Category: Art

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Sunday/ The Nutcracker, at large 🎄

From the ‘At Home in the Northwest’ supplement to the Seattle Times
[Photo by Jiajing Grygriel]
From the ‘At Home in the Northwest’ supplement to the Seattle Times
[Photo by Jiajing Grygriel]
Jiajing Grygriel writes for this Sunday’s ‘At Home in the Northwest’ supplement to the Seattle Times:

The mail carrier slows his van down to a crawl and gapes. “Is that you folks’ statue?” he hollers out the window. “This is amazing. I love it so much!”

A jaw drop is the typical response for people passing by this storybook home in Ballard. The 1936 house looks straight out of the pages of a fairy tale, with its steeply pitched roof, rustic stone chimney and turreted entryway.

During the holiday season, it’s decked out in Nutcracker figures designed by Maurice Sendak, of “Where the Wild Things Are” fame.

Pacific Northwest Ballet commissioned Sendak to design original art for “The Nutcracker,” which ran from 1983 to 2014.

It was Seattle’s own wild rumpus, a one-of-a-kind “Nutcracker” production.

A 15-foot-tall figurine stands at the end of the driveway. In the front yard and on the deck are three small nutcrackers and two rats – and by small, we mean 8 feet tall.

Three original Sendak ornaments hang in a nearby tree.

It’s the 11th year John Carrington and Scott McElhose have displayed the Sendak Nutcracker at their home, on the corner of Golden Garden Drive and Loyal Avenue Northwest in Ballard.

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Friday/ postage due stamps ✉️

Here’s another interesting envelope that I picked up on Ebay for a few dollars. It was dispatched in Johannesburg to Philadelphia, Pa. The franking on the stamp was done with a metering machine in 1951.
(Franking machines were first used in South Africa in 1926).

The franking of 9½ pennies fell woefully short of what was actually needed, though.
The US post office demanded 27 US cents more for delivery. The last ‘Postage Due’ stamps in the USA were issued in 1985.  They were rendered obsolete by tracking technology and the requirement of full prepayment of postage in most cases. 

Meter Stamp
Printed in South Africa for 9½ pennies, dated May 9, 1951, with Universal “Multi-Value” (MV) metering machine (first used 1933).

Postage Due Stamps
Issued by United States, 1931-1956.
Perf. 11×10½ | Engraving by American Bank Note Company | Rotary Press Printing
J81 D3 | 2c dull carmine
J83 D3 | 5c dull carmine
J84 D3 | 10c dull carmine
[Sources: Wikibooks.org, 2003 Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue]

Taking a closer look at the engraving detail. The design of the stamp and the fonts resemble the design of a banknote.
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Tuesday/ The Twelve Days of Christmas 🎅

Two of the stamps on one of the outside envelopes for an Ebay purchase from England feature The Twelve Days of Christmas (song).

Great Britain/ Queen Elizabeth II— Christmas Stamps, 1977
Issued Nov. 23, 1977
Perf. 15×14 | One center phosphor band (7p.) | Design D. Gentleman
1046 525 7p. Slate, grey, bright yellow-green, new blue, rose-red and gold | “Eight Maids-a-milking, Seven Swans-a-swimming”
1047 526 7p. Slate, grey, bright yellow-green, new blue, rose-red and gold| “Ten pipers piping, Nine Drummers drumming”
[Source: 1997 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue, Part 1 British Commonwealth, Vol. 1]
From Wikipedia:
The lyrics given here are from Frederic Austin’s 1909 publication that established the current form of the carol.
The first three verses run, in full, as follows:
On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree

On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

Subsequent verses follow the same pattern.
Each verse deals with the next day of Christmastide, adding one new gift and then repeating all the earlier gifts, so that each verse is one line longer than its predecessor:

— four calling birds
— five gold rings
— six geese a-laying
— seven swans a-swimming
— eight maids a-milking
— nine ladies dancing
— ten lords a-leaping
— eleven pipers piping
— twelve drummers drumming

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Sunday/ a little architecture tour 🏢

I braved the cold wind outside to do a little self-directed architecture tour on First Hill today.
I wanted to take a look at the The Graystone Seattle on Columbia Avenue and the Museum House complex with its twin towers.

