Blue chairs are a disbursed throughout the three acre grounds of the Allied Arts Guild in Menlo Part. This chair was too hot to sit on, but makes an interesting composition. This image was taken with my iPhone 7 in full sun. I first exposed for the bright light of the gravel. This left the flowers in the foreground in darkness so I took a second shot exposed for the darkness. Later, I composed the two photos in Photoshop.

The historic Allied Arts Guild was founded in 1929 and is a Palo Alto Stanford (PAST) Heritage site, which was planned by artists Pedro and Rita de Lemos in the Spanish Colonial style. The plan called for six new buildings to house studios for artists and crafts:

“The original barn and sheep sheds were preserved and the new Spanish eclectic buildings were surrounded by gardens which Delight had seen in the Alhambra in Granada. The gardens—with names such as “The Court of Abundance”, “The Garden of Delight”, and “Cervantes Court”, and filled with oranges. lemons, pomegranates, roses, heliotrope and jasmine—blended with paths whose stones and pebbles were from San Francisquito Creek. Six painted murals by Maxine Albro, a disciple of Diego Rivera and tiled wall murals by the de Lemos family provided a story–book setting for the making and selling of hand-made furniture and pottery, woven fabrics and metal light fixtures. Many of the latter still hang in the Awahnee, the Palo Alto Community Center and Birge Clark houses.” —Margaret Feuer, for PAST.

Please click on any photo above to see a larger image ( click ‘<‘ to exit).

Cheers, Carto