Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Such a great time!



Yesterday Addi and I took a break from the studio, and travelled to Pawley's Island, South Carolina to meet up with Sarah and her husband Chris at the Brookgreen Gardens. That's Sarah there with Sandy Scott's Eat More Beef.

I have written before about my love for the sculpture gardens at Brookgreen. I fell in love the moment I found the place, and ever since then I have been dying to share it with my friends in the equine sculpture world. If ever there was a place meant to inspire those of us who love three-dimensional animal art, it would be Brookgreen.

We could not have asked for a more lovely fall day for our visit. And that was a good thing, because the four of us covered every inch of the park. Many of the volunteers there mentioned that they had never seen a group quite so enthusiastic just to be there.

Fortunately for our professional images, they missed a bit of the silliest parts of our visit there!



Here are Addi, Chris and Sarah striking bird poses at the Fountain of Peace. (I'm not sure Chris' martial arts "crane position" is quite in keeping with the fountain's theme...)



And here Sarah, myself and Addi are duplicating the pose of the "sculptor" (the figure just visible behind Sarah's upraised hand) from Carl Milles' Fountain of the Muses.



Being a good sport, Chris gives it a try.



He was an even better sport when we found this young gator beside one of the ponds. I took several pictures when I realized that while we were impressed with his size, it wasn't really obvious when the only other things in the pictures were grass and water. So I asked Chris to get in the picture, to show the scale.



But the prize for being adventurous goes to Sarah, who decided to satisfy our curiosity and order the Peanut Butter Burger for dinner. My favorite part was when the waitress asked if she wanted pickles and lettuce on it, and Sarah asked if that's how people usually ordered it. The poor waitress looked a little embrassed and admitted that it wasn't something people usually ordered. That sealed the deal - Sarah had to order it then! (with pickles)



She swore it was really good and even got Chris to agree. Addi and I both figured that lots of inspiration and some close encounters with gators were probably enough excitement for the day.

We were so very fortunate that the Breunig's vacation brought them close to the Gardens, and that it did so when Addi happened to be visiting. It made for a wonderful day. I will post some of the inspiring pieces we saw at a later time, but for now I'll just close with this morning's sunrise over the beach.

4 comments:

mel said...

Snarg. I still don't get it: what IS a peanut butter burger?

Sarah, you posing with the big pig is too wonderful: a smart, sassy animal with a smarter, sassier human, both having a well-developed relationship with sculpture!

I'll get to that place someday!

Lesli Kathman said...

They put generous amounts of peanut butter on top of the beef - like a topping. Sarah and Chris swore it gave it a Thai taste, but I wasn't brave enough (or enough of a fan of peanut flavors) to try.

Marge Para said...

Well, I am glad you cleared that up Leslie.. I thought the burger was actually all peanut butter... Oh, don't mess with my burgers!!!! My comfort food!! No guilt, just pleasure...

Lynn A. Fraley said...

Awesome! So glad you all could rendezvous in such a beautiful place!