Is it Winter yet?

Magnet #865 - Tiffany's Autumn

Winter,* the final of my Four Seasons VMFA Tiffany magnetset, from the Tiffany exhibition.

It's gonna hit about a hundred today, and I know in a few hours, I'll be in the subway, giggling over the seasonal differences down under.

Right now, when you walk down the stairs into the subway, you're immediately assaulted by the waves of heat wafting through the station, with our only air current the trains ripping through the tunnels.

You enter the cars, and with any luck (especially now with all these budget cuts), it's air-conditioned, and it's filled with half-dressed people, just trying to beat the heat. Tank tops and flip flops, long hair pulled into a clip, and makeshift newspaper fans desperately trying to make a breeze. There's less people, but the folks left seem to just be trying not to touch each other's sweaty limbs.

In the winter, we all crowd into the subways with our heavy, heavy coats and our boots and gloves and hats, and we're all just happy to be warm and in from the cold and wind. Less people fit in the cars, by virtue of all those heavy coats bunched up against each other. Yet, gloved hand after gloved hand dot the rails along the top of the cars, and it's all we can do to sway as a group whenever the cars take an abrupt turn or brake suddenly.

I dunno, it just always strikes me funny when I'm staring down at either flip-flops or boots to remember how different we are come winter or summer, and what a difference a season makes.

* Morse Museum of American Art's Four Seasons PDF guide

Season of change

Magnet #864 - Tiffany's Autumn

Autumn,* third in my Four Seasons VMFA Tiffany magnetset, from the Tiffany exhibition.

I won't lie - these four magnets are so small that it's hard to make out the content of the stained-glass design. But when you put the four of them together, just as magnets, it's so, so pretty. Just imagine how majestic the whole window must have been.

Fall's one of my favorite times of year, mostly because it's not too cold, not too hot. And also because, more than an actual calendar new year, it always feels like a time of new beginnings. New school years, new people, new hopes. Just new change, I guess.

Oh, and let's not forget, new television, too.

What? I just finished off seasons 3 and 4 of Friday Night Lights, after a delayed gratification of not watching either season so I could devote a weekend to it. Now that that's done, I need it and Coach Kyle to hurry on back. Thanks.

* Morse Museum of American Art's Four Seasons PDF guide

Spring into Summer

Magnet #863 - Tiffany's Summer

Summer,* the next season in my VMFA Tiffany magnetset, from the Tiffany exhibition. Picked this today for July 4th, only because it's the start of a mid-summer heat wave, and I'm sure I'll be busting out the popsicles soon.

Can I tell ya'll, it was a hard decision picking out just a few magnets from millions they had in the shop. Ok, fine. It wasn't millions, but man. I wanted to run screaming through the building, Pretty maaaaaaaaaaagnets!!!!!

Most of them were from the Morse Museum of American Art's Tiffany Collection, and all were so gorgeous. So I only walked away with these Four Seasons.

And that was total restraint on my part.

I mean, If you don't count the other three that I picked up in the other VMFA shop. And the fact that I was desperately searching for a Faberge Egg magnet, too. Heh.

* Morse Museum's Four Seasons PDF guide

Four Seasons of Winter Park

Magnet #862 - Tiffany's Spring

Well, I guess a trip to Winter Park, Florida, is in order, if only to see their crown jewel of the Morse Museum of American Art's Tiffany Collection - Four Seasons.

These were just four of apparently 16 leaded-glass panels that he designed as part of a larger piece (from the Morse), one of his greatest and favorite achievements. In fact, the only reason he designed it was because he saw this other guy, John LaFarge, win all these awards in 1889 in Paris, and Tiffany wanted the same recognition for himself.

So he designed the Four Seasons, and poof, won several awards for it in the 1890s, and ended up taking the Gold Medal at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, landing him on the international stage.

That's actually why I selected this magnet set from the VMFA's gift shop - because tucked away on a wall at their Tiffany exhibition (of which they're the only U.S. museum to host it), there's a black and white picture of the window in all its glory, hanging at that world's fair. And, even in black and white, back in 1900, you can see how this work of art must have been absolutely gorgeous.

You can learn oh, so much more about this vanity piece through the Morse Museum's Four Seasons PDF guide. Spring is just the beginning of my little set of four. Totally gonna marathon them!

In the meantime, I need to figure out when my trip to Winter Park will be. Don't laugh. It's totally a side-trip for Disney. Hmm, now I have to figure out my next trip to Disney.

Ok, fine. Now you can laugh.

Upstairs, downstairs

Magnet #861 - Maymont

Have ya'll seen that Clive Owen movie Gosford Park? The really good one - about the genteel Brits in the English countryside and the lives of their upstairs and downstairs servants?

That's what the Maymont House Museum reminded me of. The U.S. version of that movie. Maymont was the 100-acre Gilded Age estate of a wealthy Richmond couple, the Dooleys. There's a nature preserve and a set of gorgeous gardens, plus the house on the estate is available to tour.

