Tuesday, June 05, 2012

The International Folk Art Museum

CIrcus FiguresFriends have noticed my lack of doing tourist things. It's hard for me because of everything I know I should be doing.  I couldn't put the stress of everything aside.

But I knew that I could really use a break and so spent an hour or so om Sunday afternoon introducing myself to the International Folk Museum on Museum Hill. I suspected it would put me on visual overload and I knew it would force my brain to drop juggling all the errands and concerns.

It worked.

I visited two of the exhibits.

First, a colorful room full of a relatively small number of the 106.000 pieces donated by Alexander and Susan Girard.  Pieces were grouped and arranged in colorful boxes or placed on top of other displays and hung on the walls.  It was organized cacaphony–apparently, all of it organized and specified by the donor.

  Morroccan Figures 

The visitor's guide mentioned that African figures like these likely influenced Picasso. I definitely saw it, too.

Another favorite was this Moroccan yarn painting.  The designs are created by pushing yarn into softened beeswax.

My planned destination was an exhibit of traditional Macedonian Embroidered dress called, Young Brides, Old Treasures.

 Entrance to Young Brides, Old Treasures Exhibit


This is a Miyak Wedding Dress, circa 1900. The exhibit included garments from 1880 through 1950.

You can see all my iPhone photos of the day on Flickr, in my photo set Museum of International Folk Art.  I apologize in advance for the quality of some of them ... I am still on the learning curve as an iPhone photographer. 

You can also check out the Museum's Flickr photostream (for MUCH better quality images) here.

5 comments:

Kathryn said...

I've been to Santa Fe only once, and am sorry to missed such an interesting place. I'll put it on my list for next time.

Anonymous said...

iPhones pictures were never intended to be stellar quality... the fact is there are pretty amazing what they do capture with very basic lens, etc. So don't worry about "quality", but don't give up your regular camera either.

This post is going to be marked "not read" and come back when I can spend an hour looking at all the images.... thank you for pointing us this way.

sophie said...

Until I make a decision about my next camera, It will be iPhone photos or no photos ...

Kathie, I have missed this museum, too, in the past even when I've been next door, and always told myself that I would be back.

lj_cox said...

Wow, thanks for sharing; the exhibits look really cool. That yarn painting would make a great quilt.

roccagal said...

Sophie, so glad that you are up and about and doing fun stuff just for you!!!
You mentioned Picasso in the post and ironically i went to an exhibit to see stuff from his private collection on Sunday at the Art Gallery of Ontario. It was wonderful!
He was definitely inspired by African art in quite a few of his works and sculptures!

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