Smaller is better

Magnet #1300 - Les Grands Boulevards

Love this Renoir. Les Grands Boulevards was painted back in 1875 on the street of Paris.

It shows best one of the things what I love most about art - paintings are as good as photographs in depicting what urban settings looked like during that time period. Those are the pieces that I tend to look into the most, it's so much fun looking for the things that date the time period, horse-drawn carriages, folks in period dress, etc.

This one's from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which has definitely become a favorite - I can't wait to go back. I've decided that while I love the bigger galleries, the Met, the National Gallery in London, the Uffizi in Florence, it's the smaller museums I like most.

Yes, the big museums have the major works of artists throughout time, but it's the smaller museums with their lesser-known pieces that I love discovering. When walking through the Philly museum, I found myself in one room with at least seven Monets I had never seen before in real life. Seven! You've seen my Monet art magnet collection - it's pretty extensive. I've seen a lot of Monets in my life.

But, on top of that? I didn't have to climb over anyone to look at the paintings up close. I could look at paintings across the room with an unobstructed view.

It was amazing.

And of course, as I'm looking at the museum site, I just realized they have a Zaha Hadid exhibit starting soon. Sigh. It took me ages to get down to Philly just for their museum. And now I'll have to go back before March to see this Hadid exhibit.

(Yay!)

Did I do that?

Magnet #1284 - New Bern, NC, Birthplace of Pepsi

I gotta tell ya'll, growing up, I always kinda heard about Pepsi being from North Carolina - that someone was concocting some drink in a drugstore, and somehow Pepsi was born. But for whatever reason, I never connected New Bern, NC, as the birthplace of Pepsi. (Or, maybe I did, and I've just forgotten over the years. Yes, let's hope it's this.)

Save the World Couple did an eastern NC roadtrip a few weeks ago, where they explored some of the places in our NC history textbooks in 4th and 8th grade - Fort Tryon Palace, etc. It's a good thing they went, because eastern NC got pounded by the hurricane this weekend.

And unwittingly, they carried on my own tradition of disaster in my wake. I've mentioned it a few times before, but I keep adding to my list. I visit, and the place gets destroyed a few weeks or months later.

There was a visit to Windsor, then a fire in St. George's Chapel.

There was a visit to that Chapel Bridge in Lucerne, then that burned down.

I visited the World Trade Center in like July 2011.

I went to the Sports Museum of America, and a week later it closed.

Earlier this year, I went to South Street Seaport Museum and Bowne Printing Company and right afterward, they announced heavy layoffs and possible closure, and they're still fighting to stay alive.

Last year, I went to the Washington Monument, the first time in decades since I'd been, and then there was the earthquake.

Last year, I went to Brattleboro, Vermont, one of the hardest hit towns this past weekend.

There's more, but that's what I can think of off the top of my head.

I know! It's crazy! Like rationally, I know it's not my fault, but man, I'm starting to worry!

How can a chick be bigger than a chicken?

Magnet #1283 - Faberge rooster

Yeah, remember how I said VMFA's Faberge Revealed visitors were sparse yesterday? They were, but there were a few kids running around the exhibit halls, too.

Kids don't really bother me at all...unless they're unruly, or loud, or just spoiled. These kids weren't bad. But apparently, one was just talkative. Or maybe just inquisitive?

I didn't hear her, but they drove Save the World Couple insane with the rat-tat-tat questioning of "How can a chick be bigger than a chicken? How can a chick be bigger than a chicken?" Which is what she asked when she saw this chicken (rooster?) in the display case...because apparently, there was a chick that was...all together now, bigger than the chicken (really, it's a rooster).

Hahaha. Yep. Part of the charm of museums, you never know who you'll meet there.

Anyway, it's Save the World Sister's birthday today, so yay, happy fun trip to Richmond in a hurricane for a milestone birthday. Yay!

Bau-chicka-bau-bau

Magnet #1277 - Bauhaus

What? I couldn't help it.

This magnetpost is my own little reminder that I need to hit the Uniqlo roller rink over on the West Side soon, and most definitely hit up the @CoolhausNY ice cream food truck. Seriously. Between the fresh ice cream flavors and awesome cookies, that truck is amazing. And they crack me up, having somehow connected ice cream to the Bauhaus movement, my second reason for this magnet.

