Millennium Park in Chicago - Art & Architecture The
three best known works in Millennium Park are Jay Pritzker Pavilion designed by Frank
Gehry, Cloud Gate (known
as The Bean) by Anish Kapoor, and Crown Fountain( two 50-foot glass block towers
at each end of a shallow reflecting pool) by Jaume Plensa. See pictures
and learn about the three works listed plus other works: Lurie Garden, Wrigley Square, Boeing Galleries,
BP Bridge, McDonald's Cycle Center , Harris Theater,
Exelon Pavilions,
Chase Promenade, and Nichols Bridgeway at
Treetop Retreat by Jill Sell The steep path through the woods looms
ahead—half-sunken stepping stones arranged haphazardly to mimic the randomness
of nature. Occasionally, gnarly exposed
tree roots interrupt the series of steps, as if the land were lifted from the
imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien. A wooden
flight of stairs comes next, taking visitors 25 feet off the ground and across
a 40-foot-long suspension bridge that bounces and sways. The journey leads to the Brew Haus, a
200-square-foot structure that seems as at home as a bird’s nest does among the
treetops of Jefferson Township, just south of Loudonville, Ohio. It is one of Mohican Cabins’ two
treehouses—both designed by legendary treehouse builder Pete Nelson of Seattle.
“The most common thing people say about
staying in our treehouses is that it’s magical,” says Kevin Mooney of
Cleveland. He owns the 75-acre Mohican
Cabins property with his wife, Laura. “And, everyone says they want to come
back.” The Mooneys both have
many happy memories of spending time on the Mohican River and in its
surrounding woods. Kevin had made a
career as a successful financial consultant, so when his business partner
offered to buy his half of the operation in 2005, he and Laura took the leap
and bought the first portion of the acreage they own today. The couple built several cabins, but changed
focus after seeing a book about treehouses. As its name implies, the Brew Haus was
originally built as a brewery and tasting room for Treehouse Brewing Co.,
founded by the Mooneys’ son, Kevin Mooney Jr. But the demand for a second treehouse
convinced the couple to convert it to another rental. (The brewery has since
moved to the property’s Grand Barn, an event facility.) Laura is responsible for the interior design
of the treehouses. She and Kevin hope to
ultimately build a total of 12 on their property. For those of us who’ve ever wondered what it would
be like to live among the treetops, the Brew Haus provides a warm and welcoming
answer. Tree limbs hang over the
structure’s wraparound deck like loving arms, and you can actually hug the
trunk of one tree that shoots up through an opening in the floor. The night is also quieter than
expected. At ground level, you often
hear animals rustling among the foliage and sometimes your own footsteps. But in the upper canopy of the forest, I heard
only the call of a solitary owl. The
Brew Haus’ interior is charming as well. Much of the furniture, cabinets and built-ins
are handcrafted from trees found on the property or repurposed from old barns
and other structures. The kitchenette
offers a microwave oven, two-burner unit, fridge, sink and teakettle. The living area has a built-in sofa topped
with soft cushions and a great rustic rocker. A 6-foot-high Gothic-style window with clear,
blue, yellow, red and green stained glass serves as the focal point of an
entire exterior wall, and during the day, the incoming sunlight makes colors
dance on the shiny hardwood flooring. Yes, there is the all-important inside toilet,
although the Brew Haus’ shower is outside, tucked behind a small, whimsical
cubicle. http://www.ohiomagazine.com/Main/Articles/Treetop_Retreat_4975.aspx
Katharine Wright was born at the Wright home at 7 Hawthorn Street, Dayton, Ohio on
August 19, 1874--her brother Orville's third birthday . She was the youngest of
the offspring of Milton and Susan Wright, and the only girl to survive. In 1893 Milton
sent her to college to become a teacher--one of the few careers available to
women in that era. She would become the
only one of the Wright children to earn a college degree. Katharine attended Oberlin
College in northern Ohio, among the first colleges in the United States to
admit women, and the oldest coeducational college in America. By 1901, Katharine was teaching full time at
Steele High School. Her first assignment was to teach beginning Latin. Because this was a required course for all the
students, Katharine was saddled with poor students as well as good --including
some who were outright disruptive. Fortunately,
as the only sister of four older brothers, she was no stranger to boisterous
behavior. That coupled with her self-assurance and natural bossiness made her
more than a match for teenage boys. "I
had five or six notoriously bad boys assigned to my room," she wrote to
her father. "I was ready for them
and nipped their smartness in the bud."
