Handwork in miniature

The Art Institute of Chicago is known for its collection of 68 miniature dioramas depicting rooms from different places and times.  They were made after extensive research into the authentic furniture and architecture styles, and crafted meticulously in the 1930s under the direction of Mrs. James Ward Thorne, a rich benefactor of the museum.

The rooms are done to a scale of one inch to one foot, and situated low in the walls, with a convenient step beneath each one so small visitors can get a good view.

I was intrigued to see that the inhabitant of the New England Bedroom, 1750-1850, was at work on an embroidery in a standing hoop.

It's apparently an allover floral design, only half finished.  And what a bright, sunny, spacious room in which to sit with your needle in front of the fireplace!

One of my painted scenes from The Prince of Egypt

Reformation Day at the museum

Five hundred years ago today was the date we now commemorate as the start of the Protestant Reformation, and the Art Institute of Chicago put out this row of unassuming little prints of Martin Luther to mark the season.  None larger than about seven inches tall, they show the man in different stages of life.  Choose your favorite!

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Luther as an Augustinian Friar, with Cap, 1521, engraving

Daniel Hopfer, After Lucas Cranach the Elder, Martin Luther, 1523, etching

Heinrich Aldegrever, Martin Luther, 1540, engraving

Johann Michael Püchler, Martin Luther, engraving

Master I.B., Portrait of Martin Luther, 1530, engraving

Johann Gottfried Schadow, Luther's Statue in Wittenberg, 1822, lithograph

"L'Auberge by the water"

This plein air was done at the same location I did my previous water painting. I felt a little more confident I can paint this kind of landscape now. The painting is 9" x 12". It is another good exercise for me to practice painting rocks, tree and water. To appreciate my hosting family, Larry and Marcia Swearinggen for their hospitality and generosity, I give the painting to them as a gift.

My favorite things 44

My mother acquired three old kitchen chairs that had belonged to her grandparents, but the caned seats were deteriorating.  Once my father's supremely handy aunt and uncle were visiting and the chairs came up in the conversation.  Well, heck, it's no big deal to recane a chair, they said, and took them home with them to Indiana.  Mom insisted on paying them, despite much argument.

In the fullness of time the chairs returned, beautifully recaned.  But Mom had a conniption when she realized that it was plastic "cane," not real.  That had not come up in the conversation.

Mom thought that plastic had defiled her grandparent's precious chairs, and indeed, their precious memories.  She berated herself for not having specified authentic cane for the job.  She couldn't stand to even look at the chairs and stashed them in the attic.  We talked about this one day and I said, I'm sorry you can't stand to even look at them; I think they're pretty nice.  If that's what you think, she said, you can have them.

So the chairs came home with me and have been making themselves beautifully useful for a long time.  One served as my sewing chair for many years.  After we bought elegant upholstered chairs for our dining room, and I realized the seat was too high for me to get my feet comfortably on the floor, I sat in a caned chair for a decade, even though it didn't match anything else in the room. 

Currently two of the chairs reside in our front hall, convenient for depositing the mail, the newspaper, a package on the way to the post office, or your hat and gloves. One lives in the dining room, ready to be slotted in when we need to squeeze three people along one side of the dining room table without putting in the extra leaf.  If we need one someplace else, they're light enough to be carried all over the house.

For a while I shared Mom's opinion of the plastic cane, even while welcoming the "ruined" chairs into my life.  Then I decided that plastic was probably an excellent choice for chairs that were going to be seriously used.  In 30-some years it hasn't faded, stretched or frayed.  It doesn't scratch your legs if you're wearing shorts.  It looks sharper than the rest of the chairs, whose carved ornamentation is starting to lose its veneer.

So Mom, you were wrong to disdain the fix-up job.  But you were right to let me have the chairs!