The Graystone at 800 Columbia St was actually built in 2021 (how time flies). It has 31 stories and 271 units. This is the view from the parking lot on 8th Avenue, looking northeast. (On the right, just a block or so away, is the Museum House complex with its twin towers).
Now I am on Columbia Street, walking up hill. I should have taken a picture without the tree! but there is a waterfall feature on the right that obscures the street view into the condo’s gym somewhat. There are several other amenities of course, such as a rooftop deck and meeting rooms and all that.
Here’s the view of the downtown skyline, looking towards the west. Interstate 5 is close by, but at a much lower level which dampens any traffic noise one might hear.
Now walking to the Museum House complex on Terry Avenue.
This apartment building opened in March, and features a north tower and a south tower, each with 32 stories. It offers 506 rental units.
Looking up at the main facade of the building. The skybridge is all the way up on Floor 31.
First Hill has several hospitals and buildings with clinics and doctors’ offices inside. This is Cabrini Center on Boren Avenue, completed in 1973 with 18 towers.
St. James Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral located at 804 Ninth Avenue. It was dedicated in 1907.
All right. The sun is going to set soon and I am heading to the waterfront.
Here’s a look at the traffic on I-5 (looking south).
Beautiful colors reflected by the windows of the Crowne Plaza hotel in downtown. The hotel was completed in 1980 and has 18 floors.
Seattle’s weird library with its faceted frames of glass and steel has 11 floors. It opened in May 2004 to the public.
Further south along 4th Avenue is the Columbia Tower, at 76 stories still the tallest structure in the state of Washington. (Getting squeezed out of view from here a little bit by the F5 Tower in front of it that opened in 2017).
Heading down to the waterfront now. It’s good that I snapped this picture of the sun behind the clouds, because it was gone for the day just a few minutes later.
Seattle has 33 fire stations and the one on the waterfront is No 5. The original Fire Station No. 5 building opened here at this location in 1902.
Here are the first cars rolling onto the Walla Walla ferry at Colman Dock (Seattle Ferry Terminal), for its departure to Bremerton.
Look at the windsock and choppy water: there is a strong breeze.
On my way back to the G-line bus stop. Here is “What Goes Up Must Come Down” — the giant paddle-ball sculpture by Catherine Mayer at 2nd Avenue and Spring St. It is about 42 feet tall and made of fiberglass and steel.
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Friday/ AI embellishments 🦍

Happy Friday.
I embellished some of my pictures from last Sunday with Google’s new Gemini 3 (“Nano Banana Pro”) image editor.

It is as easy as saying “Add Bigfoot (Sasquatch) crossing the street into this picture”.
(The Cybertruck in the last picture was real, and not added).

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Saturday/ sophisticated humor 🦓

I was not 100% sure if I understood all the subtle humor in this cartoon, and enlisted the Chat GPT chatbot’s help to explain it to me.

The cartoonist is Edward Steed (born 1987), a British cartoonist and illustrator, best known for his work for in The New Yorker magazine.

Here is the explainer from Chat GPT:
The humor comes from the contrast: ‘Polite cocktail-party etiquette’ versus ‘Wild-animal behavior’. It’s the absurd mix of manners (“Could you hold my drink?”) with the expectation that something ferocious is about to happen (such as the lion devouring the zebra). The rest of the party acting like all this is totally normal adds to the surreal deadpan comedy.
[From The New Yorker magazine, the Dec 18 & 25, 2017 issue].
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Saturday/ don’t stop painting 🦁

It’s time for another safari cartoon.

Cartoon by Eldon Dedini.
(That must be Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in the distance, and on the canvas— elevation 19, 341’/ 5,895 m).
From a hardcover book called ‘The Dedini Gallery’, published by Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York (1961). The cartoon first appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 1959.
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Monday/ shades of King George V 👑

I have long been unhappy with my pre-printed Leuchtturm stamp album pages for the first definitive issue of stamps for the Union of South Africa*.

The old pages are in bad shape, with bare-bones headers, and my South African Color Catalogue lists several more shades of the King George V issues, as well as a few with inverted watermarks.

The new page that I created is a difficult assembly and not yet complete, though. The black-and-white images are placeholders.
Will I ever get my grubby hands on one each of the two £1 stamps at the very high end of the set?
I doubt it. The catalog values for perfect specimens of these are US$800 and US$ 1,000 respectively.

*The Union of South Africa was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on May 31,  1910 with the unification of the Cape Colony, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange River Colony.

