Sunday, August 12, 2007

Day of Beauty


Thanks to Heidi's mentioning it, we were able to go to Salem today to see the Joseph Cornell exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum. Even though I'm loathe to spend a summer's day indoors, it was kind of hot today and because it is a "tax free" weekend in Massachusetts, it meant that the museum was relatively deserted since so many people are out buying stuff today. Perfect, then, all the way around. In addition to the breathtaking Cornell exhibit, there was a great origami show and the museum put fantastic step-by-step videos on their site (Dean made the frog and the puppy all on his own). We've struggled trying to make origami from printed, book instruction but these videos are great. A major disadvantage to living outside a city is the extra effort involved in experiencing cultural activities and events. One of the trade-offs of hearing and seeing hawks rather than airplanes overhead. But a successful outing like today's will mean we'll do more this fall; there's a quilt museum in Lowell that I haven't been to in years. Next on the list?

4 comments:

Lesley said...

Oooh - I'm such a fan of Joseph Cornell. And I know it's because his boxes made a big appearance in a novel I read about three years ago - was it "What I loved' by Suri Hustveldt? It was similar to that anyway. I saw a whole lot of Cornell boxes in the Chicago Art Institute a couple of years ago and I was SO excited. I was able to photograph many of them (not very well as they were in glass cases) and they still inspire me whenever I take a look at them. I look forward to your reports on the quilt museum!

Anonymous said...

Yea! so glad the trip was fun, and lucky you no crowds! I might be up for a road trip to the quilt museum....let me know!

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean about living without many local cultural events. I always used to say that I'd never live anywhere that didn't have a museum of Fine art. LOL

jess said...

I would trade the huge city I live in for small town lif any day! It's something I really miss about the place where I grew up. City's are too loud, too scary, too smelly.