Grubb wrote about the printing demo we saw at the Shelburne Museum where a cast iron platen was cranked down on a frame pressing paper onto a carved and inked wood block. Chinle, who lives in Silver City, NM sent a photo from the Southwest Print Fiesta held just last week. Here’s how they do…
Electra leaves an Impressionist
Post by Grubb. Electra Havemeyer Webb inherited a sugar fortune. Then she married a polo player whose mother was a Vanderbilt. With her wealth, Electra preserved thirty- eight 19th century buildings and then had them installed as a village on her 1,000 acre estate just off of Route 7 in Shelburne, Vermont. Electra had a…
The superhighway of swamp trails
Post by Ella. Yesterday, one of our stops was the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge. When we saw that the Discovery Nature Trail was mowed grass leading to a raised bridge of planks leading to crushed gravel…who could resist such a cushy hike. More like a stroll on the superhighway of swamp trails. After the Discovery…
For my two favorite Vermonters
Post by Ella. Holly from Stowe and Mary from Burlington, now both residing in Albuquerque, both spent time at University of Vermont in Burlington. Today, we went to the Fleming Museum of Art on campus and then walked around getting the feel of the place. First the museum. It took us a minute to find…
A country drive
Post by Ella. Yesterday we took an old fashioned country drive through the islands of Lake Champlain. We pulled into Knight Point State Park for a gander at the shoreline. We gave consideration to taking a ferry over to Plattsburgh, NY but opted to continue through Lake Champlain. We stopped at a modern version of…
Transpo kings
Post by Grubb. The side-paddle-wheel passenger steamer moored on the grounds of the Shelburne Museum is one of two remaining in this country. For a boat that only ferried people across Lake Champlain it is quite impressive in an excessive Gilded Age sort of way. An ornate dining room and cushioned observation chairs for a…
A potpourri of photos
From the Shelburne Museum’s collection of old Americana with a little new thrown in. Children’s hankies Bandboxes Textiles Now that’s a cabin, not a cottage Covered bridge My favorite from the Webb Gallery
After sixty years, it comes together
Post by Grubb. One of the exhibits of 19th century life at the Shelburne was a demonstration of how an old printing press worked. This was fascinating to me because the press that was being used was exactly like the cast iron monstrosity that I grew up with in Chicago…except the one I remember taking…
Speaking of fear…
Post by Grubb. How about this bird’s eye view of a turkey buzzard ready to dive-bomb a farm? It’s an Andrew Wyeth painting from the early 1950s. I can imagine Miss Nancy Lawson looking at it while she puzzles over the mention of Wyeth’s anxiety over Cold War mutual destruction.
You don’t see many of these anymore
Post by Grubb. On this day of the unmentionable Italian explorer it’s only fitting that, in my Shelburne Museum ramble, I would find myself pausing to look at a collection of wooden figures that used to stand out front of 19th century cigar stores. The best, I thought, was the lighted action figure, a blatant…
1843
Post by Grubb. That’s the year it was all over for Miss Nancy Lawson. She was a follower of William Miller, an early 19th-century religious leader who believed the world would end at that time. There is a portrait of Miss Lawson painted by William Matthew Prior that hangs in the Webb Gallery at the…
A thousand decoys
Post by Ella. 756 carved wildfowl decoys. A few hundred more in storage. “Night at the Museum” (the film where all the creatures on display come alive to cause havoc at night) flashed through my brain. Roughly carved ducks, swans, geese, herons, egrets and more filled the glass display cases crowded into the small rooms where…
Maple everything
Post by Ella. Maple sugar, maple filled chocolate, maple syrup, maple creemee, maple covered pepitas, maple infused olive oil, maple gin, maple chipotle hot sauce. Vermont’s state motto should be “No such thing as too much maple”. Late in the afternoon today we ducked down to the Church Street Marketplace in downtown Burlington to browse…
Dog is great
Post by Grubb. Leaving the White Mountains behind us in the morning mist, we came across a curious form of worship up in the hills outside of St. Johnsbury. (St. Johnsbury is in Vermont, but remember, this is a parallel universe so state borders as we know them may not exist.) Another aspect of experiencing…
Life in Randolph
Post by Ella. Sometimes I am lucky enough to meet an AirBnB host who is not a property management company, who has not asked us to strip the sheets or take out the garbage, and who genuinely seems to care if we enjoyed our stay. Whether owned by a person or a company, most AirBnB…