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Sunday/ along Columbia Street ️️🏙️

I took the G Line bus to the waterfront, and walked back up along Columbia Street in downtown Seattle to take a few pictures.
The tallest building in Seattle is on Columbia Street: the 76-story Columbia Center, which rises 937 feet (286 m) and was completed in 1985.

I went back to the waterfront to watch the sun set.
Sunset is now at 4.49 pm.

Blue skies and golden leaves on the way to the G Line bus stop on 17th Avenue E and Madison Street.
The view an hour or so before sunset from the Marion Street Ferry Walkway, looking north along Alaskan Way.
There’s the Columbia Center, reflected on the marble wall by First Avenue.
The Columbia Center (1985, 76 stories) is in the middle of the picture, with the Seattle Municipal Tower (1990, 57 stories). 
On the right is the Pacific Building (1971, 22 stories).
A closer look at the Columbia Center.
There goes the last of the leaves on the gingko tree at 215 Columbia Street.
This building was originally the Seattle Chamber of Commerce Building (1924), and is now the Northwest Title Insurance Company Building (since 2007).
The Net, formerly known as The Marion, is a planned high-rise office building. In its current design iteration, it is to be 36 stories tall.
Six skyscrapers in one picture.
Clockwise from the top right corner: the Columbia Center (1985), the Seattle Municipal Tower (1990), the F5 Tower (2017), 901 Fifth Avenue (1973), Fourth and Madison Building (2002), DocuSign Tower (1983).
Buildings close to Alaskan Way by the waterfront. I like the pastel colors reflected in the window panes facing the setting sun.
Sunset with the Seattle Ferry Terminal (Colman Dock, Pier 52) on the left.
The ferry is the Kaleetan, getting ready to depart for Bainbridge Island.
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Saturday/ is it sundown already? 🌇

Daylight saving time here in the United States will end at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025.
We will set our clocks back by one hour.

Cartoon by Eldon Dedini.
From a hardcover book called ‘The Dedini Gallery’, published by Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York (1961). The cartoon first appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 1956.
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Tuesday/ the Appalachian Trail 🥾

Here is the other sheet of 2025 stamps that I bought at the post office on Friday.

The Appalachian Trail
Issued Feb. 28, 2025
Perf. 11 serpentine die-cut |Self-adhesive |Design: Antonio Alcala |Sheet size: 15 stamps | First-Class Mail®’FOREVER’ stamps (75c) |Engraving: Ashton Potter (USA) Ltd. | No watermark
[Source: stampworld.com]
From USPS.com: Take a hike from the stresses of modern life with The Appalachian Trail stamps, celebrating the century-old footpath that rambles through unspoiled nature from Maine to Georgia.
The pane of stamps includes a photographic view from each of 14 states through which the trail winds. An additional stamp represents the so-called “green tunnel,” an affectionate nickname for stretches of trail through dense forest.
The Appalachian Trail, also called the A.T., is a hiking trail in the Eastern United States, extending almost 2,200 miles (3,536 km) between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine, and passing through 14 states.
[From Wikipedia]

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Sunday/ the bloody battles of the American Revolution 🎖️

I got these ‘USA forever’ stamps on Friday.
It never costs me just one stamp when I take something to the post office, because I always buy a whole sheet of stamps! 🤗

From Wikipedia:
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war’s outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war. But Washington and the Continental Army’s decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war in the Treaty of Paris two years later, in 1783, in which the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

Battlefields of the American Revolution (1775-1783)
Issued Apr. 16, 2025
Perf. 11 serpentine die-cut |Self-adhesive |Design: Derry Noyes (from watercolor paintings by Greg Harlin) |Sheet size: 15 stamps |First-Class Mail® ‘FOREVER’ stamps (75c) | Engraving: Banknote Corporation of America | No watermark
[Source: stampworld.com]

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Friday/ a beautiful fall day ☀️

Happy Friday.
It was a beautiful fall day here in Seattle (the high 70°F/ 21°C).
I walked to Volunteer Park late in the afternoon, and took a few pictures of the Black Sun.

Black Sun is a work of art by Isamu Noguchi (1969) made of Brazilian granite and 9 ft in diameter.

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Wednesday/ a Japanese lantern 🏮

Here’s my Japanese lantern that I got at the Ozeki Tokyo Gallery.
The packaging says ‘Gifu* Lantern Project 001’, designed by Yuka Noritake, and ‘Made in Japan’.