The Bauhaus movement, in a nutshell, was this utopian-esque enclave of designers, architects, artists, and other notable folks in Europe, banding together to create an art school in Germany, sandwiched in between the two World Wars. And when I say notables, Albert Einstein was involved at some point, as well as Vassily Kandinsky and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. What came out of this movement, was some very interesting art and design in several different fields, including the little known (to me) artist on exhibition at the Whitney, Lyonel Feininger.

Yes. The Whitney Museum of American Art. Folks. I've now been to the Whitney on the Upper East Side multiple times. I don't always agree with their collection or their art, but each time the museum both over- and underwhelms me.

How can the museum own 2,500 Edward Hopper pieces...and then only have one on display. How does that work? The one they have is part of their Breaking Ground: The Whitney's Founding Collection is amazing - both the art and the images and the exhibit. But really? One Hopper up on the wall?

On top of that, I can't show you what that Hopper is on a magnet...because the museum does not sell magnets. You know that's why their "shop" underwhelms me to no end - every time. Never changes.

They don't have magnets. At all. One could argue that their artists are often alive and or so recent that maybe they have to pay licensing rights to estates to develop any swag to sell in the museums. If that's the case, I get it. But man. Not even any museum merchandise - even with their strong Whitney brand? Get on that, marketing folks!

The latest latest exhibition, however, you must make time for: Lyonel Feininger: At the End of the World, and take the docent-led tour. It's amazing. An American who moved to Germany for most of his life before coming home to Manhattan in his later years, he started out doing cartoons and ended up one of the leaders of the modernist movement.

It took five years to pull together, which is amazing, because seriously, in a time where most museums are just re-staging pieces from their own collection and calling it an exhibition, the scale of this one is amazing - pulling pieces from major museum collections everywhere. Indeed, they only own one piece in this collection! That's almost unheard of in these last few years!

But, through the genius way they've set up the exhibition, you can truly see the evolution of his work from the cartoons, through his time at the Bauhaus, and beyond.

Not that I can show you on a magnet.

Because outside of a few books about the exhibition? No merchandise. Seriously. Grandest exhibition in years, five years in the making, the first time in decades Feininger's work's been shown in America...and no merchandise?

Really?

"Life to me is...

Magnet #1262 - Ensemble Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, autumn/winter 2002–3

a bit of a Grimm fairytale.”

- Alexander McQueen

Yep. Last day of the McQueen exhibit. And I didn't manage to get out to the Met to go see it.

I think that's ok, though. Visiting the galleries four times over the last couple of months was enough.

Plus, the six-hour wait was totally a deterrent to me, one of the newest Met members.

I saw a tweet somewhere that they brought in 25,000 new museum members, and that attendance was something like 650,000 for the show.

That my friends, is a successful show.

And somewhere up above, McQueen's tickled pink by all the interest, I just know it.

Like riding a bike

Magnet #1261 - To Do, To Be, Do be

So yeah. I haven't ridden a bike in literally decades. Like, so long, that I can't even really remember the last time I rode one.

But when two 12-year-old girlfriends said, "Let's go ride bikes around the neighborhood, Joy!", what's a girl to do? So we rode bikes into town...where we promptly got chastised for lack of helmets. Oops. (No worries, we got helmets for the kids.)

And when the one 12-year-old said, "Joy! Jump off the diving board with me!"

Of course, I couldn't say no. I mean, it was a herculean feat to actually get me to a pool...much less a town one, at that. So, there I went, diving off the boards, without regard to actual diving form - which, believe it or not, I used to have. (Didn't say it was good.)

Now anyone who knows me, even just a little bit, knows I'd rather be sitting in front of the tv or computer, rather bike-riding or swimming. Still, it was a superterrifically fun day, pretending I was 12 again, with both the 12-year-old and her mom, gossiping about boys and secret obsessions.

And, since it was a day spent in Jersey, I figured this magnet ending with Ol' Blue Eyes was perfect for the odd duck occasion.

Survey course

Magnet #1259 - Sydney Opera House

Remember yesterday's post? Yeah, here's architecture magnet 53 of 63. The Sydney Opera House, designed by Jørn Utzon in the 1950s, and finally dedicated in 1973.

