Day 59 - Bookshelves, Art Museum, Happy Halloween!

A day where I finally took some photos! More will appear soon on Facebook, but here are some of the highlights. We had breakfast and put together the second bookshelf in record time, then went to the Cleveland Museum of Art. What a beautiful place! The original building was fairly small and traditional early-1900s, but they just completed a decade-long expansion that has enclosed the back of the building and added on a huge amount of gallery space. The two buildings are linked in a number of places so it's very easy to pass from one to the other, and a large atrium provides a space for demonstrations, a cafe, and two small garden areas. Right now the atrium is home to a traveling exhibit of giant zodiac sculptures by Ai Wei Wei - they fit perfectly into the space lined up along the facade of the old museum building.

We started in the basement at the traveling Sicily exhibit, then went upstairs and explored the Islamic art rooms before it was time to return to the atrium so that we could watch a demonstration on how Hermes silk scarves are made. It was a popular event, with a number of women who arrived wearing their own scarves that they've had for several decades. The two men presenting were both from Lyons, with impeccable French-accented English. After hearing how much work goes into designing, weaving, and printing each scarf, I now understand a bit more why they are so incredibly expensive! They did say that they accept unsolicited design ideas, just make sure it's 90x90cm ;) We had lunch at the cafe, then continued to wander around for another few hours - for being a fairly small museum I think I could have easily spent another day or two exploring, there was just so much to see and enjoy.

We were planning on going over to Wendy's son's house to be on candy duty while he and his wife took their daughter trick or treating, but we still had a little time before we had to be there so we went to visit Jan, another Burkina RPCV who lived just a mile or so down the road. Jan and Wendy had been introduced by the Peace Corps office since they were two of the few, brave older volunteers stuck in a sea of recent college graduates, and it was a happy coincidence that they ended up living so close together. Jan and I met each other when I was consolidated into her village of Sabou along with 9 other volunteers during a period of civil unrest, about 3 or 4 months into my service. It was a pleasure to see her again and catch up on her life - she's been teaching at the University and reacquainting herself with Cleveland in between traveling around the country and internationally; she and Wendy are making plans to go to India soon!

After stopping at Jan's, we went over to Chuck and Vinnie's house. We walked in to the mouth-watering smell of chickpea curry simmering on the stove and said hi to Wendy's granddaughter, lovingly nicknamed Peachy. She was eager to finish dinner and get into her cow costume, and the three of them braved the rain and wind to go trick-or-treating while Wendy and I handed out treats to the maybe 10 or 12 kids that actually went out into the bad weather to search for candy.

Pictures:

 This amazing interactive art wall where you can chose from the flow of photos and it will tell you where to find that particular piece, you can even dock your iPad and save your own list of items to make a personal tour

 The atrium between the old building and the new one that surrounds it

 Ai Wei Wei's zodiac dragon

 A prayer niche in the Islamic art room

 In the same room, a modern piece called "His Lantern" by Afruz Amighi. It's Pe-Cap plastic sheeting given to refugees that she hand-cut with stencils to create a shadow in a format similar to an Iranian prayer rug

 Saint Nicholas of Bari (1472) by Carlo Crivelli - I just love how he looks a little annoyed, or perhaps playfully mischievous

 Using metal screens to print an Hermes scarf. The process from design creation to a scarf arriving in a boutique is 2 years

 Each color has its own screen - this scarf has 14 but they have some that use over 40 colors, meticulously layered one over the other

 The finished product. The process is partially mechanical now - the squeegee machine is computerized but they still depend on people to perfect the screen placement, decide what type of squeegee and pressure the machine should use, and to add the dye paint for each pass of the machine

 A mask from Burkina! They said it was from the early to mid 1900s, but it looked nearly identical to the ones I saw at the mask festival in 2012

 There's a whole room of armor and old weapons that I suspect is a big hit with the school groups

 A Tiffany lamp with a nautilus shell

 Cupid looking very cheeky and pleased with himself

 The photo doesn't do the colors in this justice (Frederic Edwin Church, 1860)

 Rowers! (Thomas Eakins, 1873)

Another demonstration from the balcony above the atrium

 Panorama of the atrium, with the two little garden areas and the zodiac animals

 Wendy became so fond of Dilmah tea while we were in Burkina that she orders it on Amazon now!