De Young

More museum adventures.

This time from the De Young:
The De Young has a small yet beautiful selection of turn of the century ceramics - which are also very difficult to photograph nicely XP
This first piece is from the Weller Pottery Studio by Jacques Sicard in Ohio around 1905-ish. It looks like some kind of Raku or luster going on. I don't know how he did it, but I want to learn o=










The De Young Museum also has a nice collection of Native American pottery including this awesome Pueblo piece. It was made in 1950 in New Mexico by Rose Chino.

Wherever I go, I must find the things with the creepy crawlies. In this case, it's a bug on this Hopi Pueblo jar made by Jean Sahmie in the '40s. The crazy stairs are pretty awesome too.






Finally, the De Young has a 9th floor lookout tower thing you can go to (complete with yet another gift shop XP). We went there and lounged on their bizarre triangle benches. If they had been more comfortable, I would have taken a nap. Instead, I took some pictures. You can see the entrance and domed roof of the Cal Academy of Science, and the city of San Francisco in the background.

















It was a long day, but a nice trip all together :)

Legion

As promised, pictures form my SF Museum adventures o=

First off is the Legion of Honor:
This guy looks like a Minoan piece to me. The label only says South Italian from around 335BC. I like it because it has crazy sea creatures, and is that an eyeball in the center? I think so :D







The next piece also has a lot of critters. It is from the fancy porcelain room at the Legion by a man named Bernard Palissy in 1500s France. He liked to make casts from dead critters to make his decorations, and he liked natural things as you can see by this platter. It has oak leaves, fern leaves, grape, acorns, shells, a snake and a lizard probably cast from the real thing. The colors are a little bit blotchy, but I must say, I love this guy XD.




The porcelain room had a lot of what I'd call bug-wear. That is to say many of the plates, cups, and dishes were decorated by some sort of insect. This tureen was the granddaddy of them all however. It was made in Chantilly around 1735-1745 of a low fire porcelain (called soft paste porcelain). Not only does it have the awesomeness to be a three dimensional pumpkin with vine handles and a pomegranate finial, it is also covered in different types of insects. Epic.

































I felt that a note must be made about this painting. It is wonderfully executed with watercolor and graphite on paper, but the subject matter is also enjoyable. It is called Love and Its (His) Counterfeits and was painted in 1904. You've got a line of characters with their various riches, tales, and vanities in front of a woman's door. Her expression is priceless - a silent "good grief" to all this hullabaloo. It is at this point I found the painting was indeed made by a woman, Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, who lived from 1872-1945, and I felt a general sense of kinship :B

It seems that blogger has eaten my other photos as well as being dumb in regards to post editing (it is not logical! D:<), so I'll leave the De Young museum for later XP

Something Tiny...

I have just ventured to the presently wet and cold land of San Francisco. I visited the Legion of Honor this afternoon, and the De Young museum this evening along with Mama-san and my ceramics class. I hope to have some pictures up soonish, but I'm knackered at the moment - so much so that I did not stick around to see You Say Party! We Say Die! It is a loss I will have to bear XP


Anyway, I stumbled upon a little book full of pictures of little people. It is by an artist named Slinkachu (a bazaar Pokemon perhaps?). Slinkachu sets up fantastical little scenes composed of tiny people in large cities. They are small and unnoticable to the unwary passer by making them all the more compelling. My particular favorites are the one with the Cheetos, the one with the bee, and the snails. Enjoy :D


Special Bonus Observations!
-Parking at the Legion of Honor sucks, apparently always.
-Parking at the De Young is pretty nice, you can pay for the garage, but there's lots of free street parking if you're okay with walking a little.

-Food at the Legion of Honor is pretty good. Mama-san and I split a large fancy sandwich and had tea for about $10 apiece (I think less actually).
-Food at the De Young is delicious, but in small portions (just like Arnold Rimmer???). I ordered the ravioli for dinner, and I got three, on a lovely bed of chard. I ate a lot of French fries to make up the rest of the meal...

-If they can charge money for it, they will.
-However, the student rate of $6 for both museums is quite good.

-Legion of Honor actually has some very nice stuff. There's a room of fancy porcelain dishes and tea sets (many with bugs on them). A hall with various Greek, Minoan, and Egyptian pottery, and many nice paintings and sculpture. We checked out their impressionist wing which was interesting (though lacking the Goya they mention on their map D: ) and swung through the Rodin sculpture areas among others. I was disappointed that their Cartier exhibition cost so much. I opted to save my money this time XP
-De Young has quite a bit more stuff than the Legion, but I generally felt like there was less stuff of interest to me (of course, since their map was so crappy, maybe I just didn't see it?). They do have a very nice Amish Quilt exhibition up (for free!). I want to make a quilt now :3 They have some excellent ceramics of the more modern variety as well as some lovely Native American pots (some of which depicted bugs). They also have a large ethnic selection of art (that's specific isn't it?) as well as a 9th floor lookout, and live music on Friday nights. After a full day of museum hopping and a minuscule dinner, I found it rather loud, but still enjoyable. Finally, I didn't see the King Tut exhibit because it was beyond my budget. I do plan to see the Impressionist exhibit in June.

Something Amazing!

The average everyday plant-like crinoid not only walks about, it swims!

Crinoidea is the fancy name for feather stars and sea lilies. They look very plant or coral like but are actually relatives of the starfish. They tend to have feathery arms in multiples of five, and they sit on stalks (in sea lilies) or have little feet called cirri (in feather stars). Feather stars can walk around on their cirri, or they can swim about using their ten arms (it's crazy!). Check out the videos for more.

An informational video by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. A good overview of the Crinoid order. It finishes with a breathtaking shot of a swimming feather star.



For those of you with ADD, here's the short version:



Bonus song: Help I'm Alive by Metric. It's what I'm listening to while I type :B

@.@!

Soooo tired...

I've had a fun time these last two weeks. I caught a nasty case of the flu which I then made worse by visiting Davis last weekend. I crashed this last week (figuratively speaking), but still attended a birthday party this weekend and went to my aquarium shift this afternoon/evening. In conclusion, I'm completely wiped. I still have three night classes to go before Thursday however, so goodness knows what condition I'll be in later :P

In the meantime, I'm in the process of listing a couple of new scarves on my Etsy.
Check 'em out here: