feast for the eyes

today was our "date day" without boo ... but i spent the first few hours in an urgent care addressing a little accident between my knuckle and a cheese grater. yesterday i was making my favorite recipe for stuffed peppers, and the smoked mozzarella braid was a bit slippery. ugh!!! this morning it was swollen, red, warm, and painful with any movement. it being my right index finger, i decided that caution was better than pride and went to the ER for some antibiotics and a good cleanout. as you might imagine, i'm typing a bit more slowly than usual.

so instead of heading down to chicago, we opted for the easier route to milwaukee to check out the fabulous architecture of the art museum:
(photos from the public milwaukee sites)

salvatore calatrava
is the architect of this arresting monument to movement and light. at noon the sail "flaps" down and back up very slowly. i think this is my all time favorite building.

the artist that i first loved - indeed, the artist that first awakened a love for art in me - was georgia o'keeffe. she was born in wisconsin, and thanks to a local collector the milwaukee art museum has one of the largest collections of her paintings. highlights:
they also have an impressive collection of the german expressionists. gabrielle munter was one of this collector's favorites. you might recognize the name of her more famous lover - wassily kandinsky.

here is a picasso that i haven't seen before, "the cock of liberation." painted just after the first world war, it supposedly represents the awakening of hope, with the rooster of france crowing next to the dove of peace.