*A reference to the city of Gifu in Gifu Prefecture, Japan.

The frame with handle (inside the paper and wire sphere) is just cardboard paper.
The paper is Mino paper, made from the paper mulberry plant that grows in the city of Mino. There is a little LED bulb inside with a switch, that is mounted on a coin cell battery (so the lantern has no cord).
There were at least a dozen more lanterns to choose from in this size and shape, but with artwork such as cherry blossoms, trees or Mt Fuji.
I liked this plain one with no images on, best.
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Monday/ postcard from Seoul 🇰🇷

Hey! The postcard I had mailed to Seattle from the top of Seoul tower made it into my mailbox.

Gyeongbok Palace
Situated at No. 1 Sejong Road in the Jongno District of Seoul, the palace was originally built in 1395 as the palace of the King of Choson. It was listed as a cultural property on Jan. 1, 1963.
Mailed on Sat. Sept. 13, and processed on Mon. Sep. 15 at Seoul Yongsan Post Office, a stone’s throw from Seoul Tower.
2021 Republic of Korea Definitives
Issued Dec. 17, 2021
Perf. 13½ |Design: Ryu Ji-Hyeong |Engraving: Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation |Litho. |No watermark
#3555 500₩ Multicolored |Fruit cluster of bunge (Crataegus pinnatifida)
This tree is also called Chinese hawthorn and is known for its bright red fruit that is used in traditional East Asian medicine and foods (like candies and teas).
500₩ = US$ 0.36
[Source: stampworld.com]
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Tuesday/ autumn card 🍂

I deployed my 2 ½ -dimensional card that I had bought at a Japan Post Office in Tokyo, on my dining room table.

The cut-outs on the card was done with a laser.
Here is an explainer from Google AI Overview:
Lasers are very effective for cutting paper, offering high precision for intricate designs on various paper types, including cardstock and corrugated board. The laser beam vaporizes the paper along the path of the design, resulting in a clean, distortion-free edge without mechanical contact. While the laser’s heat can cause slight browning or charring on the edges, this can be minimized by using appropriate power and speed settings for the specific paper.
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Thursday/ Shibuya at night 🌃

Thursday was my last full day here in Tokyo.

In the morning, I ran out to Uniqlo in Ginza to change my size M shirts that I had bought Wednesday night, for size L. (The line at the fitting room was too long yesterday and I took a chance with the size M).

Then I went out to a gallery called Ozeki with beautiful Japanese lantern lamp shades that a YouTuber had recommended. I bought a little round one that is folded flat for packing into a suitcase. (At this point in any overseas trip it is always a question if all the stuff I had bought, would fit in my suitcases.)

And for the evening I made a run out to the Mandarake store (books, cards, collectibles) in Shibyua. At 5.30 ish, it was almost too late. You don’t want to get crushed on the train by the commuters that go home.
At Shibuya Scramble Crossing: lots of crazy people and definitely too many foreigners taking selfies and annoying the locals, I’m sure.
Get out of my way!

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Wednesday/ Ginza district 🪭

On Wednesday night I did my mandatory (mandatory for me) walk-about along the main street in Ginza, Tokyo’s luxury shopping district. The street is named Chuo-dori, which translates to ‘Central Street’.
The sign in the first picture says ‘Ginza Block 6’.

Stores on Chuo-dori close at 7 or at 8. The Onitsuka Tiger store (Japanese footwear maker) was filled with sneaker aficionados right until closing time. Look for the storefront with the cool tiger neon sign in the pictures below.

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Tuesday/ Shibuya 🏙️

I took the Yamanote line to Shibuya station on Tuesday morning.
My reservation to visit the open air observation on top of the Shibuya Scramble Square Tower had rained out last week, so I wanted to give it another try.

