White Rooster Studio

Our annual week-long vacation at the lake is now over.

We absolutely love the choice we made a couple of years ago to simply have quiet weeks away reading books, making art and poking around in used book stores or check out a couple of local sites instead of spending it running around only to arrive home again even more tired than when we left.

During our time away, I read Stan and Gus: Art, Ardor, and the Friendship that Built the Gilded Age by Henry Wieneck, which got me thinking: I have been to Trinity Church in Boston multiple times but I cannot remember actually going inside and both Standford White and Augustus Saint-Gaudens worked on it. Basil and I now have a mini Boston trip planned sometime in the fall to visit inside Trinity Church as well as stopping in to view the John Singer Sargent murals and the Boston Public Library across the street.

I also read We Need Your Art: Stop Messing Around and Make Something by Amie McNee. For any artist looking for some inspiration to get out of a creative rut or work on their artist block, this is an amazing book.

I have issues with both from time to time and McNee’s ideas, prompts and projects are extremely helpful identifying issues and getting back on track. The chapters on procrastination, perfectionism and burnout especially hit home for me and the suggestion of starting a two-week challenge to jump-start your work habits is one of the big things I will be trying to incorporate into my weekly art life.

If you have a chance, please check it out:

We spent time every day doing at least a little bit of art. Some things worked, some didn’t, and that’s OK. The point is: art was being done:

We spent an afternoon looking at local covered bridges, unfortunately there were not a lot of places for Basil to pose on this trip, but we will work on some ideas for the next one:

On our way back to the cottage, we stopped in at Yankee Farmer’s Market in Warner, NH for some bison steaks. We had tried bison when we visited Wyoming years ago and this was an opportunity to try it again. We had a great experience, unfortunately we didn’t see any bison, but were greeted on our way out by a couple of friendly goats:

Our vacation property this year had a great little beach, which Basil enjoyed:

We are already thinking about where to visit next year and dreaming about another quiet week!

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If you enjoy the projects, pictures and posts, please see free to comment – feedback is encouraged and is always welcome.

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Copyright @2026 White Rooster Studios. All Rights Reserved

Basil and I have had a very busy month. We recently went on an art trip to New Jersey to visit three art museums and a sculpture park. During out three-day trip we:

• Discovered a new favorite art museum: Princeton Museum of Art.
• Enjoyed our new favorite sculpture park: Grounds for Sculpture.
• And finally had an opportunity to see some work by favorite artists in person.

On Thursday, June 11th, on our way south, we made our first stop at SUNY/Purchase College’s Neuberger Museum to view the Guerrilla Girls: Food for Thought (exhibit will be up until August 2, 2026, if you are interested). We have long been fans of the Guerrilla Girls and were incredibly excited to see that a minor change of course south would allow us to visit the museum.

The exhibit featured some of their iconic works, please see below:

If you are interested in learning more about the Guerrilla Girls, their activism, projects and exhibits, please check out their site: Guerrilla Girls

We arrived later on Thursday afternoon at our home base to relax, grab some dinner and review plans for Friday.

As an aside: we picked up dinner at a nearby plaza which also happened to have an active brick and mortar Jerry’s Artorama! We had an opportunity to happily wander the aisles for a bit while waiting for dinner and picked up a new set of drawing pens to test out. Over the past couple of years we have watched as one physical art supply store after another closed. RIP: AC Moore, Artists and Craftsman in MA (still in Portland, ME) and Utrecht (although still alive online).

Grounds for Sculpture requires a timed admission ticket to get in, so we ordered ours Thursday afternoon for when they open at 10:00 AM. Earlier in the week we were worried that Friday would be rainy, but the day turned out to be wonderfully sunny… but also incredibly hot, so we were very happy that we chose to visit the park first, as it was already 80 degrees when we got into line to enter Grounds for Sculpture. Thankfully, the park is well thought out and has lots of shady areas and benches to rest on.

Grounds for Sculpture has 42 acres of gardens, paths and sculpture. We did not expect to cover it all in one day, but I feel that we did manage to see the majority of it, please see some pics below:

One unique feature of Grounds for Sculpture is that they have peacocks that are free to wander the park and they are glorious 🙂

After cooling down a bit in the main building, we headed off to the Princeton Art Museum for part 2 of the day’s adventure. One thing to note about visiting the museum is: there is NO on campus parking. In order to visit, you must leave your car in one of the nearby parking garages. As we already had a bit of a strenuous morning there was some concern that we may be overdoing things, but thankfully, the distance from the Spring Street parking garage to the Princeton Art Museum was not as far as we feared – and, as a bonus, the campus is well-planned out and nicely shaded 🙂

The Princeton Art Museum is three stories, the first has and admission desk (entrance if free), a wonderful large area with chairs and sofas (which we did take advantage of), and a special exhibition room. The second floor has the majority of the galleries, and the third floor has their restaurant.