Love this magnet set!

Come the fall, I've a feeling no one's going to see me - I overscheduled myself, so that I'd keep busy doing fun things in NY, including this architecture survey course starting in October. Should be great fun, and I totally can't wait.

It's a class that speaks to how we experience architecture, and it covers all the great masters. I was a little worried about being out of my depth, but at the very least, I recognized all but one or two architects listed on the description, so I think I'm good.

Of course, now that I'll have some sort of actual knowledge, I might be a little dangerous on the blogging about architecture front.

Eh. Probably not.

To the brotherhood!

Magnet #1258 - Degas signature

This Degas signature is the first in a set of about 33 artists signature magnets. I know. Wait til you see tomorrow's 63 magnets set.

Anyway, I picked this for today because I finally finished watching the BBC's Desperate Romantics, all about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of Millais, Hunt and Rossetti, and a few others, artists who banded together back in 1840s England. I could bore you with all the details of what they painted, and what they stood for, but that would defeat the purpose of watching this six-part miniseries.

The six-part miniseries that I thought DCSis had watched and liked, and therefore I felt like I had to sit through all six hours. Only to find out she barely made it through the first episode. Sigh. By the time I realized I didn't want to watch the rest of it...I was about five hours in. Goodness.

I definitely had to watch it, because I thought it'd be like the other BBC miniseries, The Impressionists, explaining the stories behind their famous works of art. Instead, I got Entourage, for artists...which is how they billed it. I don't mind Entourage at all, but honestly, I couldn't get into the backstabiness of these artists - true or not.

The best part of the movie was the one painting backstory that I really loved, that of Millais' Ophelia. In a magnificently cast role, the woman who posed for Ophelia, basically their Yoko (or Sloan) inadvertently causing strife between the boys, was superb and eerily a carbon copy for the real painting. If the series is to be believed, then while she was posing in a cold bathtub of water, she nearly drowned because of hypothermia and passing out in the water. Crazy.

The saddest part of the movie? Is watching how hard (or not hard) this band of brothers worked to make themselves known to the art world.

And in the end? Not a one was included in my magnet set of 35 artists.

Life sciences

Magnet #1237 - Museum of Life & Science

Pretty magnet - from my sisters and their umpteenth visit earlier this month.

I can't tell you the number of times I've been to Durham, NC, but zero is the number of times I've been to the Museum of Life & Science. The weird part is, I know lots of people who love the place and who go there all the time, so I don't know how it is no one's actually brought me here.

Of course, I do have this theory that people are either art museum people or life science/natural history museum people. Clearly, if you've read any page of this blog, ya'll know I'm the former.

For example, a good friend of mine from Long Island, who lived on the Upper East Side had never been to the Met until last week - ever. I mean, she lived right down the street from it. On the flip side, she's been to the Museum of Natural History on the opposite side of the park a million times and loves it there.

Absolutely no judgment, it's just an observation that backs up the whole different strokes for different folks to rule the world school of thought.

The sad of it is, today, I should have definitely headed over to the Museum of Natural History to see their presentation with their Carl Zeiss Vision telescope to see this year's last Manhattanenge, where the sun sets directly down the major cross-streets of Manhattan.

It's an amazing sight from what I've seen from the pictures, and of course now I have to wait until next year.

Even though I'm totally convinced that that Manhattanenge is just this big PR stunt to make folks visit, sponsored by science/nature/City of New York. Seriously, up until four or five years ago, no one had ever heard of it. Now it's like a ritual celebration!

Or...maybe that's just Twitter.

Wherefore art Warhol?

Magnet #1219 - Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe

I picked up this Marilyn Monroe magnet as an Andy Warhol Pop Art set, one of those random things I pick up in random shops.

Using it for today because Save the World Couple and Mom and I headed over to the Reynolda House Museum of American Art, after much contemplation of how to spend our day. It was one of my suggestions, having really enjoyed my visit last year.

So funny, the museum's been there for years, and within the span of a year, I've now been twice. But, it's a really good museum, and for some, a really good introduction into American Art, with some great pieces for Grant Wood (or that Grant guy, I kept saying) and Tiffany and Remington and Bierstadt and Church, and I could go on.

