Leaving Philadelphia....More to Come

   

       Wednesday of our Pennsylvania Adventure...This was our morning view as we got up early, checked out and drove to Chadd's Ford, the home of  N.C. Wyeth and son Andrew Wyeth, both artists I love!  Tours are given of their homes and studios.  I had been through N.C.'s studio many years ago with Dick, but Andrew was still living at the time so his home/studio was still occupied. For those who might not know...NC was an illustrator...well-known for his wonderful paintings of many classics..."Treasure Island", "Black Arrow", etc. And Andrew Wyeth is well-known for his fabulous watercolors using egg tempera technique. One of his best known paintings is "Christina's World".
   

The Brandywine Museum where the Wyeth paintings are on display.

The view from the Museum...the Brandywine river

Andrew Wyeth's home and studio-Originally an abandoned schoolhouse on the property NC purchased and lived in when the family was young. NC then developed it into a studio after he had the family home built.  In later years, it was added onto for a home for Andrew and his family.

Andrew Wyeth's Studio in the home         

Andrew Wyeth's studio-his paints, etc. 

The NC Wyeth home which he designed and had built for his family of five children.

NC Wyeth Studio which was up the hill from the home.

NC Wyeth Studio...left as it was the day he died.  Any pictures seen are copies..the originals are more secured.

NC Wyeth's mural studio...he painted these huge murals which would be transferred into pictures for the illustrations in books.  He had the stairs built on wheels so he could get to the highest parts of the canvas.

    After our tours, we ate lunch at the cafe there and drove on to the Amish country about an hour away. I had gotten reservations at a B&B on line...not knowing anything about the area, I had to go by what the lady told me...I had asked her if she was located in the heart of Amish Country; if there were shops and restaurants nearby; I read all the five star references, looked at the pictures on line of her place...all sounded good!  But as we were following our GPS directions, we seemed to be getting deep into a rather not very Amish looking neighbor hood  in Lancaster...I did not know that Lancaster is a pretty  big place...we got to the address and I told Andrea to just keep driving!  Pretty seedy looking neighborhood...we saw her house and it looked just like the picture, which didn't show the houses that are very close on either side!  And we were pretty sure this was not a neighborhood we would want to walk around in nor did we see any places we would have wanted to walk to! So we drove out to the hiway and stopped at the Visitors Center where a nice gentleman steered us to a Boutique Motel on the edge of town, near Bird in Hand and Intercourse...two Amish communities.
     And there we ate dinner at a spot right next door...DJ's...and had a great meal topped off with....Yum!!

And they were playing music from the '50s all night long...we went there for breakfast the next day...and were jamming' along with Elvis all the time!

...And Even More

          Tuesday morning, we took the shuttle to catch the "Hop on, hop off" tour bus to continue our tour of Philadelphia.

Our Hop on/off Tour Bus

The gate to Chinatown..according to our tour guide, the third largest in America

A bust of Benjamin Franklin whose name is attached to many endeavors and sites in Philadelphia

     While in the vicinity of the bus stop, we toured the National Jewish History Museum which was an extensive and beautifully arrayed history of Jewish Peoples from their first coming to this country in the 1600s to current times...very worthwhile visit for history buffs.

      Then on the Philadelphia Museum of Art, after eating lunch in a cute little cafe, Luna. What a magnificent display of art!  Our museums in Fort Worth are wonderful, but the PMA is just HUGE....it compares to the Museum of Art in Chicago which I thought was vast. We saw many of our favorites...again too many to post here...so I'll just give you a sample.

Statue of Rocky....of course!

Andrea at the top of the stairs...one just MUST do the stairs then the Rocky stance!  I did it, too, but I will have to confess neither of us ran up the stairs...and to walk, they are really not that bad....they are not steep, just a lot of them, but about every ten steps there is an wide spot where you can stop to see the view (and catch your breath).

Another Robert Indiana sculpture at the PMA

Degas "Little Dancer"...one of my bookclubs had just read "The Painted Girls" about Degas' models, their stories, and how he picked them so I was excited to see the real thing. As described, the skirt is not bronze but it real tulle.

