Scene of a billion tourist photos at the capitol square, here is the Forward statue which is meant to represent a female figure standing upon the prow of a boat (which I didn't know until I researched the history of the statue.) This was built in 1893 by a female sculptor, Jean Pond Miner, an unusual honor for a woman in those days.
This past weekend was Maxwell Street Days; all the stores on State Street pile all of their sales onto the sidewalk for the whole 6 block stretch of State Street for 3 days. This is a pretty sedate view from the capitol - further down towards the University end of State Street it gets quite boisterous, with vendors yelling through bullhorns and a lot of the ethnic restaurants bring their grills outside. It's an event - you shouldn't go here if you have an aversion to crowds and/or shopping!
Now, this event is about as 'Madison' as Madison can get - a quick canoe around Lake Mendota (well, it seems quick when you're sitting on the grass watching the action in comfort) - then...
There have been a lot of posts on other Daily Photo websites of sailing & boats - it's the height of summer (for most of us) and it seems a lot of us live near water, so I'm throwing my hat in the ring too. This boat, of course, has a Wisconsin flavor to it - this is the Dairy State after all - and has been decorated as a cow.
I saw this planted in a garden close to city hall. Madison is twinned with 10 sister cities all over the world: Ainaro, East Timor; Arcatao, El Salvador; Bac Giang, Vietnam; Camaguey, Cuba; Cusco, Peru; Freiberg, Germany; Managua, Nicaragua; Obihiro, Japan; Mantova, Italy and Vilnius, Lithuania. There was a plan a while ago to twin Madison with Rafah in the Palestinian Territories, but I believe it was shelved. Too political.
Do you know your sister cities?
This is the old Dane County courthouse - a fancy new one has been built on the other side of the capitol. This one looks quite dated in comparison - what do you think the spiral red neon dagger means??
This is the central branch of Madison Public Library, just one block away from the capitol square & next door to the Overture Center. This was built during the cold war & has a nuclear fallout shelter in the basement. I am a huge fan of Madison's library system - for a city this size (250,000+) it has a remarkably thorough collection & commonly has wait lists for books & movies in the hundreds (the new Harry Potter book has over 1,000 people waiting for 150 copies!)
I went up to the annual Art Fair on the Square this morning - over 500 artists from all over the US displaying their work for sale all around the capitol square - hoping to get some good photos for Madison Daily Photo. Instead I sat in heavy traffic for about 20 minutes, so - never one to look a gift horse in the mouth - I got a good photo from my traffic jam of the State Capitol building seen as you drive into Madison up East Washington Avenue. The glass building on the left houses a bank and a few other companies. I love the yellow Mini in front of me - the car I would love to have with an unlimited budget!
This is the Overture Center for the Arts in the heart of Madison's downtown. A Cesar Pelli designed building, this replaced the old Civic Center and, as you can see, the original facade was kept intact while the rest of the building was basically built around it. Overture changed the face of this part of downtown Madison - an entire city block was razed to make way for it.
I was visting a friend on the west side of town yesterday & couldn't help but notice this house when we were out on a walk. It's not a very 'Wisconsin' type house - I think it's almost Mediterranean in influence, which you don't see too often in Madison. Lots of good detail when you enlarge the photo & you can have a good look at the garden too.
My garden is full of purple coneflowers right now, a natural butterfly attractor. I tried to be like Abe and get some beautiful shots of monarchs resting gently on the coneflower leaves, but no luck and almost got myself stung by a bee in the process.
I came out of the house the other morning ready to run some errands when who do I see on top of my car? It's my early morning visitor again, one of the hawks who lives in the tree three doors down. This time he -or she? The female hawks are usually bigger than the males - wasn't nearly so shy and I had to open up a door and slam it shut so she'd fly away.
A slide at Vilas Park modelled after the Old Lady & The Shoe children's nursery rhyme.
Snapdragons & lilies in full bloom. We got all of our wedding flowers from the Farmers' Market 6 years ago & I still remember them when we go to the market today. How could you beat those for beauty?
Easily the best photo title of my blog...here's the raging grannies for peace. They gather at the Saturday Farmer's Market downtown and sing war protest songs. Every voice counts.
Here's one of the polar bears at the Henry Vilas zoo. It was a hot, hot day and he was just trying to stay in the shade. There's a swimming pool below & occasionally he'd take a dip, then back up to the shade.
Not something you see every day - a horse on the path below. It was quite a surprise.
Happy 4th of July!
Tomorrow is the 4th of July - America's Independence Day & the flags are flying. Here's a preview of some red, white & blue before tomorrow's post.
We spent this past weekend at the cabin of some good friends of ours about 2 hours west of Madison. This is the view from the top of the hill that the cabin sits on...the farm below is an Amish farm as nearly all of the farms in that area are. It's like stepping out of normal life for a few days, seeing the Amish families riding along the gravel roads in their horse drawn carts and the massive work horses pulling the ploughs through their fields. Life has a different rhythm there.
As always, the first day of the month is Theme Day for City Daily Photo blogs. This month's theme is the colour red & I have photographed a classic Wisconsin scene - the red barn. I think originally barns were painted red because that was the cheapest colour but now they're red because...well, they just are. |
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