homage to Rothko," second version
(1976).
After a spin through the gallery of Dali graphics, sculpture, films and more, I was ready to rest my brain
and headed for the Cafe Gala, which, in accordance with museum director Hank Hine's insistence on a total Dali experience,
features Spanish cuisine. Its crystallike plastic chairs and reflective tabletops and the view of Tampa Bay helped me clear
my mind. And I found a stroll through the temptingly stocked gift shop perfect preparation for reentry into the world as we
know it.
Beyond Dali World, St. Petersburg isn't just for oldsters anymore. You'll see plenty of snowbirds
and retirees, but baby strollers outnumber motorized chairs at the many outdoor cafes along chic Beach Drive. I began a recent
quick trip to town by stopping in at two other notable museums. The Morean Arts Center has located its Chihuly Collection
on Beach Drive, and I liked the juxtaposition of bright scenery and pretty people outside with the colorful visions of the
Northwest glass master Dale Chihuly inside.
Here there are drawings, baskets, a ceiling-mounted Persian rug, flamboyant
Venetian-inspired pieces, sea forms that seem ready to slip away like an anemone or a manta ray, massively dizzying chandeliers,
huge glass spheres known as Najima Floats and the flower-like Ikebana stems that evolved from the Venetians.
Quite
a contrast to the Florida Holocaust Museum several blocks and a world away. "History, Heritage and Hope," the permanent
collection on the first floor, charts the history of anti-Semitism, Jewish life in Europe after World War I, the Nazi takeover,
World War II and the Holocaust before moving into genocide in general.
The centerpiece of the collection is Boxcar
#1130695-5, which sits on a piece of the original track it traveled when hauling Polish deportees to the concentration camps.
Its effect is even more sobering when you see the tiny child's ring that was found during pressure-washing before the
car was put on display.
Photos and short but compelling histories of people responsible for saving many Jews return
a bit of trust in humanity. So does learning that one museum volunteer is one of two young Jewish girls whisked out of Europe
on the Kindertransport and taken in by the parents of film director Richard Attenborough.
But, of course, St. Petersburg
is known for its sunshine, and you won't want to spend all your time in museums. The area is a hotbed of Major League
Baseball spring training activity and is awash in waterways, white sandy beaches, tropical wildlife and great fishing. Parasailing,
jet skiing, boat tours and golf courses abound.
I resisted the temptation to stay at the Renaissance Vinoy, the
spiffy 1920s Spanish Revival-style grand dame of the downtown bayfront and the anchor of what is now referred to as Museum
Mile, the Beach Avenue stretch that runs from the Chihuly, past the Museum of Fine Arts to the Dali and the Museum of History.
Instead I opted for the younger, surfer vibe recently instilled in Postcard Inn on St. Petersburg Beach. The old beachfront
motel has been given bright coats of paint and has added modern amenities such as WiFi, an Olympic-size heated pool and more,
and also boasts a casual but good barbecue restaurant. After guests return to their rooms, things can get a bit noisy, soundproofing
not being a feature of old motels. But fortunately all of us seemed to observe lights out and lights on at about the same
times.
Best of all, you can walk out your door, pause for a beverage at the last structure between you and the
Gulf of Mexico, an old-style surfer bar, and head up or down the beach for a good whiff of salt air and nature's own pedicure.
Do pause for a West Florida tradition, watching as the sun sinks behind the ocean as night comes on. There's nothing quite
like sand between your toes and saltwater lapping at your ankles to center your thoughts and refresh the sights of the day.
Wells, a freelance travel writer in Jacksonville, Fla., blogs at www.travelonthelevel.blogspot.com.
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