Are You This Kind of Collector?

Do you have a room in your home that looks like this?

I imagine not.  But as you'll read at the end it was not unusual in the home of a nobleman in the 17th century.

What kind of collecting do you do?

When we downsized to move here I took one or two items from each of the many collections I had.

Photos from the Walters Art Museum

Suspense!

Hanging over head when you walk into the Baltimore Museum of Art are these suspended orbs.

I cannot fathom how they were assembled - there are supporting wires in every conceivable direction!

Going Cruising

As you read this Dan and I are on a river cruise on the Rhine River.

We flew to Amsterdam today, boarded the AmaStella for a week long cruise upstream to Basel, Switzerland with AmaWaterways.  

Lots to share upon my return.

Prayers that Youth Can Make the Difference

I keep remembering the Jimmy Stewart movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington".  His foe was not unlike what the NRA is today - controlling the senators and representatives to do their bidding.  As a freshman senator, Mr. Smith came with hope and interest in seeing democracy at work but came up against the foe which was controlling the senior senator from his state and many others in Congress.  When Mr. Smith was almost shut up and put down it was the youth, the children that got the word out to what was happening.

Today we have our youth and children doing the same thing.  Let their voices be heard.

I stand with them!  I have hope!

Finally Some Snow

We have had minuscule amounts of snow all winter.  Now that Spring arrived we are having our snow storm for 2018.

We are so glad not to have to worry about shoveling and snowplowing the driveway we once owned. In fact we have not had to venture out at all except on the balcony to take these photos.

The snow event started yesterday as freezing rain and sleet.  Here are the icicles forming on the north balcony railing yesterday.

Then overnight another system came through and heavy snow started before daybreak.

Here's the same railing this afternoon.

And here is the view from the south balcony.

The temperature is warming so dark surfaces like the pathway above are losing the snow and ice.  It was snow covered for much of the day.

It will rapidly disappear once the sun shines tomorrow.

BMA Exhibit by Stephen Towns

Last week was another trip to the Baltimore Museum of Art.

I won't share about our disappointments caused by our inexperienced Vantage House trip coordinator.  Needless to say there was no docent nor lunch reservation.

The exhibit most of us went right to was a small one focusing on the quilts by Stephen Towns.  

He trained as a painter and taught himself how to quilt to create some extraordinary quilts that are stories of our nation's slave history.

I've included all the labels with each quilt.

This flag was almost floor to ceiling.

It was interesting to look closely at these quilts.  Then it hit me how many times the same fabric was used for the sky, the clothing, and the scenery.  Doing that tied all the quilts together into one story.

The exhibit Stephen Towns: Rumination and a Reckoning runs through September 2, 2018.