"Blue Eyes" by Modigliani...One of my favorite artists 

Picasso "Self Portrait"...although I do not care for much of his latest work, I am a Picasso fan and again, thrilled to see this in person, having seen it in print so many times!

Salvador Dali's "Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) 1936..not a pretty painting but neither was the Spanish  Civil War!

"The Dinner Date" by Marisol...and another Pop artist that has fascinated me since I saw her rendition of "The Last Supper" many years ago...a definite '60s artist!!

More exterior sculptures at PMA...our view while waiting for our Uber driver.

     We were at the PMA at least three hours so we missed the bus back to the motel, therefore, we called Uber again.  When our driver came, we asked him if he could take us to the airport to pick up our car that we were renting to go on to points South and West the next day.  Very obliging guy...we have discovered a real respect to the Uber drivers...not only were the ones we dealt with very polite and knowledgeable, their prices were much better than the cabs.
      After getting our car, we drove back to the motel, then went to one of the nearby restaurants to get some dinner.  We ate in a little sports bar, the Race Street Cafe (it was on Race Street!) and had a really good hamburger and imported beer.

.....And More

      Last blog I told about the SAQA Conference I Philadelphia and mentioned that Andrea and I stayed on for more! That afternoon, we went with Heather, who was staying one more day, we took an Uber to the area where the Edgar Allan Poe house was located. We decided to have lunch first and found this very local cafe where Andrea and I experienced our first Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich!  I highly recommend the cafe!

                

               

     After lunch, we walked the few blocks to the Poe House. It was actually his aunt/ mother-in- law's house where he and his young wife/cousin lived while he wrote. "The Raven" and "The Black Cat" were  two works he penned while here.

          The house is not furnished inside and, although large looking from the outside, it is rather narrow with steep stairways inside, four stories including a basement.

                                      

                                         Andrea and I with the Raven at the Poe House

            Andrea and I then collected our luggage and checked into our new digs, the Holiday Inn Express....a better location for our touristy plans! HIE was located at Penn Landing just off the bridge to New Jersey and within walking distance to the Independence Hall area as well as the beginning of the Tour Bus stops.

         Monday, we began our sightseeing.  Our motel was right on the Delaware River, just below the bridge to New Jersey and a very convenient location...close to restaurants and close enough for the shuttle to pick us up for tours.

      We got a two day "hop on/hop off" tour bus, not far from the Historical District. The buses had people on them talking on them and giving information and history of where we were. The first place we stopped was the Rodin Museum, which happened to be right across the street from the Barnes.

                                                     The Rodin Museum

                                                       The Three Shades

         

                                                       The Burghers of Calais

                                     

                                                                          The Kiss

I took about a jillion pictures there, but won't show them all as I have other things to write about without making this too long! We had planned to go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art that same day but it was closed on Mondays. So, as we had a two day pass, we just reversed our plans. We hopped back on the bus and went back to the Historical District. 

     There we saw the Liberty Bell. Independence Hall, Betsy Ross House, Christ Church, etc..

                          

                                                 The Liberty Bell

                                                     Independence Hall

                        

    The pulpit in Christ Church- we sat in George Washington's family pew! People had to pay rent for their pews. The larger they were and the closer to the front, the more expensive they were..a status symbol!

                              

                                                        Betsy Ross House

By then we were getting weary so we decided to hike back to the motel. We stopped to eat dinner on the way back at a Mexican place. Even though it was 'way North of the Red River, it was pretty good. 

                     

          It rained on us all the way back....that was the only time we walked all the way! And I'll stop now so I can write tomorrow about more adventures!

SAQA Conference and More

     Two weeks ago  my daughter Andrea, who is also a member of SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Association), and I flew to Philadelphia to attend our first SAQA Conference. What a great experience! The first night, we had dinner with the Texas gals, tha Alaska members, and two from Oregon.

