Sunday Morning Coffee (Beer Tasting)

Robert Mapplethorpe’s Derrick Cross, 1983

Betsy, I though you would enjoy this artist’s work!

Liumang Yan is speaking up for sex workers in China, she is also one of the women in One Tiger Eight Breasts with Ai Weiwei.

More on affordable art!

This article is about scandalous muses.  I would have added Robert Mapplethorpe’s models to the list. If you are interested in Mapplethorpe and his muses you should read two chapters by Kobena Mercer on Mapplethorpe’s work. To summarize briefly, in the first chapter Mercer is quite angry about the objectification of the models in the photographs. A few years later he wrote a second article revisiting his initial reaction and accepting the work.

“What is ahead for contemporary  Asian art, 2012, and beyond?” Part II.

Yesterday I went to a great pannel at SAIC called “Getting on the Map.”  Sharon Louden moderated a conversation with Carron Little, Mark Jeffery, Judd Morrissey, and David Parker.

There is a horse hanging from the ceiling at the Guggenheim in New York!

Old Mission Wine Tour

The Saturday of our anniversary trip Chad and I went to Old Mission Peninsula to visit the wineries.    I’ll just do a quick rundown and share our favorites.

2 Lads Winery–This was my first time here and I had heard quite a bit about this winery.  The view was fantastic but it was packed and the tasting was very rushed.  None of the wine from our tasting knocked my socks off.

Bry Estate–We had a lovely tasting in the barrel room and enjoyed some of the wine but it was a bit out of our price range.

Peninsula Cellars–A long time love that we refer to as the School House winery.  We had nice tasting and purchased a Pinot Blanc and Old School Red.  Wonderful staples to help us remember one of our favorite places.

Finally, as we headed back up to Northport, we stopped at Left Foot Charlie.  Do not go anywhere with in a 100 mile radius of Traverse City, Michigan without visiting this tasting room.  We had their famous Murmur as one of our wedding wines and it was even better this year!  We tasted a few old favorites but we also got to taste a few new things.  First, they had a red  table wine (they previously only released white) which we bought for that evening.  It was medium bodied, spicy, peppery, perfect with our grilled steaks.  That wine was sold “growler style” so we can go back for more next time we’re up there.  Finally, we tasted their cider.  Now, I’m not a huge cider person–the Cinnamon Girl was fantastic!  Well priced, not too sweet, crispy, phenomenal.  If we hadn’t been tasting wine all day I would have sat back and had a glass then.

Sunday we did tasting on the Leelanau Peninsula–thats up next!

By the way, looks like I’m not the only person in love with Leelanau–ABC News “Sleeping Bear Dunes Voted ‘Most Beautiful Place in America.’”

Anniversary Trip & Eats

As many of you know, my wonderful husband and I celebrated one year of marriage last week.  We had an amazing weekend trip in Northern Michigan where we got married.  If you feel like a quick glance at our wedding day click here to view the amazing feature on the Wedding Creativo website.

Two of our main activities were eating and wine tasting.  We hit all of our favorite lunch and breakfast spots including Barb’s Bakery for cinnamon twists and coffee, Cherry Republic for free cherry samples, The Early Bird for the famous only to us Chadwhich,  Art’s Tavern for a breakfast suited only for people who plan to taste wine all day (or did the day before), Stone House Bakery for the best scones in the midwest, and the lovely Riverside Inn for a romantic dinner on the river at sunset.

We forgot our fancy camera and used Instagram on Chad’s iPhone to take all of our photos.  We had a blast with it.  I think Instagram is like the new polaroid–you click a photo and must stylize it by selecting a filter and then save it before you can take another photo.  It is much more spontaneous and raw than a normal iPhone photo–I highly recommend it.   If you would like to see all of our anniversary photos our user name is “Jewsroch.”  I just learned on The Haystack Needle that you can get prints of your Instagram photos on Printstagram.

Look forward to a review of our wine tour of Old Mission and Leelenau!