As her own career developed, she watched her brothers evolving work on
the problem of manned flight with a mixture of interest, annoyance, humor,
encouragement, and admiration. When
Octave Chanute, renowned engineer and world authority on aeronautics, visited
the brothers in June 1901, Katharine played hostess. When Chanute invited Wilbur to speak on his aviation
experiments before the Western Society of Engineers and Wilbur waivered,
Katharine convinced him to go. "Will
was about to refuse but I nagged him into going," she wrote Milton. "He will get acquainted with some
scientific men and it may do him a lot of good." When her brothers moved their test flights
from Kitty Hawk, NC and began to perfect their powered flying machine at
Huffman Prairie just outside Dayton, Ohio, Katharine would round up a few trusted
teachers to come out and help with the experiments. The aircraft and the launching mechanism were
too large for the Wright brothers to handle on their own. Her
brothers had achieved a practical flying machine in 1905 and secured a patent
in 1906. Now they were trying to sell
their airplane, a task that proved to be more daunting than inventing it. Katharine joined them in the attempt,
essentially becoming their executive secretary.
It wasn't the first time that Katharine had minded her brothers'
business. During the years that Wilbur
and Orville had traveled to Kitty Hawk, Katharine had watched over the bicycle
shop, paying bills, depositing receipts, and fighting with the help--she and
Charlie Taylor, the Wrights' machinist, were not fond of one another. With the newspaper reports of her brothers'
flights, as inaccurate as they were, the Wrights had achieved some notoriety. When the Wrights went to Europe in 1907 to
sell their invention abroad, the spotlight on them became brighter and the
responsibilities of Katharine's unofficial position increased. She answered queries for scientific
information, corresponded with newspapers and magazines trying to keep their
stories straight, screened business offers and politely handled cranks. When Webster's Dictionary asked to publish a
photo of the Wright Glider, she obtained her brothers' permission for them. All this she accomplished while continuing to
teach at Steele High School. Katharine
made her first flights while in Europe--she was the third woman to fly in an
airplane, behind Teresa Peltier and Edith Berg. When the Wrights left France, the French
awarded all three of them--Katharine included--the Ordre national de la Légion
d'honneur (Legion of Honor). She remains one of the few American women to
have received this award. Katharine
Wright Haskell is buried in Woodland Cemetery in
Dayton, Ohio, with her mother, father, Wilbur, and Orville. http://www.wright-brothers.org/Information_Desk/Just_the_Facts/Wright_Family/Katharine_Wright/Katharine_Wright.htm
Alice Provensen began illustrating books with her husband Martin in the
mid 1940s. They are perhaps best known for illustrating the book, A Visit to William Blake’s Inn,
winner of the Newberry Medal and a Caldecott Honor book. The Provensens
have also been honored by the Art Books for Children Citation of the Brooklyn
Museum and by the Gold Medal for illustration of the Society of Illustrators as
well as having been included on the New York Times Best Illustrated Books of
the Year list nine times. http://www.rmichelson.com/illustration/alice-provensen/
See also https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/04/25/the-animal-fair-provensen/
Panama Papers Database Goes Live by Sabrina I. Pacifici on May 9, 2016 “This database contains information on almost 320,000
offshore entities that are part of the Panama Papers and the Offshore Leaks
investigations. The data covers nearly
40 years–from 1977 through 2015–and links to people and companies in more than
200 countries and territories." http://www.bespacific.com/panama-papers-database-goes-live/
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