I will say that even it didn't dawn on me until I was looking in my Photobucket for an American artist that one of the artists that seems to be missing from the Reynolda is Andy Warhol. I did a search on their site, but it's quite possible there's one in the collection, but I didn't see it on display.

Still, it was also nice to roam around the bungalow (la-la-la, so big, and still called a bungalow, sheesh) again - even without taking the art into account, it's still a really cool house from the Gilded Age.

What I really want to do is strap on a pair of roller skates and skate around in their basement, which is completely rubber-surfaced to allow everyone to skate the entire length. Of course, I also want to be served a Tom Collins splash of cranberry at their supercool art deco-ish bar, shoot a duck or two in the gallery, rack 'em up on their pool table, drop 10 pins in their alley, and play some squash.

Honestly, it's possible I just want to live in their basement.

Where the streets have a name. And a magnet, too.

Magnet #1196 - Baker Street NW1

I picked this magnet up at 221b Baker Street, at the Sherlock Holmes Museum.

You know, the one where Mr. Watson scared the pants off of me, by simply moving. What? You can see him here in this vid, tho I suppose he's not as scary here.

I was saving this magnet for a couple of reasons. One, because when my former agency rebranded, one of the names were hoping to use was Baker Street, in honor of us looking for the truth (or some facsimile of it), and our amazing powers of deduction (such as they were). But, you wouldn't believe how many Baker Street marketing communications companies there are in this world. So of course, we went with another name and...don't get me started.

Then, I was saving this magnet for when the second Sherlock Holmes (either movie or series) came out, but then I thought that's fooooorever away, and we leave for London in 13 days!

Which totally means I can find other replacement magnets for them while I'm there. What?

You know, there's a big part of me that wants to collect every single one of these street sign magnets that I can find while I'm over there. There's a ton of them.

But, if you think about it, it'd be like me collecting all those Times Square or Broadway or 42nd Street or Wall St. green magnets from those souvenir shops along 8th Ave. And, yes, while I've thought about collecting those, I've wisely refrained.

No room at the inn. For the magnets, or the crazy.

But really, the magnets.

Crazy...well, ya'll are reading this magnetblogpost.

So, there.

The sky is my father

Magnet #1177 - Navajo Sand Art, Father Sky

The Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House is the home of the New York branch of the National Museum of the American Indian. A must-see if you're in downtown NY, and as part of the Smithsonian, it's free!

Really interesting exhibits and the building itself it totally gorgeous, both inside and out.

I picked up this magnet - a Navajo sand art painting magnet with Father Sky depicted. From what I've learned, sand art paintings are used in holy ceremonies where Earth people and Holy people come together.

In fact, the Navajo destroy their sand art upon completion, releasing the spirits into the wind (I assume). Kinda freaked me out that I had not only kept one of these paintings, but that it's in the form of a magnet!

But, the site I linked to earlier mentions that the Navajo fear having the correct version of any of their holy people in just anyone's hands. So, these pieces, and any of the ones found available for commercial sale, have important mistakes on them, so that they're not accurate depictions of the real thing. Whew.

When I learned that, it sort of made me feel a lot better, because I also felt just a little oooky having bought a magnet of one of entire culture's holy figures.

Of course, now that I've read up on this stuff, next time I'm back home, I'm totally heading back to the museum to go see if Mother Earth is there on sale, because now it's freaking me out, not having a complete set. Every image I've seen of Father Sky, he's usually standing right beside Mother Earth.

Maybe he's lonely. Maybe it's the reason for the last year of insanity. Maybe if I right the balance, things will go swimmingly.

What? I know I'm not Navajo, but whatever you believe in, don't go tempting the fates of someone else's culture or beliefs.

I learned that the hard way - having left my ATM card in an ATM, after kindasorta mocking the creepy music and the creepy guy following us around the Joseph Smith birthplace we just had to visit in Vermont.

But maybe that's another magnet...

Tattoo artist

Magnet #1072 - Norman Rockwell's Tattoo Artist

I've always wanted a tattoo. But, other than my name, I can't figure out what I wouldn't get tired of within hours.

I know this to be the case, because last year, at a trade show a client and I got the back of our hands henna'd at one of the booths.

