My post on July 10 was, believe it or not, my 350th blog post ... a stunning statistic for someone who dreaded completely, and went to great lengths, to avoid writing
anything at all throughout 16 years of formal education ... goes to show that you just never know how things are going to turn out. In honor of that 350 number, I decided to take a two week blogging break and do some vacation like stuff with my 'spare' time. The post below is a quick overview. During that time, I acquired a pretty substantial backlog of stuff I want to write about ... I plan to do a little more writing tonight and trickle the other stuff in over the next week or two ... Quick overview below ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...
I spent a wonderful long afternoon at
The Shelburne Museum .... I had forgotten the depth of utterly fantastic woodworking stuff on display there from tools, to the carousel above (which is
a totally amazing display of turn of the century carving and painting), to a houseful of carved decoys, sneak boxes and punt guns, some great architecture and the restored Lake Champlain steamer ferry, The Ticonderoga. More on that later for sure.
I finished the second of the famous Stieg Larson books and reluctantly cracked the third the day before yesterday ... I read the first one way back the week after the 4th of July. I'm actually surprised I'm not reading the third one now except after a thousands pages or so, you actually can stop reading for a minute or two. I'm sure I'll be back at it in an hour or so. The one above is 600 pages and I think it took about 4 days. Boy was I tired at work. Avoid these books like the plague if you have anything even remotely important to do ...
I fooled around with a mockup for a hanging, spinning steel sculpture I want to do. The one above is painted 1/4" luan, reddish on one side and reddish/brownish on the other. After several failures, I am awaiting 350 lb test stainless steel 'large salt water game fish' swivels from Cabelas.
And the boys in the shop have been hard at work on an 18' wall unit/fireplace surround/bookcase that we'll deliver and install next week sometime ... Will's got a different project going on too ...
And I managed to get in a couple of rounds of golf to boot ... above, one of them, a first ever for me, fivesome ... what a hoot ... All for now; more soon ...
Interested in spending a day or so looking at a bunch of humbling woodworking and artwork? A trip to The Shelburne Museum would be worth your while then ... I big recently went to see a Ansel Adams show and found that that was just a small part of how I spent my time there ... I had been a long time ago when the kids were small (15 years maybe ??) but had forgotten the depth of their collection ... I do remember the Dentzel carousel though ... probably the best carved and painted carousel you'll find anywhere ... They have extensive documentation of the ongoing 'restoration' and conservation on Facebook and there is more info there ... Click the photos to enlarge them ...
the artistic color choices and details are really good ...
In person, they sort of seem almost alive ..
and they are housed in a beautifully detailed round barn at the entrance to the museum ..
with beautiful framing
and a wonderful quilt exhibition on the lower level of the barn ..
Two other displays of interest to me were regarding painters who lived and worked for years in the Manchester, Dorset, Pawlet area, Ogden Pleissner and Jay Connaway ... They both had a whole building dedicated to their work and Pleissner's actual studio (below) was assembled there on site
on to the tools
and metal stuff
and the working blacksmith shop which Kit's counts as perhaps one of the things that sparked Sam's interest in blacksmithing and metalwork
Then there is an excellent collection of carved decoys in original paint, with info on the makers as well as at least a half dozen sneak boxes and market guns displayed in a house moved to the museum from its original location in North Dorset.
Then there's The Ticonderoga, a 220 foot long steam powered ferry that was moved from the lake across a mile of frozen cornfields to its present location ... It has recently been re-restored and is a gleaming example of curved and angled ship's carpentry ...
I didn't have time for the Electra Havermeyer Webb mansion which houses Electra Webb's high Federal furniture and other objects from her New York City apartment ... Been there, done that ... It's beautiful ...
There is much more to see than I have covered here .. check it out if you are in the area ... You'll be glad you did ...