That’s the Shibuya Sky Deck, the observation deck on top of the Shibuya Scramble Square Tower (the deck takes up the entire top of the tower). 
The Tower is the tallest building in the Shibuya district of Tokyo and contains shops, offices, and event spaces in addition to the observation deck on its rooftop. The building and the observation deck opened in November 2019.
All of the windows on the four floors at the bottom form a giant display screen.
A photo from 1957 of Shibuya station that was in the lobby. The round dome in the foreground was part of a planetarium. It is still there but now part of a building called Shibuya Cultural Center.
My attempt of a panorama view of the Shibuya Mark City Walkway, a free elevated pathway connecting to Shibuya Station and offering excellent views of the Shibuya Scramble Crossing. During rush hour, the streets and station is flooded with office workers, and a major new walkway connecting the east and west sides of Shibuya Station is under construction, scheduled to be completed around 2030.
All right. Here is the Sky Deck, with its two levels.
It has a 10-ft high glass perimeter and netting. Even so, all backpacks, hats, loose items, have to be stowed in the locker room before you are allowed entry onto the deck. Cameras with straps (like mine) were OK. Yay.
There is the elevated walkway on the bottom left.
The famous Shibuya Scramble Crossing that the building was named after (four sides with one diagonal) is at the bottom right.
The structure with the black roof at the bottom of the green space is Yoyogi 1st National Gymnasium, built for the 1964 Summer Olympics.
And here is a telephoto lens look at Japan National Stadium, built for the 2020 Summer Olympics (that took place in 2021 because of the COVID pandemic). The 2025 World Athletics Championships is taking place there this week.
This is a Google office tower in the foreground. The subway trains are full of banners and posted ads about the new Google Cloud with AI.
This very tall smokestack next to the Yamanote railway line belongs to the Shibuya Incineration Plant, and the trains to its right are by Ebisu train station south of Sibuya.
This view has both the SkyTree tower (gray, far away in the distance on the city skyline) and Tokyo Tower (far right, red and white lattice structure) in.
A mosaic of turquoise and gray tiles.
This is the Shibuya Hikarie ShinQs, a high-end, eight-level department store featuring fashion, housewares, dining and gourmet food hall on the ground floor.
A closer look at Tokyo Tower.
To its left is Azabudai Hills (麻布台ヒルズ, Azabudai Hiruzu)— a complex of three skyscrapers from a major new mixed-use urban development completed in 2023. The complex features Japan’s tallest building, shops, restaurants, offices, and the teamLab Borderless digital art museum.
I am sure this map baffles many people that look at it.
It sits in the middle of the Sky Deck and uses an azimuthal equidistant projection to show how the world extends beyond the horizons seen from the deck. It’s possible to recognize the continent of Australia in there, but the blob at the bottom is actually Africa. 
Look for Vancouver at NW (7, 563 km/ 4,699 mi away), closest to where Seattle is.
I guess my question is: why does Shibuya show 40,030 km away (on the other side of Earth?). If Sapporo is 837 km to the North, should it not show 0 for Shibuya instead?
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Monday/ back to Tokyo 🗼

I was out of the bed in my hotel in Seoul shortly after 4 am this morning.
I had to take the first train of the day (5.28 am) on Line 1, from City Hall Station to Seoul Station.

At Seoul Station, I took the 6 am Airport Express train into Incheon International Airport.
(Cost: US$9, with a free bottle of mineral water from Jeju Island thrown in. For me, it’s not really about the cost, though. I just think taking the train is a lot more interesting than taking a taxi.)

The flight out to Tokyo’s far-away Narita Airport was slightly delayed, but went without incident.

At Incheon International Airport’s Terminal 1.
On the large screen there was an animation of “The Sleeping Gypsy” (1897) painting by the French Naïve artist Henri Rousseau. (The lion sniffs at the sleeping woman in the painting).
A welcome bit of color added to the beiges at the gates at Incheon International Airport.
We flew east for 2 hours across the East Sea to get to Tokyo.
The flight route makes it seem as if the pilot was asleep and said Oops! I better turn south to get to Tokyo.
Here’s the Asiana Airlines Airbus A380-800 (quad-jet, A388) at the gate at Narita Airport. I had a seat on the aisle at the back and on the upper deck.
On the Narita Express train, and on our way to Shinagawa Station where my hotel is.
I bought my ticket (13.14 pm departure) for the Narita Express at the ticket counter with only 8 minutes to go until departure time. I know the way to the platform, so I could do that. The next train is 30 minutes later, and I did not want to wait.
A nice scene from the countryside.
I had just stepped off the Narita Express train at Shinagawa station, this is a quick picture as it departed. Looks like the driver has a nice view of the track from the top of the train. The E259 series (E259系) is a DC electric multiple unit (EMU) train type operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East) in Japan since October 2009.
This train has the new livery which was introduced in 2023.