Gorgeous work. But by the end of the day, I was tired of looking at it. A few days later and several meetings where I shouldn't have had any ink (henna or otherwise) on the back of my hand, and I was ready to chop my arm off.

Yeah, the obvious thing would be to get it where I won't ever see it. But then, what's the point?

That's why this Rockwell painting of The Tattoo Artist from the Brooklyn Museum (and their really cool Norman Rockwell exhibit)* cracks me up. The artist is busily scratching out the last name and adding yet another lady love to the growing list. Heh. Funny.

It's supposed to be a tattoo shop down in the Bowery here in town. I will say, if I ever manage to screw up the guts to get one, I probably wouldn't end up down in the Bowery. I'd likely go back home to my friend's shop. I trust him, mainly because I know him and know he'd probably laugh with me when my nervous laughter would inevitably give way to tears of pain. But, I'd go to him also, because before he ever touched the ink, he was always been the artist of our bunch in high school, so it'd be flat-out gorgeous, no matter what I decide to get.

For now, though, I'll just get jealous whenever I see anyone's ink on TV...usually Alex O'Loughlin's arms on Hawaii Five-0 (real) or Jax Teller's back on Sons of Anarchy (fake).

And you're welcome, for those links. :-)



*If you get the chance, definitely head over to the Brooklyn Museum for their Norman Rockwell Behind the Camera exhibit. Fascinating stuff. Rockwell's one of the few major artists who basically set designed and cast every painting he ever did. The exhibit takes you behind the scenes of those photoshoots, and shows you how he composed entire paintings by editing and cropping dozens of those images together.

Living Memorial

Magnet #1061 - United States Holocaust Museum

When I was in high school, our band made a stop at Dachau Concentration Camp. Like most band trips, it had been a barrel of laughs, up until that day's tour, when we suddenly all the lessons we'd learned from books and lectures about the Holocaust became very, very real.

When they built the United States Holocaust Museum in DC, I put off going.* Put it off, in that way that you know you should do something, but you know it will make you sad, and really, who actively runs into that situation? But you know you must eventually do it, because it's something that you just must do.

I finally went late last year, and am convinced that it's something everyone must do at least once. Sad though it is, the museum itself is truly an amazing experience, one that's made all the more real by the footage, the artifacts, the castings, the stories, the exhibit design, and especially the stark museum design.

You start from the top floor, where the films and exhibits explain how Hitler and the Third Reich came to power, the beginnings of Antisemitism, and with each passing picture and caption, the groundwork is laid toward one of the biggest tragedies in human history.

Just before the end of the upper level, you're faced with the question...when all the build-up was happening and (judging by the newspaper headlines of the day) America knew about it, then why didn't we do anything? There's a multimedia room with several carrels that explain America's response, but even if you sit there and watch each video, there's no real answer to be had.

As you leave the upper floor, you pass through one of my favorite (dubious word, I know) sections of the museum is the Yaffa Eliach Shtetl Collection's Tower of Faces on this magnet. It's a three-story tower of photographs taken from 1890 to 1941, of everyday ordinary Jews from a town called Eishishok (now in Lithuania). Looking up and down at all the photos, they're all strangers. Just seeing their faces and both somber and happy poses, though, it hits home that these people could easily be folks you know. But you don't know them - because as you find out in the later floor, 900 years of a rich Jewish history in Eishishok were wiped out in the space of two days.

The next floors retrace the steps of what they call the Final Solution to the Jewish Question, the stories of the ghettos and containment, until finally you enter into the concentration camp exhibit halls. If the horrific feelings of what happened so long ago haven't come back to haunt you by this point, stand in the musty, darkened railcar for just a minute. Or, really, even just a few seconds.

Throughout the exhibit halls, there are fairly high walls that shield the monitors showing the most graphic of footage, of the abuse, the violence, the experiments, etc. The concrete walls are there to protect young kids and presumably anyone of any age who doesn't want to see the footage.

For me, there was a strange dissonance here, the need to want to physically pull away the young prying eyes from the footage, coupled with the need to make sure they watched, if only to make sure their generations didn't follow in these sad footsteps.

That's the nature of this museum. By the time you get to the Last Chapters of Liberation and the trials, you've learned more than you ever wanted to know about the evils of mankind. And that's good. The learning, that is. It's no longer some ethereal lesson you've had to memorize for an AP test or pop quiz. No longer something far away in some book you read long ago.

