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Jun. 28th, 2009
A Day At The Museum
Jun. 28th, 2009 06:22 pmToday was a girl's day out to the Walters Art Museum: me, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
maureen_the_mad and boogiebabe_smap.
We decided to start at the top and work our way down, and just outside the elevator on the top floor was a conservation student who called us over and told us all about the things she was restoring for an upcoming exhibit - her tools and her timeline and how the work was done. Quite interesting! (For her as well as us, I think - for a while there, we seemed to be the only ones visiting.)
Their exhibit on prayer books, "Poetry in Code," was fabulous. In one room they had assorted prayer books open to look at - in one case showing two books with the same woodcut, one unpainted and one heavily painted over. One book had pictures of assorted proverbs (not necessarily from Proverbs).
In another room was a history of writing and printing told in broad cartoons along one wall. On the ceiling were blowups of the proverbs (there was a key on another wall telling you what each one was in case you couldn't guess). Along the other wall were examples of tools and a touch screen that had four exhibits - two prayer books you could virtually leaf through and expand, a video on the rare books at the Walters, and a step-by-step video on making an illuminated manuscript. (I think what impressed us most of all was watching the woman cut her own pen and do professional-level calligraphy!)
After the conservator and the manuscripts, the mummy exhibit was rather disappointing. Although the Walters has a respectable Egyptian exhibit, the special exhibit on examining mummies was a disappointingly single, small case of exhibits and a computer terminal with a couple dozen click-through items, including a list of mummy movies. The mummy in my home town had proved a lot more informative (and amusing.) Y'see, I grew up near a museum and a hospital, and every time the hospital got a new tool - cat scanner, X-ray, radiography - they'd shove the mummy through it. As a result, over my lifetime, the mummy has changed genders twice and had three possible jobs.
Afterwards, we took one of the information guy's recommendations and walked up two blocks to Donnas. They apparently have no website for me to link, so I'm just going to say that if you're in Baltimore and want a GREAT meal for a relatively reasonable price and excellent service, go to Donna's at 2 West Madison at Charles St. The menu is soup/salad/sandwich/pizza (many vegetarian options), the portion size significant, the taste superb. They also had a large beverage selection, and that chai latte was a marvel. (I've been nursing it all day, actually; and have just heated up the last of it to have with cookies while I write this.)
To spare myself a second trip up to Baltimore we then tootled off to The Book Thing, barely 10 minutes away, where I dropped off the last of the massive sets of books I'd been deeded. Then, unable to resist looking around, I found a copy of Sophie Kinsella's Can You Keep a Secret?
\o/!!!
I'd had that in my hands months ago and put it back because I don't like chick lit. Then I read Kinsella's Undomestic Goddess, adored it, and have been kicking myself ever since that I let this one get away. I've been secretly hoping that I'd find it again at the Book Thing, and I did! HUZZAH!
But soon it was time to go. It's always a bad sign to pick up a book that looks interesting and realize you were the one who'd donated it....
maureen_the_mad and boogiebabe_smap.We decided to start at the top and work our way down, and just outside the elevator on the top floor was a conservation student who called us over and told us all about the things she was restoring for an upcoming exhibit - her tools and her timeline and how the work was done. Quite interesting! (For her as well as us, I think - for a while there, we seemed to be the only ones visiting.)
Their exhibit on prayer books, "Poetry in Code," was fabulous. In one room they had assorted prayer books open to look at - in one case showing two books with the same woodcut, one unpainted and one heavily painted over. One book had pictures of assorted proverbs (not necessarily from Proverbs).
In another room was a history of writing and printing told in broad cartoons along one wall. On the ceiling were blowups of the proverbs (there was a key on another wall telling you what each one was in case you couldn't guess). Along the other wall were examples of tools and a touch screen that had four exhibits - two prayer books you could virtually leaf through and expand, a video on the rare books at the Walters, and a step-by-step video on making an illuminated manuscript. (I think what impressed us most of all was watching the woman cut her own pen and do professional-level calligraphy!)
After the conservator and the manuscripts, the mummy exhibit was rather disappointing. Although the Walters has a respectable Egyptian exhibit, the special exhibit on examining mummies was a disappointingly single, small case of exhibits and a computer terminal with a couple dozen click-through items, including a list of mummy movies. The mummy in my home town had proved a lot more informative (and amusing.) Y'see, I grew up near a museum and a hospital, and every time the hospital got a new tool - cat scanner, X-ray, radiography - they'd shove the mummy through it. As a result, over my lifetime, the mummy has changed genders twice and had three possible jobs.
Afterwards, we took one of the information guy's recommendations and walked up two blocks to Donnas. They apparently have no website for me to link, so I'm just going to say that if you're in Baltimore and want a GREAT meal for a relatively reasonable price and excellent service, go to Donna's at 2 West Madison at Charles St. The menu is soup/salad/sandwich/pizza (many vegetarian options), the portion size significant, the taste superb. They also had a large beverage selection, and that chai latte was a marvel. (I've been nursing it all day, actually; and have just heated up the last of it to have with cookies while I write this.)
To spare myself a second trip up to Baltimore we then tootled off to The Book Thing, barely 10 minutes away, where I dropped off the last of the massive sets of books I'd been deeded. Then, unable to resist looking around, I found a copy of Sophie Kinsella's Can You Keep a Secret?
\o/!!!
I'd had that in my hands months ago and put it back because I don't like chick lit. Then I read Kinsella's Undomestic Goddess, adored it, and have been kicking myself ever since that I let this one get away. I've been secretly hoping that I'd find it again at the Book Thing, and I did! HUZZAH!
But soon it was time to go. It's always a bad sign to pick up a book that looks interesting and realize you were the one who'd donated it....