I still wanted to post more photos from our last weekend’s visit to Greenfield Village. We saw more houses than we had seen last year with Lena. Boris said he didn’t care that much about famous people’s houses, but as for me, 1) I do if I know something about this person, 2) there were a lot of houses which showed in great detail how people had lived two hundred years ago, and unlike many other museums of that kind, they had not just “some artifacts,” but a very detailed reconstruction of how people actually lived. For example, not just a washing pitch, but a complete set of teeth hygiene pieces, chamber pots under each bed, and so on.
Dugget Farmhouse
Henry Fords’ house, Wright’s house or boarding house – does not really matter 🙂
Last year, when I visited Lena in Ann Arbor, she took me to Greenfield Village. We spent the whole day there but didn’t get enough, and I wanted to do it again, see more things, and show Boris what we saw last year.
Still, it was not enough :). Your mind gets overloaded with information, and you want to take in more but can’t 🙂
We were so scared of the rain the day before that we ended up spending most of the day indoors visiting different museums.
The first one was a Burger House showing how well-off people in Helsinki lived in the second half of the 19th century.
With Anna at the Senat Square
Then we visited Aethenium Museum and then – The Helsinki City Museum.
Both of them had activities for kids, which made everybody happy. In fact, Nadia was so fascinated with the “classroom” exhibit in the Helsinki City Museum, she didn’t want to go anywhere else and stayed there almost until the museum closed 🙂
Anna at the classroom piano
All these exhibits plus more ice cream made the day, and we were glad we didn’t plan anything else!
Last Thursday, I took a group of youth from the Open Door Shelter to the Art Institute. We used to go there on Thursday nights relatively regularly, but it didn’t happen for a while, and I was very excited to resume this activity.
Yes, as usual, they were delayed to the point that we only had an hour and fifteen minutes left for the museum, and yes, as usual, people got lost on the way (this time, things were complicated by the fact that one person from our group had a double stroller, which meant that we had to search for elevators, which is not an easy task, especially in the older part of the museum.
But with all that being said, and with the fact that nobody except for our volunteer coordinator had been to the Art Institute before, it was a smashing success. At least, that’s what I think. I enjoyed every minute of this outing. Each time I take a group from the shelter to the museum, they surprise me with how they interpret art, how attentive they are to details, and how the art makes them feel. One young man answering my questions about whether he saw that it’s spring in the picture answered with a three-minute monologue telling me about all the things he saw (and I didn’t!) about this landscape. I was listening with my jar dropped!
Also, all of them realized how gigantic the place was and how many things one could see, and everybody resented coming so late. I was glad that I had a chance to spend some “one-on-one” time with three people from the group and listen to their perspectives. One of them replied to my question whether did she know who Van Gough was, replied: I received a very good education! My mother is an artist. But honestly, it didn’t matter: some of them didn’t hear Van Gough’s name before, some knew his works, but no matter what, their insights were amazing.
I hope we can go one more time when I am back form Finland!
This Field Museums exhibit tells the story of the first kingdoms on the Balkan peninsular.
The international group of museum curators and historians started to work on putting it together back in 2015. Everybody knows what happened next, but this exhibit faced more challenges than any other, including expiring grants. Now, the exhibit is finally here, at the Field Museum, showing the historical objects from ten different museums in different countries, 700 objects which were never displayed together,
The whole exhibit is set up like a giant book, so that you walk through and turn the pages.
There was a lot going on. Chicago conference remains my major concern: it is just two weeks away, and there are so many things that still should be addressed! I am working them out one at a time, but still!
On the positive side – I am going through my to-do lists, and I am doing a lot of cultural activities! I guess it will take a while for me to compensate for the pandemic cultural desert.
Things I’ve done so far.
Last Wednesday, I went to see “Tina” – Tina Turner musical.
I chose an outfit that I didn’t put on for a while, and my coworker liked it so much that she insisted on taking a picture of me. So that’s how I was dressed on that day:
I liked it, but I was not crazy about it, in part because the music was just too loud to enjoy – the first time in my life I regretted I didn’t have earplugs.
Earlier that day, we had a book club discussion at work. Believe it or not, but that was the first time in my life I participated in the book club, and it was only because it was at my workplace. We chose the book collectively back in February: first, people were just suggesting titles, and then we had a vote on Slack. When the book (“Never let me go”) was chosen, our hR sent copies to everybody who signed up (or ebooks or audiobooks). I already had my audiobook purchased several years ago; I just never came up to reading it.
As I mentioned earlier, I had mixed feeling about that book. Although it is very well written, the whole plot seems to be very artificial. Although I understand that the idea was to highlight how humans make excuses to pronounce other non-humans when it is convenient to them, I did find the book convincing. Possibly it’s because these days, we know that cloning cells and even stand-alone organs are more achievable and less expensive than cloning humans. And I can’t relate to books that can’t make me believe that whatever is described in the book could happen. As usual, the problem might be with me rather than with the books :). In any case, it was a relief to find out during our book club discussion that some other readers shared my feelings.