It happened, and the takeaway from the museum is to honor the memories of those millions and millions lost by learning from it, and not letting it happen again.




*Oddly, my reluctance to write this magnetpost is kind of why I put off writing this rather sobering blogpost for a week.

Here and there

Magnet #1057 - Camera Work

One of the things I love about this town, is when there are multiple exhibits around the same subject at different museums. Whether it's planned or not, it still gives you a better grasp on a subject when you see it from multiple vantage points/exhibits.

The last couple of weeks or so, that's what the Seaport Museum and the Met (where I picked up this magnet) have done for me.

The Seaport just finished the amazing Alfred Stieglitz New York exhibit. I'm not a big photography fan, indeed, the amount that I know about it, could fill a teacup.

Yet, I've found myself captivated by his particular work, because he was born during the Civil War, and died at 82 in 1946, after World War II. So, his photography spans from horse-drawn carriages on the streets of New York, to the monumental skyscrapers being built all around him.

Plus, dudes. The man was doing more with his magic lantern camera in the 1890s than I can do with my point and shoot Panasonic in 2011. His photography is amazing. He makes me want to run out there and shoot anything and everything.

If you missed the Seaport exhibit, you can always hop on over to the Met, for the Stieglitz, Steichen and Strand exhibit. Though you can see much of what was at the Seaport, the Met's collection includes the Georgia O'Keefe portraits, plus additional halls focusing on Steichen and Strand's work as well.

While you're there, definitely drop by the Met's Masterpieces of French Art Deco exhibit. Very cool, made more interesting for me today, because it included more than a few pieces from the S.S. Normandie, which I magnetblogged about yesterday.

I know. I keep finding myself at the Met, over and over again. At some point, I really just need to get a job there.

eta:
Oh! I forgot. Each Friday, I've decided to post a new Floaty Pen video. Yes. Exactly what it sounds like. Yes. Just as silly as you would expect.

What? I can't figure out a better way to make use out of my Floaty Pen collection than showing you guys one a week!

Designing tomorrow

Magnet #1046 - Chicago World's Fair

Three. That's how many times I went through the Designing Tomorrow: America's World's Fairs of the 1930s exhibit at the National Building Museum in DC.

The first time I went through in just over an hour, a tiny bit rushed, only because I was in rush to get to through the gift shop to buy this magnet and then join the hour-long docent tour through the exhibit. A week later, I ended up spending two hours wandering through the eight halls or so, reading the fine print.

I swear, if I didn't start recognizing the volunteers manning the exhibit and the security guards and the guys behind the store register, I probably would have gone a couple more times.

There's some sort of magic surrounding World's Fairs that I've never been able to figure out - most likely, it's a sense of nostalgia, having been to the Knoxville '82 fair twice and then New Orleans fair in '84. But nostalgia's not the only reason, because ya'll know how I love heading out to Queens to see the old structures, buildings, and markers of the 39/40 and 64/65 fairs held there. So much fun.

What I didn't realize was that the 39/40 New York fair was just one of six World's Fairs held across the nation in the 30s, the others being Chicago's A Century of Progress International Exposition (1933–34), San Diego's California Pacific International Exposition (1935-36), Dallas' Texas Centennial Exposition (1936), Cleveland's Great Lakes Exposition (1936-37), and San Francisco's Golden Gate International Exposition (1939-40).

And the Designing Tomorrow exhibit (and accompanying blog) was just amazing, delving into each fair, the exhibitors, but mostly the design components - architecture and building materials, lighting and landscape, transportation and innovation, etc. The breadth and depth of the exhibit is truly remarkable.

My only complaint is that most of the oldies (and me) were bending down too far (indeed, on my haunches a lot, I was) to read the incredibly fine-print captions in like 8-point type (for some of them). But I didn't want to miss an inch of what they had to teach me!

Besides those captions, the exhibit itself is fabulously art deco-ily designed, coupled with giant sweeping images of each fair, gorgeous posters and wall hangings, great artifacts, displays, and videos.

I totally got lost in the wonder of all the fairs, and the 1930s walking through the halls. I loved it. But, I'm sad there's not a Designing Tomorrow catalog, because I would have totally bought one, or two.

