St. Louis
Did a lightning-fast trip to St. Louis, four days - two of which were spent in transit to and from. Met up with my sister and her boyfriend, of whom I have given an official sisterly stamp of approval. Visited our grandmother, drove to my father's hometown, after which I am named, and consumed mass quantities of Oberle Dog, a summer sausage made in the area that is the delicious porky smell of our childhood. And then we visited a competing meats/deli place down the street and all ate pork steaks.
Interspersed was a quick visit to the St. Louis Art Museum (where I saw one of my favorite Zurburan paintings, Saint Francis Contemplating a Skull) and a much longer (and more rollicking) visit to the St. Louis City Museum, which is a critter of a different kind. It's the brainchild of an artist, and I have no idea how they sorted out the liability insurance. It's a four or five story building riddled with slides and holes and crawling tunnels and man made caves covered with mosaics, and a rather grubby aquarium that we did not pay to go into, and a learn-how-to-be-in-the-circus center, and an area where you slide all around in your socks down ramps, a place where you build big walls out of plastic tubs and then swing on a rope into them, a place to cut elaborate snowflake designs, a big ride-on train, an exhibit of architectural fragments from buildings and a collection of doorknobs of all kinds. Best of all, there is an exterior climbing place built out of salvaged materials which include a tower, two airplanes, a cupola, part of a crane, a tree, and much more - all connected with stairs and metal mesh tunnels and spiral staircases. It's adult-friendly too, although I wish I could have experienced something like this as a kid - talk about a place to let yourself run wild. My sister and I (and her boyfriend on the first run - Bemo sat this one out on account of girth, bad knees, and no real interest) ran wild through the place, giggling like a pair of crazed ferrets and taking photos of everything. There were places we couldn't go, on account of our own girth, but we managed to shimmy through just about everywhere else.
And then, home and back to work. I have finally completed the text of the gallery guide for my exhibition, and it has been edited so all I need to do is present our publications guy with the text so he can send it off for printing. Squee!
Interspersed was a quick visit to the St. Louis Art Museum (where I saw one of my favorite Zurburan paintings, Saint Francis Contemplating a Skull) and a much longer (and more rollicking) visit to the St. Louis City Museum, which is a critter of a different kind. It's the brainchild of an artist, and I have no idea how they sorted out the liability insurance. It's a four or five story building riddled with slides and holes and crawling tunnels and man made caves covered with mosaics, and a rather grubby aquarium that we did not pay to go into, and a learn-how-to-be-in-the-circus center, and an area where you slide all around in your socks down ramps, a place where you build big walls out of plastic tubs and then swing on a rope into them, a place to cut elaborate snowflake designs, a big ride-on train, an exhibit of architectural fragments from buildings and a collection of doorknobs of all kinds. Best of all, there is an exterior climbing place built out of salvaged materials which include a tower, two airplanes, a cupola, part of a crane, a tree, and much more - all connected with stairs and metal mesh tunnels and spiral staircases. It's adult-friendly too, although I wish I could have experienced something like this as a kid - talk about a place to let yourself run wild. My sister and I (and her boyfriend on the first run - Bemo sat this one out on account of girth, bad knees, and no real interest) ran wild through the place, giggling like a pair of crazed ferrets and taking photos of everything. There were places we couldn't go, on account of our own girth, but we managed to shimmy through just about everywhere else.
And then, home and back to work. I have finally completed the text of the gallery guide for my exhibition, and it has been edited so all I need to do is present our publications guy with the text so he can send it off for printing. Squee!