Art

"You ask how I know of Toledo, Ohio? Well I spent a week there one day. They've got entertainment to dazzle your eyes: go visit the bakery and watch the buns rise."

-John Denver

Some of you may know that I am from Toledo, Ohio. I was there at Christmas this year, for the first time in a long time. It was great to go back to my hometown and see how it's changed (or hasn't). It's not the most exciting city (see above quote), but it does have a world-class art museum. When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time there, taking Saturday classes almost every term. My mom likes to tell the story of how, in order to get me signed up for my first classes (I was 6), she had to wait in line for hours on the first day of registration. She was about seven months pregnant with my brother, and she says she stood for a long time before someone brought her a chair.

I can't say I was the star of any of my art classes, but in high school I began to show a little promise. Unfortunately, my family relocated after my sophomore year, and I wound up going to a school with almost nothing in the way of an art program. After that, I did very little with visual art, although I did get more involved in music. My college degree is in biology. My current work (which, incidentally, does not involve biology in the slightest) requires very little in the way of creativity, especially with regard to the visual arts.

Not sure why I felt like talking about this; I just started writing and it came out. What got me on the topic was that I wanted to share some pictures from my Christmastime visit to the museum. I guess going there reminded me of a time in my life where I felt a world of creative possibilities. I'd like to think that through developing my knitting and (nascent) sewing skills, I'm entering another creative era of my life.

So anyway...here are some pictures from the collection at my hometown museum. I should also say that Toledo is the glass capital of the world, having been home to several of the largest makers of fine glass, the Libbey Company, as well as other industrial glass companies. The museum has a new Glass Pavilion which displays its vast collection of glass from antiquity to today.


Stegosaurus by Calder and the Museum


1st cent B.C. Roman bowl, mosaic ribbon glass technique


Libbey Glass punch bowl


Lalique bowl


Campiello del Remer #2 by Chihuly, inside the Glass Pavilion