Winterthur Gardens

In mid-May Mum and one of her oldest friends, Auntie Rita, came to spend a long weekend in Philadelphia.  Auntie Rita is a big gardener, so I arranged a Saturday garden excursion to Winterthur and Longwood.  Nothing like Delaware for fabulous old du Pont estates.

We did the introductory house tour, which had changed very much since the first time I took it, like ten years ago or something?  Or maybe all the academic excursions into the collections have bamboozled me, so that I no longer remember what the basic tour consists of.  It's hard to take the regular tour, knowing that all sorts of weird and cool stuff is so close by, but you can't leave your tour.  Like the fraktur room, and the room with flocked wallpaper, and all the spatterware, and the weird low-ceiling little Pilgrim-era rooms, and the Shaker stuff up in the top of the house...

But we spent most of our Winterthur time in the gardens, which were lovely.  Auntie Rita (in blue) and Mum (in pink).  Though this photo is from Longwood: the photo I have of them together at Winterthur, they look crazy, so I'm not posting it.

 Looking down toward the reflecting pool.

Mum at the reflecting pool.

I think he's squeezing a frog or a fish.

A real frog!  I'd forgotten that they like to live in the reflecting pool: when I was an undergrad and working in the paintings lab, we had named all the frogs and the koi in the nearby koi ponds.

When I was at Winterthur this past January, this little fellow was wearing a tartan scarf.

I didn't know what any of the flowers were, but that was fine, because Auntie Rita knew!

This was some sort of faux-dogwood?  I think?  It was really lovely, whatever it was.

Quarry garden.

Little Mum up on the bridge while Auntie Rita and I check out the flowers down below.

The Enchanted Forest.  Really, if I was little, you would have had to extract me with heavy machinery from this place.

I would have attempted to live, full-time, in this little thatched cabin.  

So, a lovely morning at Winterthur, and lunch at the Winterthur Visitor's Center.  I keep wanting to type "W" for Winterthur: it was the shorthand that we used during grad school.  The whole name is just sooo long.

Albuquerque, New Mexico

The big art conservation annual conference was held this year in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Being that there is only one professional organization for American conservators, it's a pretty popular event.  Everyone just calls it by the acronym for the professional organization itself: AIC (American Institute for Conservation).  If you say to someone, "I'm going to AIC this year," they know you mean the conference.  If you say, "AIC is such a mess... last year they listed me in the directory twice," they know you mean the organization proper.

So, with the following things in mind:

1). next year is a big PMG year, so I probably won't go to that AIC

2). next year's meeting is in Indianapolis *yawn*

3). my classmate Lisa grew up in Abq, so I knew she'd be there, and  if I asked nicely, I could probably stay with her family

5). PMG would hold a session of talks.

I decided to submit an abstract. My talk was accepted, Lisa was called, and in mid-May, I found myself headed to New Mexico!

Lisa, green chili burrito on her plate, on her home turf!

The conference was nice, my talk went really well, etc.  I had the last slot on the last day of photo talks, which is pretty much where I've been slotted every time I've done anything at PGM.  I surmise that the program chair thinks to herself, "Oh, Jessica is going to do a talk.  She always says funny things.  She can go at the end - it'll wake everyone up."  I don't get nervous during the days before giving a talk, so I don't mind it.

I'm so used to PGM Winter Meetings, where its like 16 hours of photograph talks, that two half-days felt like a vacation.  I got to hang out with a lot of old friends and (thanks to Lisa!) see a fair bit of Albuquerque.

Lisa took me and our mutual friends Katie and Saori jewelry shopping and then burrito shopping.  If you ever find yourselves in Albuquerque, check out Skip Maisel's for jewelry and other southwest goodies. Lisa says they have the best stuff at the best prices, and the three of us agreed!

For burritos, we went to the Frontier Restaurant.  Lisa said that it's an Abq institution, and that they make the best tortillas in the universe.  I don't know much about tortillas, but these were amazing.  Katie, Saori, and I each bought a dozen to take home.  Lisa bought six dozen to take back to the Pacific Northwest!

Katie shows off her tortillas.

Lisa and Saori, at the Frontier Restaurant.

The restaurant was huge, and full of southwest 'art'.  Saori and I counted seven portraits of John Wayne, one of which was life-sized and another of which was essentially a framed woven rug.  Pictured below is the most majestic of the portraits.