Princeton is now our new favorite art museum and also has the most amazing entrance I have ever seen:

We had planned this trip to see Willem de Kooning: The Breakthrough Years (up until July 26th). We know that de Kooning is not for everyone, but I love seeing the artist’s creative process and had long heard of de Kooning’s habit of working on a painting all day only to scrape the paint off the canvas in the evening… repeatedly. It’s had to see this in pictures, so I was hoping that seeing them in person would help me understand de Kooning a little better and I believe it has, please see some highlights below:

It seems like every time we turned a corner there were more incredible works to view – as well as the discovery of a couple of new artists to look into.

I love when museums put husbands/wives near or next to each other and I notices that they did it twice: with David Smith and Dorothy Denher and with Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy:

As a bonus, my girl Gabrielle Munter was back where she belonged, so was thrilled to see her twice this year after her visit to the Guggenheim Museum earlier this year:

Basil and I had an early night on Friday after such a busy day, but we still had one more stop on our way home on Saturday: Montclair Art Museum in Montclair, NJ. We learned about the museum during the planning process and thought it would be a nice way to break up the ride home. The Museum is not large, but I enjoyed it, although a couple of galleries were temporarily closed, so we will have to visit again to see the rest on our next trip.

Montclair Museum had a room dedicated to George Inness and although we were aware of George, actually seeing his work in person made us re-think how we viewed his work, I found the paintings beautiful and somewhat haunting at times:

I am happy that Basil and planned this trip so that we returned home on Saturday afternoon and were able to rest on Sunday before returning to work. It was such a wonderful experience and we met the nicest people -we would do it all again in a heartbeat!

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If you enjoy the projects, pictures and posts, please see free to comment – feedback is encouraged and is always welcome.

Please check out White Rooster Studio:

1. If you enjoy this blog, please enter your email address by going to the Menu, then the Home Page to have White Rooster Studio’s blog sent directly to you once it is published.
2. You can also follow White Rooster Studio on Facebook by using the direct links from the blog’s headers.
3. Any questions, comments? Please email whiteroosterstudio@gmail.com

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Copyright @2026 White Rooster Studios. All Rights Reserved

Raphael, Gabriel Munter and Robert Rauschenberg in NYC

When I started planning my recent trip to New York City last fall, seeing the Raphael exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum was not on my radar. I wanted to go to NYC to see the Gabriele Münter’s at the Guggenheim, the Raphael’s just happened to be at the Met at the same time I would be visiting – a very happy coincidence.

Raphael: Sublime Poetry – The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened on 3/29/26 and will run until 6/28/26.

Please note: If you are planning on visiting the Met to see the Raphael’s, be prepared for larger than usual crowds. This exhibit is being described as a “rare opportunity” and a “once in a lifetime experience”.

Yes, it WAS crowded when I visited, but we arrived prior to 10:30 AM and only eight days after the exhibit opened, so honestly, it could have been a whole LOT busier. As it was, we only had to wait a short time to purchase tickets and were able to walk right into the exhibit… along with hundreds of our new best friends.

And the reviews are 100% right: it IS a once in a lifetime experience. To have that many Raphael’s in one place and to be able to view them up close, is nothing short of phenomenal. And as exciting as it was to view the paintings, I must say that the drawings completely stole the show. The amount of detail and skill is indescribable.

Fun Fact: I found out AFTER I attended the exhibit that April 6th is one of the traditional dates for Raphael’s birthday – how cool is that? 🙂

Some painting highlights below:

Some drawing highlights below:

One of the three tapestries on view:

While the morning was reserved for Raphael and the Met, the afternoon was for the Guggenheim. I am not sure how you tackle Frank Lloyd Wright’s unique museum design, but I find that taking the elevator to the 6th floor and working my way down the spiral works best for me.

First up was a visit to see Collection in Focus | Robert Rauschenberg: Life Can’t Be Stopped | The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. The highlight of the exhibit was Rauschenberg’s epic Barge silkscreen, a monumental 32 foot silkscreen that I had not had an opportunity to see until now:

The Rauschenberg’s go down on May 3, 2026, so there is still some time left to see them if you are interested.

On level 4 and 5 you will find Gabriele Münter: Contours of a World | The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. Please note that this exhibition closes on April 26, 2026, so only a couple of days left to view them.

I honestly cannot remember a US exhibition for Munter, so having the opportunity to visit and see over fifty paintings and photographs was hard to pass up.

