Museum Cruising

[HermitoftheNorthernMarch]

maquette from How to Train Your Dragon in the exhibit hall (doesn't the "water" look fantastic?!!)

I didn't know they still made real life miniatures for movies, and I especially didn't expect them to make them for a computer animated movie. Thank you for posting, this model is neat.

[Benisse]

It was just amazing... and there were several collections of models too. For the stop motion animation there was one collection of the heads of some character (I forget who) with a multitude of different mouth shapes, etc. But the HTTYD maquette was my favorite.

Ariel,
there were a lot of concept art and clips and models and story boards and cels and ... tons more (not just HTTYD). It was a fascinating exhibit and even though I had injured my knee earlier in the week I walked around the displays for 3 hours because it was such fun!

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

Man, I would have loved to see all that (even the non-HTTYD stuff ). I have an increasing appreciation for animated films especially since having gone through an entire movie, taking screenshots and therefore pausing the film a lot and so catching the little intricacies I'd not noticed before.

[Lucy Took]

I took this picture

And this one

Really, I think these speak for themselves how amazing this museum trip was.

[gypsevedius]

@Lucy Took: That's just plain amazing. My Aunt would have loved to have gone as well as I.

[miniver]

Tooky, did I miss something? That looks like Princess Diana's wedding dress. What museum did you go to, and what exhibit did you see?

A velocipede, Benisse? How cool. I remember reading Louisa May Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Girl, one of her less familiar stories, and Tommy once had an accident on the velocipede. What a great word! I had no idea how it differed from today's bikes until recently when I did some research for a work project and learned that the mid-19th-century velocipedes had wooden wheels (later metal ones) but no tires. Rubber hadn't been developed for that use yet. Imagine how jarring it would have been to ride such a bike on cobblestone streets, and you understand why its other name was "boneshaker."

The trains sound fascinating. It must have been such fun to climb onto the cars.

Aslie, a friend at work recently went to Monticello and was equally excited by it. It must be such a stupendous experience to stand there and realize that one of the great minds in our history not only lived there but designed the place himself. That whole generation of founders are special heroes of mine.

[Lucy Took]

I went to see the "Diana" exhibit at a museum in Iowa of all places. The dress, gems and other artifacts of Princess Diana's life were on display there as the last stop before they change hands from the Spencer family to the Windsor family. It was an amazing display, along with the dress and her crown jewels they had things from the Spencer family history and their jewelry and portraits, a selection of Princess Diana's wardrobe(Which I must share with Lois soon!) and other various things, like her ballet slippers! It was a stunning trip, and probably the most interesting one I'll be able to share here unless I go to Chicago, and even then probably not as neat as this one. It seems that Benisse gets most of the other good exhibits.

[narniagirl11]

*bounces like crazy* Tooky!! Me and my 4-H club are going there in November!!!! I know exactly what you're talking about!

[Benisse]

Tooky wow! What a treat to get to see an exhibit on Princess Diana! (And how cool you got to take photos there too)
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On Thursday I visited a local historical society that maintains a one room museum. The director gave an interesting talk to the group I was with, but unfortunately she got so in to telling local history stories that we didn't really have time to see the displays before it was time for our group to go to lunch.

Since we had only five minutes to cruise the exhibits I concentrated on a collection of dolls from all over the world. My favorite was a small, antique Japanese geisha doll that came in her own wooden case with six tiny wigs in various styles. Also it was fun to see so many countries represented (including Malta and other unusual places). However, I was disappointed that the African dolls did not have their countries of origin specified; they only had a generic "Africa" label by each.

I definitely need to go back by that historical society museum to get a more thorough look-see.

[miniver]

As a doll fan, I like the sound of that museum! My dolls are all play dolls (child dolls and adult "fashion" dolls), but an old friend of mine had a collection that sounds like this museum one. I remember she had a samurai bride doll, for example. When I used to visit her family, my first stop was always the doll room, even if my friend wasn't there. You didn't change their clothes or even hold them, so they weren't my type of doll, but I loved to look at them all.

Tooky, that Diana display sounds wonderful. Lois will enjoy hearing about the other outfits and maybe using some of the details for her sewing. When I look back at her dresses, I find that the earlier ones were what we might consider a bit fussy nowadays, with lots of large-patterned prints, while the later ones were sleeker and more tailored. I know that the ballgowns were sumptuous, but I tended to like the suits and some of the coats when I saw their photos. One interesting thing: many of the evening gowns were surprisingly modest, with sleeves, sometimes even long sleeves.