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Lesley Peterson is a Toronto-based blogger tripping on travel, art, culture, museums, cities and legendary landscapes. Catch her on Twitter as @culturetripper or contact her at lesley@culturetripper.com. All content by Lesley Peterson copyright © 2009 - Until the Present. All photos by Lesley Peterson except where other credit noted.
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Free Hawaiian culture classes and concerts in Waikiki, Honolulu
Glamorous Waikiki Beach was once the retreat of Hawaiian royalty. Here at Helumoa, a royal grove of coconut palms, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop (1831-1884) wrote a codicil to her will establishing Kamehameha Schools dedicated to educating children of Hawaiian descent. Today the Royal Grove is a garden at the heart of the Royal Hawaiian shopping center, the […]
ArtSmart Roundtable: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
The former gallery guide in me couldn’t resist a regular appointment to chat about art so I’ve joined the ArtSmart Roundtable, a group of travel bloggers with a contagious passion for art. On the first Monday of every month, each member of the Roundtable publishes a piece on a chosen topic. This month’s topic is […]
Key West for culture trippers
Like Alice passing through the looking-glass, I entered the Florida Keys through a dissolving veil of rain. The summer squall cleared as fast as it had blown in and I spent several sunny days exploring Key West’s unique architecture and thriving arts scene. There’s always something raffish about a port town. With its strange past […]
28.08.2012 · Filled under: Architecture, Art, Destination Guides, Florida · Tags: Artists, Books, Florida, hemingway
Santa Fe for culture trippers
There’s a kind of hush over Santa Fe, New Mexico, a hush quite remarkable for a UNESCO Creative City and the third-largest art market in the U.S. (after New York and Los Angeles). Located at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains at an elevation of 7,000 feet, the color and beauty of New Mexico’s […]
29.06.2012 · Filled under: Architecture, Art, Destination Guides, New Mexico · Tags: CITIES, museums
Canucks, inukshuks and Cuba
Waves crash, palms blow, vultures wheel, clouds unspool. Here on the Costa Morena, the rugged coast west of Santiago de Cuba, all nature salsas in the wind. Flopped under a seagrape, sunburnt, pants torn, I suddenly get Van Gogh. Vincent never made it to Cuba but he would have known how to paint it: all […]
Are you a right-brained traveler?
I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about being lefthanded while growing up. Raised in a house full of righthanders, I simply adapted to unfriendly can openers and blister-causing scissors and got on with life. Life as a lefty, though, meant drawing a certain amount of flack. And flack is fuel for stubborn individualism. For […]
On a carousel in North Tonawanda, New York
“Sure!” she replied and pointed to one of the larger and wilder-looking outer horses. “Climb onto Big Billy there.” The crazed-looking stallion creaked as I swung my leg over his saddle and I instantly regretted the second beef on weck—a Buffalo area specialty—I’d polished off at lunch. But no time to reconsider. The attendant hit […]
Al fresco art: Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition
I always meet the most interesting people at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. Fewer exhibitors this year, surprising since it’s the event’s 50th anniversary but half of Nathan Phillips Square being fenced off for construction may have had something to do with that. As always, though, quality at this juried show was high. The TOAE […]
Why I’m toasting Russia’s Last Grand Duchess today
In Toronto’s North York cemetery, not far from the grave of hockey and coffee legend Tim Horton, “The Last Grand Duchess of Russia” lies beneath an Eastern Orthodox cross as white as a Russian winter. In this city of immigrant tales, the story of Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Olga of Russia is one of […]
Messy lives, messy art: Abstract Expressionism New York at AGO
Tumultuous relationships, alcoholism, suicide. For the Abstract Expressionists, messy lives made for messy art. Sixty years later, their paintings still vibrate with the tragedy, passion and questing spirit that created them more than half a century ago. Several days after attending a media preview at the Art Gallery of Ontario, I’m still thinking about the show. Abstract Expressionist New York: Masterpieces from The Museum of […]