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Jean Schlumberger – VMFA May 2016

Mom and I went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts at the end of May to view sparkly jewels!

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These are gems in raw form with some examples of them cut and polished.

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On the way out, we stopped and awed at the sculpture in the gardens by artist Jaume Plensa titled Chloe. The photographs don’t really do it justice, you really need to see it in person. I also took pictures at a work function and I found it fascinating how different it looks with cloud cover. The bright blue sky was in April, the cloudy day was in May.

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Between Spring & Summer

I didn’t realize until I downloaded these photos that I hadn’t been to Lewis Ginter in four years! I walked around it briefly last year after a work retreat, but I didn’t stay long because it was too hot and not much was blooming.

Not the case this time! I took half a day off on a low-temp, low-humidity day in early June. I took a different path than I normally do when I go to the gardens. I normally head straight for the conservatory and move around clockwise. I decided to save the conservatory for last and headed counterclockwise.

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Faberge – VMFA Dec 2016

I had seen the full Faberge exhibit when it traveled here to Richmond in 2011, but I didn’t have a very good camera back then. Luckily, a few pieces were added to the permanent collection and I visited with a good camera this time :)

The museum always has new sculptures in the main foyer.

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I wandered through a little more of the museum and landed in the silver exhibit. All I can say is as pretty as it all is, I wouldn’t want to have to polish all of that!

 

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Getting to know Virginia – Old vs New Downtown Richmond

A few co-workers and I grabbed some lunch at City Hall and took the elevator up to the observation deck. There isn’t much up there but a couple of picnic benches. Oh, and a FANTASTIC view of the entire city! It was a very breezy day, made worse by the wind-tunnel effect at our high elevation. On a subsequent trip it was less breezy but I can see this becoming a popular spot for my lunch crew on nice, summer days.

Starting with the North and going counterclockwise around the building, first up is the Richmond Coliseum.

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Residences at John Marshall (formerly the Hotel John Marshall) and the Berry Burke building.

Hannah Lauck government building is the half round one in the middle.

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The new rooftop restaurant Kabana (a new eating spot I need to try!) with a view of the James River.

Old City Hall (see more below), along with the Capitol Building and the city skyline in the background.

The James Monroe Building is the towering one on the left. Side-note: the James Monroe is the tallest building in Richmond at 449 feet and 29 floors. The SunTrust building, another tall skyscraper (which is the tall builing on the right in the picture above), is 400 feet with 26 floors. Main Street Station clock tower sits behind the 95, with the James River snaking beneath it.

The MCV Medical campus of VCU takes up quite a bit of real estate in the area.

My office is the cluster of white buildings to the right of the row of cars. The new building for the school, which is supposed to break ground this summer, will be built where the dorms currently are in the upper left where all the trees are.

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As I was researching some of these buildings for this post, I discovered the beautiful gray building across the street, that I thought was a courts building, turned out to be Old City Hall. So, I postponed posting this until I could go inside and get some shots.

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Who knew so much beauty could be found downtown!