Ringling Museum of Art
It's easy to stay occupied with our usual activities, so Steven and I are trying to get out and do different things every week, or at least every other week! It means time together, fun, learning, enjoying . . . For quite a while we had been talking about going to the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota. I knew it was mostly older pieces (1300's-1600's) but I had also heard it had beautiful grounds to walk on, a contemporary exhibit and admission is FREE on Mondays. Since admission is usually $25 - we thought Monday would be a good day to go, and so we did! I put the photos I took together with some music and sent it to Animoto.com - a free video maker. See below, or follow the link here.
In the contemporary exhibit there were some hands-on activities which I think were really designed for children, but of course Steven and I had to try them out!! Steven experimented with the sculpture one and I did the activity where you used the rectangle shaped blocks provided, to create a polyptych. This word is from the Greek polu = "many" + ptychē "fold" and generally referring to a painting, typically an altar piece, consisting of more than three leaves or panels, joined by hinges or folds. At the Museum we could arrange the rectangle blocks any way we liked, lay some paper on top and do a rubbing with a black crayon . . . . I had a lot of fun creating this in the museum.
There was also a special exhibit of "a glimpse into the most dynamic period of the American circus through the rarely seen photographs of Frederick W. Glasier (1866-1950)." This exhibit was really something else & better than I expected. His photographs were so personal and the performers he photographed, so interesting. No photo taking was allowed in that exhibit but you may get a good idea by going to the Ringling Museum of Art website and looking for The Glasier Collection.
One lovely surprise near the end of our visit, was to see a painting done by my great uncle, William Glackens, hanging on the wall of the museum! I did not even know there was a piece of his in the permanent collection of the Ringling Museum, wow!
I included his painting in the video, but here it is on it’s own, below:
William Glackens, 1910
Pretty cool, eh? I am named after his daughter, Lenna Glackens.
I will have more art to share soon and some things Steven has made too! We have been busy looking for home to buy and writing contracts, which takes a lot of time. Since we moved to Florida we’ve been renting. First a small cottage and now a house. We are looking to purchase a home nearer my parents. We had an accepted offer that fell though because of the seller . . . which was really too bad. We liked the house very much! The problem could not be fixed and we were advised against going forward. But I kept looking and something new came up. Yesterday we put in an offer on a different property. We won't find out if it will be a sure thing for a while as the bank is involved, but our fingers are crossed!
We hope those of you celebrating July 4th are having a wonderful day; Steven & I will soon be going over to my parents to have a cook out with their British friends! Happy day, lenna