Brain full
So, yesterday, after exactly 35 minutes of sleep (3 weeks of spending a lot of time working at my desk finally caught up with my spine. Not good.), I got up at 4 AM to get ready to go to NYC.
Duchezz and I got to the Thruway lot to meet the Gage-mobile, and inadvertantly played "Fool the Earl" by bringing a car other than the one he was expecting. But soon Her Excellency and Her Ladyship were safely ensconced in the car and we headed for Albany.
The bus was prompt, our "Cruise Director" his usual charming self, and only some of the people on the trip were annoying. We had a lovely, smooth drive down, and the bus dropped us off right in front of the Bard Graduate Center on 86th Street.
For the record, I'm not a big stumpwork* fan, and some of the more spectacular pieces in the exhibit (English Embroidery from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1580-1700:
'Twixt Art and Nature)were definitely in that style. And, well, my tastes running as they do, the amazing embroidered woman's jacket didn't fill me with the urge to instantly pick up my needle and try to recreate one of the motifs on a bag or glove.
But, that said
OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The exhibit is closing this week, but if you love embroidery, BUY THE BOOK!!!
My mind is still trying to wrap itself around what I saw, given what I know of period tools. Between the precision of the stitches, and tightness of the ground (I didn't have a measure with me, but some of it looked like at least 100ct evenweave, because I have some 50 ct., and some of it looked to have twice as many threads per sq. in.). Brain hurt.
And then we got back on the bus, after an hour and a half (too short to really see everything, but just in time to stop some of us from attacking the upscale senior citizens with their little LED flashlights shining in on the 500 year old textiles. Grrrrrrrrr).
Then the bus took us to The Cloisters. For some, this was another trip to familiar territory. For the two girls raised in lower middle class (Duchezz) or barely above poverty level (moi) households in Central New York, this was the sort of thing we'd only read about.
Brain full. Brain very full. Full. Full. Full. Brain so full it almost hurts. Now, in part it may have been because I was at that point functioning on 36 hours with no sleep, but when we came up the stairs from the level where The Treasury is, I cried--not break down sobbing, more the silent stream of tears. As you come up around the curve of the stairs, in front of you you can see through an open arch into one of the exhibit rooms. If no one is standing in the doorway (and no one was), the only thing you can see, filling the entirety of the archway, is part of one of the Unicorn Tapestries. And I cried. They aren't even my favorite tapestries. But it was suddenly overwhelming. I'd just spent 10 minutes focusing on 9th century ivory carvings, thinking about the detail, and the tools they'd used. Thinking about the conditions under which they were created. The bread with the bits of stone in it they ate for lunch. The light they worked with. The abuse their feet took, just getting to work....
And there was a piece I've read about. Hell, I even taught about it...and there it was, less than 50 feet away.
People who live in great urban centers, who grew up with means, in school districts that took junior trips, or senior trips to places like Washington or Los Angeles, New York or Boston, Dallas or Chicago, Philadelphia or San Francisco, may not be able to understand the effect at 46 or 52 of going to somewhere like The Cloisters at that age, for the first time.
Our brains are full. We were there for nearly 4 hours, and I never even got into the gardens (nothing really up yet, and, frankly, it was too friggin' cold). I wanted to sit in the cloister and just...sit. And I wanted a telephoto lens, a high resolution camera, and someone who can actually take good pictures to whom I can say "I need a picture of that corner of that statue." "Okay, now come over here and can you get me that upper right hand corner of that triptych?" Well, you get the idea.
Brain full. And it's too damn far away. Sigh. Maybe next year Duchezz and I can go again. We certainly have friends who'd love to see us. And maybe we can time it so the gardens are in bloom. The Lenten Roses were lovely, but, really, that's hardly enough. ;-)
We made great time home (yes, Jess, you were right--we drove right through Paramus), and we got to scritch the Callie-dog when we dropped the ladies off, and were still home before 11.
I finally wound down enough to sleep by 1:30, then up at 7 for Mass. I'd forgotten how long Palm Sunday service is (I always do). Then breakfast with the Bridgewater firemen, errands, and home. The office mate loaned us Quantum of Solace, which Duchezz is paying more attention to than I (I think I'm in the wrong frame of mind). I'm for bed. And a new week.
BTW, if you are reasonably local to Concordia--it was a great trip, well-organized, really inexpensive. They're planning to do this again (probably Boston next time, and after that maybe another trip to NYC, maybe the Met downtown), and if you have the least interest, try to go. Really--you won't be sorry.