When you go see the exhibit for yourself (as you must), definitely spend as much time as you can roaming through it - by yourself, and then take the really good docent tour. For example, without that tour, I never would have known that the first year of the Chicago fair, all the buildings were multicolored, as this magnet suggests. People didn't take to the garish technicolor(y) approach, and so the next year, they painted everything white...which is why Erik Larson's book is not called The Devil in the Multicolored City. Neat, huh.

Anyway, when you're done with the World's Fair exhibit (and the Palladio one and the Lego one and the others), go spend as much time as you can at the museum gift shop...it's one of my faves in DC, and just in general. Fantastic book section, incredibly dangerous for me and my wallet, so I have to avoid it.

They do have a good World's Fair tchotcke section, where I bought a few stickers to turn into magnets...at $10 for two, I couldn't justify (or pick between) all three sets. Hence the stickers, annnnnd maybe one additional one.

So yeah. In all, I'll eventually have seven magnets for one exhibit. Huh.

That New Year's Resolution to take it easy on the magnets is working out so far, I guess. Oops.

Losing one's head

Magnet #1041 - Renzo Piano Museum Quote

Ya'll know I love my architecture. Ya'll know I love my museums. In Renzo Piano, I have a double-double!

Ask anyone and they'll tell you that Italian architect Renzo Piano is one of the premiere museum designers in the world.

I've now seen his work at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Morgan Library in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Menil Collection and Cy Twombly Gallery in Houston.

Sadly, my timing was off to see the full renovation for the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the forthcoming work at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

I've yet to see anything of his that I don't like, but one wonders if it's because I'm just partial to museums in general.

Anyway, I picked this magnet up last week at yet another museum, the National Building Museum here in Washington, DC. Yes, I've been there before, and even blogged about it before, but they have some really great exhibits.

Currently, they have the Lego Architecture exhibit that I saw over at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry a couple of summers ago and a really interesting Palladio exhibit. They also have an ongoing Washington Symbols of Power exhibit, that I wish they'd add a panel to for the WWII Memorial story.

But, the piece de resistance for me and this museum right now, is their World's Fair exhibit, focusing on the America's World's Fairs held in the 30s. I rushed through it quickly last week, and then took a docent tour right afterward. But now, I'd like to go back this week to actually take my time walking through it. And that's when I'll actually do the magnet for it.

For now, Renzo Piano's words ring true for me - museums for me in the last several months have proven the places where I can definitely lose my head. Wandering around the hallowed halls of knowledge, art and history has been a soothing avocation to my usual daily job hunting.

Too much

Magnet #1008 - ELVIS-a-rama Museum

Black Friday.

I bought way too much. I didn't even need anything really, since about 80% of my Christmas shopping was done, but my cousins and I left at 3 in the morning, and didn't come home til 3 in the afternoon.

We started out with Best Buy, Target, a craft store, a fabric store, and all of Concord Mills ("the number one attraction of North Carolina, my mom always tells me). Whew.

One of the great deals was this Elv1s CD of his #1 hits for only $6.50 at Target. I mean, hello! When was the last time you picked up a CD with 30 tracks for under $10? Yay!

I've mentioned before how much I love Elvis, so of course, I couldn't miss going to the ELVIS-a-rama Museum and Gift Shop, a roadside attraction in Vegas.

I've a confession to make, though. I didn't do the museum part, I just did a quick trip to the gift shop (because I had to also squeeze in the Liberace Museum before my flight).

Although, I'm really glad I dropped by, because the poor museum closed back about four years ago. It's yet another museum that I regret just paying to go through really quick. I was about to say, just like the Pez Museum in PA, and I just found out that it closed down, too!

Sadface.

eta:
Son of a gun! I just looked up the Liberace Museum, and it looks like it just closed, too!! Three weeks ago!

Good grief.

eta2:
I'm starting to wonder if I go to sad little museums who are too obscure to stay alive, or if I'm bad luck!

So totally not the highest bidder

Magnet #980 - Matisse, Polynesia, the Sky

I honestly can't remember where I bought this, but it's so very pretty, and I know I haven't seen it in person before. Maybe in a sale pile at the MoMA store in Soho, I think. Great store, by the way. Dangerous, because of all the stuff I could buy in there.

