Discovering the bells at the Cosanti Foundry

This past weekend had perfect weather so we decided to head out to Paradise Valley.

by the parking lot

To visit the Cosanti Bronze Foundry where these beautiful bells are created.

We also wanted to get the kids out of the house for the start of their Spring Break.

Like the bells the buildings are also a work of art.

The grounds and shop are the studio of artist Paolo Soleri. 

It's more than just a bronze foundry, it's also a ceramic workshop.  Here you can see some of the tiles on display and for sale.

These are some of the molds in one of the back studio areas.  No demonstrations today though.

We followed the walkways around the unusual buildings. Some areas were marked "private", as the artist does live here with his family.

It was incredible to see the inner workings of a place like this.

 It sometimes felt like a maze, an unusual, and sometimes beautiful maze, however.

Paolo Soleri began work on these amazing structures in the 1950's and was later assisted by his students.

As we followed the winding path around and through the little buildings we found this enormous parrot lurking in a grapefruit tree.

It never takes long for my kids to start acting goofy.

The chimes were quite enchanting and made some incredible sounds.

The girls found the warped wall (we've watched too much "Ninja Warrior").

Phoebe also found a cute kitty.

After wandering the grounds we returned to the shop.

 A visit to Cosanti was a great afternoon!

Since Oscar had to wait in the car at the foundry we decided to bring him to the Scottsdale dog park. Unfortunately it was closed due to wet conditions (notice the fantastic day in these pictures).

So we took a walk around the park that wasn't closed.

There was some pretty interesting terrain.

I guess we'll see the Scottsdale dog park on a different day.