Save your pennies—or rather, your dollars—and splurge an art-centric weekend in Ireland. Two of the country’s finest properties, the five-star Merrion Hotel in Dublin and the ultra-haute Ballyfin, in County Laois, have teamed to offer Inspiring Irish Art Weekends that showcase each property’s museum-quality art collection. I haven’t stayed at The Merrion, but I have … Continue reading
Salt Lake City, once a pass-through en route to sexier Utah destinations, is now a destination in its own right. A frenzy of recent developments has remade the city’s core and added upscale shops, innovative museums, and fun shops. Don’t miss these draws. City Creek Center: This $1.5 billion project, funded by the real estate … Continue reading
EAST SHIP HARBOR, NOVA SCOTIA—It’s easy to find Barry Colpitts’s home gallery. Folk art adorns the house, lawn, barn, shed, fence, car, even the mailbox and truck. Hand-carved, two- and three-dimensional birds and fish, saints and sinners, mermaids and fishermen, augment every available surface. Even shutters, trim, railings, and newel posts have been transformed into … Continue reading
In Nova Scotia, Atlantic Canada’s not-quite-an-island province, folk art and its makers are aptly described as quirky, whimsical, spirited, and resourceful. Born of farming and seafaring traditions, folk art surfs the tide between functional and fanciful. The best works are playful, yet provocative; naïve, yet sophisticated; familiar, yet fresh. They share a common heritage, but … Continue reading
Detour off The Royal Mile down Lady Stair’s Close, one of Edinburgh’s medieval pedestrian alleys, and step into Scotland’s literary heritage. The Writers’ Museum, housed in the early 17th-century Lady Stair’s House, immerses visitors in the lives of Robert Burns (1759-1796), Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), and Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). In addition to manuscripts, original … Continue reading
Few places move the spirit or stir the soul as do northern Arizona’s Navajo lands. I keep returning to this mesmerizing landscape of red sandstone, deep canyons, intriguing land formations, and grassy mesas, and each time I visit, I’m awed by the beauty and humbled by the simplicity. It’s a place that exposes that the … Continue reading
I was more than content to admire masterpiece after masterpiece displayed in The Courtauld Gallery, a small, university museum on London’s Museum Mile. Then, cued by the upward gaze of another visitor, I glanced—then gawked—at the lavishly augmented and painted ceiling. The Courtauld Gallery is housed in Somerset House, designed by Sir William Chambers, built … Continue reading
Travtastic 