The exhibit is phenomenal. If you have a chance to view the exhibit, I strongly suggest that you do:

Highlights from Level 5:

Highlights from Level 4:

Highlights from the Collection in Focus | Modern European Currents | The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation:

The Guggenheim announced last month that as part of the Carol Bove exhibition in the spiral, they were revealing a portion of the Joan Miro ceramic mural that is usually hidden by temporary walls was going to be on view. I had absolutely no idea that the mural was there so this was an extremely unique opportunity:

The pictures below are the portion that is available to view, the middle and right pictures are what you can see inside of the cut-out:

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If you enjoy the projects, pictures and posts, please see free to comment – feedback is encouraged and is always welcome.

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I had come across Gertrude Abercrombie’s work relatively recently and found myself absolutely entranced with one of her paintings when I stumbled upon it at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, NH. It has been incorporated into a part of the exhibition “Nicholas Party and Surrealism: An Artist’s Take on the Movement” and the combination of the two works of art was intriguing. After that, I was absolutely hooked: Gertrude’s work, although small, was powerful and made you want to see more:

Thankfully, the Colby College Museum of Art had announced the upcoming exhibition: Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery right around the same time as the Currier exhibit was on view. Minor issue: Colby College is approximately three hours north of where I live, which only meant one thing: road trip!

This exhibition is HUGE and is spread out over two floors. It is well worth the trip to view the exhibit and if you visit during the week, you can pretty much have the exhibit to yourself (as we did).

Gertrude’s work is highly personal and uses repeated motifs, like the ivory tower, cats, tree stumps and picture within picture.

Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery is currently on view at the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, ME until January 11, 2026 and is well worth the drive up to view it. For additional information and a peek at the exhibit, please check out: https://museum.colby.edu/exhibitions/gertrude-abercrombie-the-whole-world-is-a-mystery

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If you enjoy the projects, pictures and posts, please see free to comment – feedback is encouraged and is always welcome.

Please check out White Rooster Studio:

1. If you enjoy this blog, please enter your email address by going to the Menu, then the Home Page to have White Rooster Studio’s blog sent directly to you once it is published.
2. You can also follow White Rooster Studio by using the direct links from the blog’s headers.
3. Any questions, comments? Please email whiteroosterstudio@gmail.com

White Rooster Studio

Copyright @2026 White Rooster Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Basil and I had the opportunity to visit Olana State Historic Site and the Fenimore Art Museum earlier this week. We couldn’t have asked for better weather to explore the Hudson Valley region: sunny and low 70 degrees 🙂

Our first stop on our 2-day visit was to Frederic Church’s home, Olana, even though the home is not open to tour on Mondays, the property is open to the public to view the outside of the home as well as explore the extensive property and walking paths.

There are many areas to just sit and enjoy the views, Basil especially loved the live wood benches:

Olana also had two site-specific outdoor artworks to enjoy during your stroll around the grounds. We were pleasantly surprised when we came upon Ellen Harvey’s installation ‘Winter in the Summer House’ not far from the house. It is quite unassuming on the outside, but once inside, the effect was stunning:

The best part of Olana? The absolutely amazing views of the Hudson River Valley region – we can see why Church chose this spot to build his home:

Our intention was to explore a portion of the nearby Hudson River Skywalk, which is a scenic 6-mile round trip pedestrian walkway, but our tour of Olana admittedly tuckered us out and we still had about 90-minute drive to arrive at our hotel, so we decided to explore the Skywalk on our next visit to the area.

I will admit that our recent adventure has ignited a renewed interest in the Hudson River School and their artists, so I expect that I will be spending some time with them in my studies soon. If you are interested in learning more, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_River_School

The highlight of our adventure was to visit the Fenimore Art Museum to see ‘Mary Cassatt / Berthe Morisot: Allies in Impressionism’ show on Tuesday morning. An opportunity to see work by these Ladies is rare, so for me, this was not to be missed:

In case you are interested, the Cassatt/Morisot show closes September 1st, 2025, so there is still time to see it.

The Fenimore is also showing ‘The Power of Photography: 19th-20th Century Original Master Prints’, which I felt was absolutely incredible. The show features a selection of 120 iconic images by 120 different photographers, unfortunately, photography was not allowed, but the historical and social impact of the work was unmistakable.

The Fenimore also showcased some amazing masterworks:

I am especially a fan of Childe Hassam and was happy that he was represented:

After our tour of the Fenimore, Basil and I were looking forward to spending some time relaxing on the museum’s terrace overlooking Lake Otsego:

Basil and I are looking forward to a return visit, hopefully next summer!

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If you enjoy the projects, pictures and posts, please see free to comment – feedback is encouraged and is always welcome.

Please check out White Rooster Studio:

1. If you enjoy this blog, please enter your email address by going to the Menu, then the Home Page to have White Rooster Studio’s blog sent directly to you once it is published.
2. You can also follow White Rooster Studio by using the direct links from the blog’s headers.
3. Any questions, comments? Please email whiteroosterstudio@gmail.com

White Rooster Studio

Copyright @2026 White Rooster Studios. All Rights Reserved.