Franklin Conservatory and Columbus Museum of Art

On Friday, Linda and I ventured to the Franklin Conservatory just a short drive from our hotel. We toured the facility and the park which included the Butterfly House with lots of tropical plants and butterflies.
They had a room devoted to learning about butterflies and recycling. The children made butterflies using recycled items. The most unique was a butterfly made from Yoplait yogurt tops.
Another one made from beer cans, that one was certainly unique.
Another recycled butterfly.
A real butterfly.
Another.

Another butterfly.

Butterfly on a hydrangea.

Butterfly sitting inside a Bird of Paradise bloom.
We saw very interesting and beautiful tropical plants.

Golden Pothos plant. Many people have these as houseplants. This one had the biggest leaves I have ever seen on a Pothos.

This tropical plant leaf was so interesting plus you could see through it.
It almost looked like it was machine quilted!!

The best parts for me were the Dale Chihuly glass sculptures and the glass ceiling.

Chihuly in the Garden.
Another view.
I could not take enough pictures of the Chihuly.

Chihuly glass ceiling.

Another view.

Chihuly glass orbs floating in the carp pond inside the Butterfly House.
The carp were as colorful as the Chihuly glass orbs.
Chihuly sculpture again.
Close up.
More.

Full view of the Chihuly. I just love his work. Can you tell????

In the main entry of the conservatory were Ikebana students creating flower arrangements. It was fun to watch the stages of their creations. They let us ask questions too.
This was so unique the way she bent the reeds.
We saw several Bonsai trees in another room at the conservatory.

Besides the Butterfly House, we toured the Himalayan Mountain room and the Rain Forest room. The later was very warm and humid. We also ventured outside and did a tour of the gardens around the building. There was some construction going on to create more spaces for weddings and parties. The Franklin Park and Conservatory is a must see if you visit Columbus.

Where's Linda?

We left the Franklin Park and headed for the Columbus Museum of Art. It was just another short drive back toward the downtown area. The museum had just opened an exhibit of 50 or so art quilts. We first had lunch in the restaurant at the museum. It was very elegant and tasty.

The art quilts were fantastic. They had videos of some of the artists working on their projects and it was interesting to study their techniques of dyeing and quilting etc. The museum published a book to accompany the exhibit entitled, "Material Matters". Linda and I spent time looking carefully at each quilt to analyze how the work was accomplished. We know we could have made several of the quilts on exhibit but others were a little beyond us. We did some quilting at the demonstration area, probably only for children, but who was looking?

After absorbing the quilts we toured the American gallery and then the European gallery. We saw works by Monet, Pissarro, Degas, Gaugin, Cezanne, Renoir, George Bellows (a Columbus native), Whistler and others.
A sculpture outside the Columbus Museum of Art.

We sure had a full two days of ART!!!

After returning to our hotel to cool off and relax, we walked over to the North Market for dinner and more ice cream. It was a hot and exhausting day and we turned in early.