Unlike all the stuff I could never buy at Sotheby's or Christie's auction houses. The New York Times did a great article yesterday about how one of the best things to do in the city, is to visit the auction previews at both houses.

I've visited Sotheby's a few times before, but not really for art, usually it's for the arts and entertainment auctions - like Grace Kelly's auction a few years ago, and a film one a few years before that. But, both Sotheby's and Christie's are doing Impressionists and Modern Art auctions next week. In anticipation, they put all the lots on view, so that people can visit them and figure out what they want to bid on. It's open to the public at this time as well. I mean, the "richy-richy people" (/tm my mom) have other private opportunities to view the art, but a lot of them come back to look, even if it means viewing with the hoi polloi like me.

Dudes. Today, I stood in front of a twenty million dollar painting today. By Monet. Unfinished. I could feel myself slowly backing away. Obviously, if I broke it, I wouldn't be able to afford it.

But, my heavens, it was amazing walking through gallery after gallery of paintings and sculptures and drawings. Masters of every kind were there. Just hanging out, with auction price tags on the placards. Holy smokes. The amounts on each tag could feed a small country, or ten. I can't wait to see what the results are next week!

Even more cool? Watching all the Sotheby's and Christie's employees walking wealthy patrons around to different works, as they scribbled on small notes of paper...you know, notes to say bid on this lot or that lot. You know, where in my little world, I mull over whether or not to buy this book, or that pretty paper, for a few bucks, these patrons are bidding millions. Millions!

Also? They can touch the art!!!! I nearly had a heart attack when I saw these two people touching a Rodin. Touching! It's like the number 1 rule in a museum, don't touch! And here these people were, running their hands over the smooth bronze surface...crazy. In another room, two men, were closely examining the Faberges - as if they were in a jewelry shop somewhere, "I'd like to see that (sixty thousand dollar) tea caddy, please." But I guess you can do that, if you're intent on buying it. Sheesh.

I won't lie, I saw so many Matisses, Picassos, Monets, Vuillards, Bonnards, Rodins, Faberges, Lichtensteins, Warhols and what nots that my eyes fairly glazed over by the end of my visits. The fantastic part was that they also included contemporary pieces from the period. The ones who aren't necessarily as well known, but have important work as well. The ones that aren't sitting over at the Met on Fifth, or the MoMA in midtown. Of course, I ended up buying a couple of the catalogues - I figure if I can't afford the art, at least I can buy the books.

There's a really big part of me that wants to go back to both places before the big auctions take place on Monday. Just to see the art before they go to their new owners.

One thing's for sure, there's a whole hidden world of private art collecting that I'm sure I've only scratched the surface of today.

Also for sure? These artists produced a helluva lot more than what's on our public museum walls.

After next week, they're going to be sitting in private art collections or residences. There's a part of me thinks that's a shame, that the world doesn't get to enjoy this art, but for these few preview days.

Then there's the other part of me wants to find these people and visit their houses so I can see what else is on their walls!

Glass flowers

Magnet #978 - Harvard Museum of Natural History

Eeeep, I missed a magnet yesterday! It's because I totally spaced on going to Boston with my parents...luckily, they called me from the road in Delaware, so I had time to run some errands.

All of which meant no sleep, and a quick pitstop at Mohegan Sun (to lose a load of dollars, quarters, nickels and pennies) to spend about an hour in Hingham, MA, for my dad's eye appointment and to come all the way back down 95 home. And straight to bed, where I didn't get up til this morning. Heh.

Anyway. We went to Harvard Museum of Natural History on one of our Boston roadtrips earlier this year. My aunt brought us, so that we could visit their Glass Flowers permanent exhibit.

It's a collection of about 4,000 glass flowers, of all shapes, forms and countries. It's totally cool, because it's not just the blooms, but the leaves and even cross-sections of the stems and roots, etc. All from glass!

A Harvard botany prof wanted to have them made for his classes, so from about 1887 to 1936, they produced them out of Germany. Apparently, they didn't have anything but crude papier mache and illustrations, and he wanted something better.

And better he got, because when you walk through room, seeing case after case after case of these things, you just cannot believe they're all made from glass.

Definitely worth a trip for a different type of leaf-peeping!