*using the term most people recognize, though not, in fact, the term used on the museum notations, which are far more precise, as they should be.
Duchezz and I got to the Thruway lot to meet the Gage-mobile, and inadvertantly played "Fool the Earl" by bringing a car other than the one he was expecting. But soon Her Excellency and Her Ladyship were safely ensconced in the car and we headed for Albany.
The bus was prompt, our "Cruise Director" his usual charming self, and only some of the people on the trip were annoying. We had a lovely, smooth drive down, and the bus dropped us off right in front of the Bard Graduate Center on 86th Street.
For the record, I'm not a big stumpwork* fan, and some of the more spectacular pieces in the exhibit (English Embroidery from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1580-1700:
'Twixt Art and Nature)were definitely in that style. And, well, my tastes running as they do, the amazing embroidered woman's jacket didn't fill me with the urge to instantly pick up my needle and try to recreate one of the motifs on a bag or glove.
But, that said
OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The exhibit is closing this week, but if you love embroidery, BUY THE BOOK!!!
My mind is still trying to wrap itself around what I saw, given what I know of period tools. Between the precision of the stitches, and tightness of the ground (I didn't have a measure with me, but some of it looked like at least 100ct evenweave, because I have some 50 ct., and some of it looked to have twice as many threads per sq. in.). Brain hurt.
And then we got back on the bus, after an hour and a half (too short to really see everything, but just in time to stop some of us from attacking the upscale senior citizens with their little LED flashlights shining in on the 500 year old textiles. Grrrrrrrrr).
Then the bus took us to The Cloisters. For some, this was another trip to familiar territory. For the two girls raised in lower middle class (Duchezz) or barely above poverty level (moi) households in Central New York, this was the sort of thing we'd only read about.
Brain full. Brain very full. Full. Full. Full. Brain so full it almost hurts. Now, in part it may have been because I was at that point functioning on 36 hours with no sleep, but when we came up the stairs from the level where The Treasury is, I cried--not break down sobbing, more the silent stream of tears. As you come up around the curve of the stairs, in front of you you can see through an open arch into one of the exhibit rooms. If no one is standing in the doorway (and no one was), the only thing you can see, filling the entirety of the archway, is part of one of the Unicorn Tapestries. And I cried. They aren't even my favorite tapestries. But it was suddenly overwhelming. I'd just spent 10 minutes focusing on 9th century ivory carvings, thinking about the detail, and the tools they'd used. Thinking about the conditions under which they were created. The bread with the bits of stone in it they ate for lunch. The light they worked with. The abuse their feet took, just getting to work....
And there was a piece I've read about. Hell, I even taught about it...and there it was, less than 50 feet away.
People who live in great urban centers, who grew up with means, in school districts that took junior trips, or senior trips to places like Washington or Los Angeles, New York or Boston, Dallas or Chicago, Philadelphia or San Francisco, may not be able to understand the effect at 46 or 52 of going to somewhere like The Cloisters at that age, for the first time.
Our brains are full. We were there for nearly 4 hours, and I never even got into the gardens (nothing really up yet, and, frankly, it was too friggin' cold). I wanted to sit in the cloister and just...sit. And I wanted a telephoto lens, a high resolution camera, and someone who can actually take good pictures to whom I can say "I need a picture of that corner of that statue." "Okay, now come over here and can you get me that upper right hand corner of that triptych?" Well, you get the idea.
Brain full. And it's too damn far away. Sigh. Maybe next year Duchezz and I can go again. We certainly have friends who'd love to see us. And maybe we can time it so the gardens are in bloom. The Lenten Roses were lovely, but, really, that's hardly enough. ;-)
We made great time home (yes, Jess, you were right--we drove right through Paramus), and we got to scritch the Callie-dog when we dropped the ladies off, and were still home before 11.
I finally wound down enough to sleep by 1:30, then up at 7 for Mass. I'd forgotten how long Palm Sunday service is (I always do). Then breakfast with the Bridgewater firemen, errands, and home. The office mate loaned us Quantum of Solace, which Duchezz is paying more attention to than I (I think I'm in the wrong frame of mind). I'm for bed. And a new week.
BTW, if you are reasonably local to Concordia--it was a great trip, well-organized, really inexpensive. They're planning to do this again (probably Boston next time, and after that maybe another trip to NYC, maybe the Met downtown), and if you have the least interest, try to go. Really--you won't be sorry.
*using the term most people recognize, though not, in fact, the term used on the museum notations, which are far more precise, as they should be.