I've been to the year 2000

Magnet #866 - OpSail 2000

C'mon. No one has that Year 3000 Jonas Brothers song in their head now? Just me? Ok, then.

I've magnetblogged on the wonders of OpSail 2000 before, so I picked this for today's magnet for a couple of reasons...besides trying to get it out of my Photobucket "Not Used" album.

First, it's so darned hot outside that I could even relent on my No Sailing rule today. Might be nice to be out on the water. If only I could drag along a hospital on a barge behind me.

Second, because it's an old magnet. People always make fun of me for refusing to get rid of things. But lesson learned today. I had to go back into the archives to something we did back in 2003. Not only did I find the missing ad, but I found all the back-up for it. Which I guess is not any worse than when I had to pull stuff from the last century. But still. Keep it or need it, people!

Finally, because shoot, it's an old magnet! Which declares that I have apparently been collecting magnets for at least 10 years now. Now that's just crazy. Maybe I just happened to keep this magnet? I dunno.

Ok, ok. I'll admit to being a bit of a packrat.

After all, I'm still wearing T-shirts from whatever years those cute boys sold me T-shirts out of the bottoms of their duffel bags in the early 1990s at Carolina.

And I do still wear that one holey shirt from when Big River played in Charlotte.

In 1990.

Whoa.

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.

Are you surprised?

Magnet #860 - Pink Joy

Nooooo, you can't tell me you're surprised that this magnet is the reason I bought that magnet set from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts that I talked about yesterday.


eta:
Sorry for the short & sweet - got hit with a cold this week and am fevery and sniffly today, the day I was supposed to go back to work after a week off.

And, though it turns out that I probably got it from my STW BIL this past weekend, I'm really starting to believe in the physical manifestations of environmental (work) stress/distress.