Remembering the V&A

Wow! It's been a year since I posted on this blog! Believe me, I haven't gone that long without thinking of London, but this is the first time in a while that I've had a London reminiscence that called the blog to mind.

PAPERWEIGHTS!

Yes, I was recently in a museum that had a whole room full of paperweights, and I couldn't help but remember the wonderful Victoria and Albert Museum. How many rooms full of curious and wonderful objects does it have?! 

The paperweight room is in the basement of the Chicago Art Institute, which I was lucky enough to visit on a recent trip to that fine city. And while it certainly wasn't as voluminous as the lace room or the silver gallery in the V&A, it was just as much fun and just as delightful a discovery.

Not only are the paperweights on display gorgeous objects worthy of being in an art museum...

...but the displays also provided some intriguing information about how they are made...

What an unexpected, but utterly cool, collection of objects! But that's not the only quirky, V&A-like set of displays that the Art Institute offers.

Also in the basement is their collection of tiny rooms...which is just what it sounds like. A bunch of dollhouse rooms that are exquisitely decorated in a variety of period styles. So neat!

The displays are fronted with glass, so it was hard to get good pictures. But, take it from me, this little gallery is well worth the time to visit.

So much detail! And how did they make it seem like sunlight was actually entering through the tiny windows and doors?! Amazing!

I'll close with a particularly haunting image from the Institute's main collection (it's famous for its Impressionist collection)...another London memory:

I'll have more about the wonderful painting we saw here in a future post over on Hometown Tourist.

More music and museums

I attended another lunchtime concert yesterday, this time at St. James, Piccadilly, not far from the circus of the same name, and just a couple of doors down from Fortnum and Mason's. The music was entertaining and interesting, a collection of viola/piano duets. I'd forgotten what a lovely solo instrument the viola can be (ever think of taking it up again, Hal?) and the gentleman playing in this concert interspersed the music with bits of viola history and interesting anecdotes.

Plus, being in a church with this name made me think of my nephew and great-nephew—cheerio, guys!

After the concert I was back at the Victoria and Albert Museum to do some Christmas shopping, and also to see their special exhibition on Cold War-era design. It was quite interesting, with many items and information from the USSR and Eastern Europe that were new to me. They had film clips from newsreels, worlds-fair-like exhibitions, and feature films like 2001 and Dr. Strangelove (a Kubrick fan on the design team?) that were fun to watch. And, of course, there was furniture like that in the Library's lounge—it's too bad photography wasn't permitted!

I began my day with an early picnic lunch in Hyde Park, and really savored its expansive grounds, since this might have been my last visit there. I was also treated to the frequent spectacle of park-walkers going ga-ga over the squirrels. This London-specific (it would seem) phenomenon is a complete puzzle—assuming that most of these people are tourists, do they come from cities with no squirrels in their parks? Are there cities like that? What is the attraction of watching a practically tame, extremely overweight, squirrel rustle around in the fallen plane treee leaves? Enquiring minds want to know. At any rate, hearing people squeal with delight, usually in an unrecognizable language, at the sight of a squirrel, will be an enduring image of London for me.


No fallen leaves in evidence here. I actually watched a guy on a Zamboni-like leaf-blower in Green Park the other day, sweeping them up. Given all the trees and their large leaves, I imagine a small army of parks workers is needed to make the lawns as clean as in the picture.

V&A re-redux

I have a feeling there will be a lot of "revisited" titles in my posts from here on out. I've made it to all the "big ticket" tourist sites, and some I'm satisfied with, but others I know I'll want to see again before I leave. Sunday it was the Victoria and Albert Museum's turn.

As you can see by the picture, third time was a charm and I finally found the cleverly-hidden musical instruments gallery. It was worth the hunt. An amazing array—surprise!—of mostly stringed instruments that were simply gorgeous and often quite curious.

After a somewhat overpriced, but delicious lunch in the Museum's cafe, I tackled the British Galleries, which took up the rest of the afternoon. Everything from teapots to china, to clothing, weapons, locks, and all manner of mysterious and beautiful objects. With the added advantage of learning some more of the amazing and wondrous (and sometimes infuriating) history of this green and pleasant land. Side trips into the Middle East and Chinese galleries meant that I probably have seen all I need to see at the V&A. Although I wouldn't turn down another trip if the opportunity presents itself. It's become one of my favorite places in London, for no other reason than that you really never know what you're going to find there. Or what curious and fascinating facts you'll learn about the objects you see.

Trying to catch up....

A first effort to try and catch you up on our jam-packed last several days.

Before having our yummy Tex-Mex dinner and attending the concert at St. Martin's in the Fields, we took in several London landmarks. I managed to get my guests to the V&A first. Even Henry, who had protested. But he found plenty of interest once inside. And—surprise, surprise—there were galleries I hadn't seen on my previous visit. Like the Cast Courts, which is where the picture on the left was taken. A huge collection (as are all of the V&A's collections) of plaster casts of famous sculpture, it sounds weird, and it is, I guess, but also very impressive.