So, yeah, you know we totally did the tour. It starts you off belowstairs, with a rather well-done and in-depth self-guided tour, telling the story of how the Walker family, and the rest of the servants lived and helped serve the Dooleys family over the generations. So very cool. I mean, on these tours, you always get to see the dumbwaiters, the bellringer switchboards, the pantries and the kitchens, but, how often do you get to learn the details?

I mean, dudes, it took 10-12 hours to do laundry - one load! And, the manpower needed to host a tea party, you would not believe!

When it's time, they have you meet around the house at the front door. Not the side, where the carriage entrance was - you have to love houses with carriage entrances, it puts you right in that carriage in your best day/evening dress! But, at the front door, you're greeted by one of the docent volunteers to take you through the house, presumably because the mistress of the house has gone away for the day, leaving the guide to show you around.

What a good tour and a sweet tour guide, too. You can see the tour via this lovely blogpost. But our guide took us through the receiving and dining rooms downstairs, as well as the bedrooms upstairs, all the while answering our questions where she could.

She gave me a bit of perspective, explaining to me that though the Dooleys were very wealthy - they weren't near as wealthy as those Vanderbilts down in NC - which I have to take that they couldn't have been part of Mrs. Astor's circle in NYC, could they have? I dunno.

Anyway, you'll see through that blogpost that the house was certainly the epitome of the Gilded Age - for better or for worse, filled with such Gilded Age-y ornate furniture from all over, fueled by some definitely eclectic tastes.

On the good side, that eclecticism also included a number of Tiffany pieces that were pointed out along the way - which was no surprise, since the Tiffany exhibit at the VMFA has totally taken over Richmond, in such a wonderful surround-sound branding way, that I can hardly believe it. The piece on this magnet is actually a major panel in the house in their grand foyer.

So gorgeous. So unsigned! But no worries, Tiffany confirmed that it was from their studios.

On the bad side, the eclecticism (yes, that word sounds ok - odd, but ok) really freaked me out when we got to Sallie May's room - where, upon her death, she had her bed from their second house, Swannanoa, brought to Maymont room, so it could be on display. Which wouldn't have been so bad, had it not been this huge monstrosity...in the shape of a swan.

A swan. A big giant swan.

Of course, both sisters were more worried about the Tiffany whaletusk/silver vanity table and chair. Disturbing, to say the least, but man, I'll see that swan in my nightmares.

And we'll likely be riding it, right into belly of the Kraken.

Anything you can do...

Magnet #797 - Tiffany's Magnolias and Irises

This Tiffany stained glass window centered around Magnolias and Irises is another of my art gallery magnets from the Met. Yes, I should own stock in the Met Shop.

This piece used to be in a Brooklyn cemetery mausoleum, which is kinda weird, mainly because I'm wondering what's now in its place over the bridge. I don't know why I didn't know this, after seeing so much of Tiffany's work, but he and his studios were often commissioned for memorial windows - that's the River of Life back there.

Even from its sad beginnings, I do love this magnet - it reminds me of both my parents. My mother, because she loves magnolias and irises. And my father, because he's something of a stained glass artist himself.

Basically, he took a bunch of stained glasses courses, learned the rudimentary skills, quit the classes, and started designing and making his own designs. He's designed a couple of really gorgeous pieces, mostly for the house. All of that, is because when he sees something, he honestly thinks he can do it better.

I mean, after all, we're talking about the man who sat in Musee Marmottan in front of Monet's giant paintings and said, I can paint better than that!

The stars are going out...

Magnet #422 - Tiffany Dragonfly Lamp

...or, it could just be other planets conserving energy. Today marks the beginning of Dark Skies Awareness week, timed just right for Earth Day/Week.

This project is one of the 11 Global Cornerstone Projects during the 2009 International Year of Astronomy, with its goal to raise public awareness of the adverse effects of excess artificial lighting on local environments.

That's too much light in our skylines, drowning out the stars; or street lighting that doesn't really light the streets, as much as it does the sides of buildings; or major venues that continue to use floodlights when not needed. All of it contributes to light pollution.

We spend billions on unnecessary lighting every year, but not only that, the light we waste releases something like 38 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. We need to be on the look-out, or Earth could be the next star to go out. (dire, much?)

And speaking of a light going out...a couple of years ago, the New-York Historical Society produced an exhibition called A New Light on Tiffany, where they highlighted the work that the Tiffany Girls did. Led by Clara Driscoll, these were the women who picked and cut the glass for the Tiffany windows, shades, and mosaics.

Though she was known for her Dragonfly design (the dragonfly being an ancient Japanese symbol of new light and joy), Clara designed the famous Wisteria pattern as well.

It was a great exhibition of the Tiffany studios work - where several of the lamps were displayed. All gorgeous, lit, and unlit - some of them not having seen the light of day in decades. It was fantastic. Loved it - even if, at the end, this woman, who was clearly a driving force behind Tiffany, had to quit the second she got engaged in 1909.

Company policy: Married girls couldn't work for Tiffany. Ugh. Just ugh.

Who knows if the light went out of her life afterward - maybe she was tired of working on Tiffany's designs without very much credit. Maybe she was happy with her husband.

I guess, but it's still kind of annoying that she had to give up her glass career in favor of a husband, and a career painting scarves.