 Lisa also took us to the Tamarind Institute, a well-known lithography workshop and gallery.

 They were so lovely: they gave us a tour!  These students were busy inking things up.

 A lithography stone dries under a fume extractor.

 Stone storage.  Some of these were massive!

 We checked out a crazy antique store, which didn't have many antiques.

Bits of a ceramic baby, all creepy and affordable.

 The crew of Apollo 11.

 This.

Half of the time Lisa drove a bunch of us around in like a 1983 aircraft-carrier-sized car.  The other half of the time her brother chauffeured us in a 69' Mercedes (I think).  It was her mom's first car, bought used in like 1971!  Pretty much proof that old cars do well in the southwest.

 

Brother behind the wheel.

The photograph people and the paper people had a joint reception, which meant that our pooled resources would allow it to be held in a really lovely venue.  Behold: Los Poblanos, where Lisa got married!

 Rachel, Marion, and I (with a giant name tag) at Los Poblanos.

 After the conference, I hung out for another day, just to chill out.  Lisa's parents (apart from being the kindest and best of hosts) are Model T enthusiasts, and were hosting a Model T enthusiast breakfast the day after the conference.  Lisa and I helped prep - some cooking, jello molding, flower arranging, and, later, some wonderful eating.  It was so much fun to see all these Model T's put-put up to their house!

Her parents' Model T is still in progress, but it runs.  With this teeny-tiny engine!

 Lisa photographs her dad, getting it started prior to our joyride around the neighborhood!

Such a wonderful time!

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival

Right at the beginning of May, I took the train down to Wilmington, Delaware, to meet my friend Heather.  We had a most glorious weekend planned - the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival!  Heather taught me how to knit, and is probably the most talented textile person I know.  She had been to Sheep & Wool before, and so we could make a most effective Plan of Action for the day.

Heather, in one of the many many vendor areas.  By this time, we've each already purchased enough yarn to make at least one sweater and a shawl - this was maybe thirty minutes into the day.

You could purchase entire fleeces, sheared right off the sheep, to cart away and do with what you will. Neither of us was tempted by these, as they're still full of lanolin and bits of leaves and other sheepy things.

 A substantial stretch of fair food, much of which was lamb-based.

 There were also loads of sheep!  All different breeds of wool-sheep.  (These are not sheep for eating).  I don't know very much about the various breeds of sheep, excepting that several have the same names as English cheeses, so I surmise that a sheep and a cheese that share a name must have originated in the same county?

 The different types of sheep have very different types of wool, and not just different color-wise.  The wools behave differently and are best-suited for different uses.  Which is pretty cool.

 Sheep shearing stations were scattered about.

 This sheep is wearing a jacket so that it won't dirty its wool.

 So cute!  There were barns and barns of sheep, brought in by shepherds from all over.

 Heather is an occasional shepherdess, and as such, knows the Ways of the Sheep.  She said that you can't pat them on the head, that they get confused and then try to head-butt.  (This is true: I tried patting and received a gentle head-butt.)  But that they really like to be scratched beneath the chin.  You can tell: this sheep's eyes have gone all cat-like, and it looks to be smiling.

 Heather works her sheepy-magic.

 

One sheep had wool just like my hair.

 There were baby sheep too.  Lambs, I supposed you'd call them...

 This is a sheep!  With so many horns!  It looks so self-satisfied.

 Alpacas.  Sooo soft, and they look like Dr. Seuss creatures.

 This is a real animal.  Not a Who from down Who-ville.

 Baby mohair goat.

 This is a real bunny.  No joking.  A French angora.

 Sheep dog demonstrations!  The dogs had a little herd of five sheep that they managed through various obstacles.

 The sheep dogs in question were border collies, and though I love black labs (the most) and think them very smart, these border collies were possibly the smartest dogs I'd ever seen.

 Two shepherds demonstrated with their own teams of dogs.  The shepherds essentially just stood there and gave the dogs simple verbal commands about what the herd needed to do.  

Heather and I returned to Delaware with a reasonable about of beautiful yarn and some other fun fibery items, and ended our day with a chill Cinco de Mayo with her husband Dan.

In summary, Heather and Dan (both of whom are always invited to Philly, especially if yarn, costume dramas, and/or eating is involved) were wonderful hosts and the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival was such an excellent experience.  It has all the awesome of the county fair (including milkshakes and root beer floats) with out any of the demolition derbies!