                                

     The Conference began the next day.  One of the high lights of the trip was a visit to the Barnes Art Museum. Several of us took an Uber there (my first experience with Uber but not my last)

                             

                                                 Waiting for our Uber

                           

         

                         The Barnes....we couldn't take pictures inside; a fabulous collection! I've never seen so many Renoirs and Cezannes under one roof.

      That evening we went to an Ice Breaker Reception and Fajita Bar Reception at the hotel, the Double Tree Center City. Being from Texas, I'm always a little leery of Mexican food North of the Red River and the rule applied...fajitas ok but not great! But I had a wonderful time and met many, many fellow artists!

                           

                    Our hotel in Philly.  That's the famous City Hall down the street.

     The next day, Friday, an inspiring talk by fiber artist, Kathleen Loomis. She spoke on why work in a series....I absorbed sooo much from her!

  

             

     

     After this talk, we heard from students from the University of the Arts. Lunch was on our own so Andrea and I struck out to see some of the sites within walking distance.

                             

                     City Hall with the famous 36 foot high statue of William Penn on top.

                                    

     Andrea and I with Robert Indiana's "LOVE" sculpture (Philadelphia IS the city of Brotherly Love!)

                                  

                                     A sculpture by Lipchitz "Government of the People"

        That afternoon, we attended the PechaKucha! The art of concise presentations! 24 SAQA members presented 20 slides in 15 minutes each! Really fun and very informative! That evening was the Banquet and Spotlight auction. The auction is a fund raiser for SAQA...I had donated a small quilt I had made with fabrics I had created at various Arrowmont workshops. Jill Kertulla purchased it as she had just taught at Arrowmont and had done one of the PechaKucha presentations on her time there.

                                

                                  My  "Autumn in the Smokys" purchased by Jill Kertulla.

     Saturday another fabulous speaker, Carolyn Mazloomi on "When Being a Good Artist Is Not Enough". Dr. Mazloomi is a terrific speaker...funny, sincere, full of wisdom. I could have listened to her longer than her allotted time frame. 

                            

I am fortunate to have one of her books...."Spirits of the Cloth", a retirement gift from a friend of mine, Cindy Montgomery.

     Saturday afternoon we were scheduled to attend the "Art Quilt Elements" Show at the Wayne Art Center. We all gathered outside the hotel to wait for the buses to take us there. After about half an hour of wait, several of us decided to get an Uber driver. About that time there was an announcement that there had been a miscommunication at the bus company, and that they were not coming! So a mad scramble issued...we ended up stuffing eight people (plus the driver) into our Uber for the 40 minute drive! A great show...not able to take pictures but several SAQA members had been juried in, including our own Kerri Green fro DFW region.

           

                                        The Wayne Art Center...Wayne, Pennsylvania 

     That evening it had been arranged for everyone to go to a dinner location with other SAQA members within walking distance to the hotel so we were all scattered hither and yon. Andrea and I ended up going to an Italian restaurant with two great SAQA members, Cindy Grselda and Lori Beitler. Both are long time members which was really good because they were very helpful in answering our newbie questions!

     The last day, Sunday, we were in the main lecture hall once again for a couple more speakers. Maria Shell, one of our new friends from Alaska, gave a talk titled "The Art of the Word: Walk, Talk, and Write Like An Artist".   Again, another encouraging, inspiring talk!  And then a very interesting talk on copyrights in art. And lastly....the goodbyes and last picture taking!

             

            

            

                                                    Maria, Kerri, and Heather

        

                      The Texas Girls:   Deborah, Kerri, Heather, Jay, and Andrea

                                  

                                             Our Alaska friends : Kim, Maria, and ? 

   

         

  Jay and Andrea...and tucked under my arm is the  door prize I won! Two yards of Cherrywood fabric!

        So, as most everyone packed up and started returning home, Andrea and I packed up and moved across town to Holiday Inn Express. We had planned to stay around a few days and do some sightseeing. The Double Tree rates were just too high for us now that conference rates no longer applied thus the move....by way of Uber! So stay tuned for further adventures!!!