Joan and I also wandered through vast halls of tapestries, a whole room of amazing lacework, enormous rooms of other crafts like ivory carvings and ornate furniture. Our goal was the fabulous jewelry collection that I remembered from my earlier visit and we eventually made it there. (Although I still haven't found the musical instruments room.) But not without a major detour when we saw a hall that must have been a mile long filled with silver trinkets such as the monstrance pictured here. Too bad there was nothing beside it to prove its scale, but, believe me, it was three feet high if it was an inch. And the whole hall is full of stuff like this. Truly amazing stuff.

We made the mistake of deciding to take in Harrod's next, which was a mistake because it was Saturday and it was packed. I didn't enjoy it at all, when I had before. Possibly because the previous visit had exhausted all its charms. Or maybe it was just the crowds. At any rate, we didn't stay long. After buying some yummy baked goods for a picnic we split.

More park rambles followed. We wandered around through Belgravia to get to Green Park, where we saw the quite lovely and interestingly-designed Canadian Monument pictured here. Those are sculpted maple leaves on the surface of the monument under a thin stream of water, augmented by some real leaves from nearby trees. (Fall is really here now and the trees' color, while not in the same league with Maine's, is still quite nice.)

We also made it to the National Portrait Gallery, next door to the National Art Gallery we visited the day before. It was pretty interesting, and, of course, enormous. I cut my viewing time down to a manageable size by searching out the women's pictures. Of which there are precious few. However, the final room made the visit worthwhile because I saw a picture of my hero Vera Brittain, one that she refers to sitting for in The Testament of Experience, her World War II memoir. I was thrilled! In fact, the room she was in, the 20th century room, proved to be the most interesting, which is not what I'd expected upon entry to the Museum. I suppose that's the mark of a good museum, when you find something unexpected?

After such a busy day we were happy to relax with the beautful music elsewhere described.

I need to grade a few more papers before hitting the sack tonight, but will try to continue catching you up tomorrow. I leave you with a new shot I got of the ubiquitous London Eye this day, here with the back of the Horse Guards building, on the edge of St. James' Park, in the foreground.

Gimme a V! Gimme an A!

....and also an "H" and a "IWM!" I've been very busy since my last post and have lots to catch up on.

I was successful yesterday in catching the correct bus and getting to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The hour and a half I had for the excursion was just enough to scratch the surface of this amazing place, though. I'm thinking I need to make a separate special place in one of my notebooks for "places to go back to." I'm so fortunate to have enough time to be able to do that!

The main reason I went to the V&A was to see the clothing gallery since I'd read there were good examples of WWII utility clothing that I might want to recommend for my WWII class. That exhibit was actually a little disappointing, as there were not as many items as I had hoped. But the bright side is that gave me more time to check out some other exhibits of interest. I was unable to find the musical instruments gallery (the place is a maze) but I did make it to the jewelery section and WOW! that was worth the trip. An astonishing array of historically interesting, and just flat-out gorgeous stuff.

The rest of yesterday was spent getting provisions for, preparing, and having a little party for our students at the flats. It was a lot of fun. I think I might have mentioned before, what a delightful group of kids they are? They went out to karaoke last night but my colleagues and I were partied out and made early evenings of it.

Today, though, we were hyper tourists. The "H" referred to above was Harrods, and what a hoot of a place that is! I don't know if I would ever actually buy anything there (except for food, which is scrumptious and some reasonably-priced stuff can be found, especially in the bakery) but it was certainly fun to look around. The Christmas section is spectacular (and I might return at some point to get a souvenir ornament...) and I really enjoyed the lighting department. I've never seen such unusual lamps and chandeliers. The games area might have been my favorite section (except for the food). This foosball table for the man who has everything—a bargain at £5000 since they only made 50 of them—was a particularly interesting find.

After fortifying ourselves at Harrod's Food Hall gelato bar, we headed south of the river for a completely different experience at the Imperial War Museum. This is one of the main visiting points for my WWII class and I have been eager to scope it out.

What an absolutely fabulous museum! You could spend days and days in there and never see everything—and everything is so fascinating and so well-displayed. We particularly found the Children's War exhibit moving and absorbing, and they have so many interesting little items from WWII that I know I'll want to go back prior to my class' visit, and several times thereafter. There's a whole gallery just on D-Day! Plus there's the First World War stuff I want to see. And the Holocaust Exhibit, which I only had time to run through quickly, looks so interesting, with lots of background information and studies of the events from different angles. As well, of course, as the heartbreaking stories and personal accounts scattered throughout.

This museum tells a sad, but very important, story, and tells it very well. I think it should be a required stop for all London visitors.

We came out of the museum to a lovely afternoon, but are certainly thinking about our friends and families in Houston. Let's hope Ike fizzles out and only brings y'all some good rains.