On Friday, it was “Cry it out” – a play written by Molly Smith Metzler and presented by Above The Law – a small theater just across my house. I’ve been to one of their performances before and loved it, and wanted to see another show. Since it was so close, I suggested that my mom and Igor also come, and I invited my friend MaryAnn. Since the theater is so tiny and each performance is sold out, I booked our tickets back in February. I was glad that everybody, including Mary Ann, could make it! I found a play synopsis from some other theater just to give an idea of what this play is about. The “Above the Law” theater cast was amazing, as always :).
On Monday, I listened to Bach’s St. Mattew Passion, presented by Music of Baroque. I remember hearing this piece for the first time – in the spring of 1991 when I was pregnant with Vlad and Anna. I believe it was the first time it was performed in the Leningrad Philharmonic, and listening to unmistakable religious music felt very revolutionary. It made such a profound impression that I still remember what the soloists looked like.
This time, it didn’t feel revolutionary, just a beautiful music. I didn’t stay till the end because I knew I won’t get enough sleep, and I had the whole week of cultural events ahead.
On Tuesday, I went to the Member’s Event at the Field Museum for the opening of the new exhibit “First Kings of Europe”
I will blog about it separately because I want to show more pictures.
And finally, yesterday I saw “A Soldeir’s Play” at CIBC Theater. Although this performance was a part of Broadway in Chicago, it is not a musical (several musical numbers are included, but overall it’s drama based on the movie of the same name).
Chicago Tribune noted in the review that it was very symbolic that the play premiered on the night when Brandon Johnson won the mayoral elections!
Almost three years after Anna’s family moved to Milwaukee, we finally had our first day in Milwaukee Downtown! The reason for my travel was Nadia’s first recital, but the whole day was amazing! I used the Milwaukee streetcar for the first time. These streetcars look a lot like trams in Helsinki; even the buttons which open the doors look the same!
They are nice and clean, and they are free!
Robert Burns monument
Brunch
I liked the recital; it reminded me of the ones Anna’s piano teacher had, where the students of all different skill levels had a chance to participate. Nadia did great, and I think listening to more advanced students perform inspired her.
Milwaukee Conservatory
And then, I finally visited the Milwaukee Art museum. Many people toladme how awesome this museum is. My neighbor sometimes goes to Milwaukee just to see a new exhibit.
FInally, I made it there! The building architecture is breathtaking! Lots of interesting exhibits, and they have an educational center, too!
Thaitian ArtStill need to figure this out – see description belowleaving the Art Museum after closing
While we were at the Art Museum, I received a notification on my Amtrak app, that my train was canceled “due to equipment problems,” so I had to rebook for two hours later. On the bright side, we had dinner together 9and the girls seriously discussed the idea to go to Chicago with me :))
I still want to show the remaining pictures, and I even didn’t see the whole exhibit, so I am sure more posts will follow.
Some of the cultures presented at the exhibit are well-researched, and there was a lot of interesting information explaining how the languages reflected some important concepts and beliefs. For example, many languages had the same word for “good” and “beautiful,” meaning the being good is an equivalent of being beautiful.
Also, I learned about the purpose and meaning of body scarsing in African cultures. The people wanted to distinctuate themselves in the eyes of gods from the “wild life,” and from their point of view, an intelligent creature can be identified by their ability to alter their natural appearance.
On my actual birthday, Boris and I went to see the exhibit in the Art Institute called “The Language of Beauty in African Art”
That was one of the most astonishing discoveries for me! The only thing I knew about African Art was the art of Benin. Even though I saw some artworks in the Art Institute’s permanent exhibit, I didn’t explore them deeply enough.
Before I explode with a million pictures, let me summarize what was so astonishing. We know how Ancient Greek art was taken away en mass and how greeks thought for returning many of the artworks. We know about a similar struggle in Egypt. However, Greek and Egyptian art were at least studied and carefully preserved, and all the circumstances of when and where objects were found were recorded.
With African art, the situation is different. When Europeans arrived to Africa (specifically, when Germans arrived to West Africa at the end of the 19th century), they saw a “primitive” art, which looked cool, and they just took the objects of art and brought them to Europe! I am not even talking about asking for permission, or paying in some way, but they didn’t even asked what these objects meant!!!!
Looking at the exhibit, you can see that some research followed, and in many cases, you can read about language, beliefs, gods, etc. But in many cases, it’s “the purpose is unknown”, and “16 – 19 th century”, and “Southern or Western Africa”. And that’s it!
And look at all these amazing artworks! Can you see why German artists were so fascinated? Can you see how this art influenced German Expressionism and Cubism? Do you see Picaso’s big feet and Modigliani’s women?
We had to leave after almost two hours because of emotional and informational overload, and we haven’t see about a third of this exhibit. And as I said, I have tons of photos. Posting some here, and hopefully more later.
Hettie's Reflections 