Rockwell Museum, Corning NY (11/29/2019)

Friday, November 29, 2019 (continued)
We were staying overnight in Horseheads, NY, but I had learned of an Urban Arts Crawl that would offer free admission to the Rockwell Museum in Corning, NY with its Gingerbread Invitational display.

Needle & Bowl (2019, by Melissa Vandenberg), in the manner
of Buddhist prayer flags, antique handkerchiefs represent the
individuals that owned the hankies, having left DNA on them...

The Rockwell Museum was founded on a collection by Robert and Hertha Rockwell, who owned a local department store and used the store as a venue to display their collection of American art and artifacts. When the Rockwells decided to donate their collection for a museum, Corning Corporation, the City of Corning and the community worked together to raise funds to renovate Old City Hall (1893), and the museum opened in 1982.

Hunter's Bounty (2009, by Tammy Garcia), a work by one
of the emerging Native American artists featured at the museum

Sweet Dreams Baby! (1965, by Roy Lichtenstein)

Ingrid Bergman the Nun (1963, by Andy Warhol)

Last Indian Market (2014, by Cara Romero, after
The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci) (KSS)

American Women Dismantling the Border III (2018, by
Erin Currier, after Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix)

We were given ballot slips to vote for our favorite in the Gingerbread Invitational.

Country Candy Cabin by Megan W

Milano Family Dream Home by Gina T, Mary & Lauren M

Cabin on the Water by Amanda G,
Christopher K, and Kristin M

Inside the Cabin on the Water

A Modern Mid-Century Dream by Ryan A

Pleasant Grove Treehouse by David & Leah S

Hopi Dream House by Penny W, Meghan B, and Elizabeth W

Root and Branch by Abby W

Tudor Revival by Lindsay T

School Bus Dream Home by Addison Central Elementary Art Club

I voted for Root and Branch and Kent voted for Tudor Revival.

An example of Digital Art by Sophia P
at Corning-Painted Post Middle School

Breaking Down the Wild Horse (c 1820, by George Catlin) (KSS)

The painting above is also dated "1930." George Catlin was born in Wilkes-Barre, PA and as a child was fascinated with Native Americans. He was to travel West five times between 1830-1836, the first time with William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame. Catlin was the first white painter to depict the Plains Indians in their native territory.

NDN (for life) (2000, by Juane Quick-To-See-Smith),
another emerging Native American artist

Mohawk Cradleboard (c 1865) and a pair
of Seneca Corn Husk Dolls (c 1890)

Untitled (Clouds and Trees under Blue Skies)
(c 1925, by Charles E Burchfield)

Charles Burchfield was born in Ashtabula, OH. Soon after graduating from the Cleveland Institute of Art, he moved to Buffalo, NY. We know him because of the Charles Burchfield Center at Buffalo State College that was named in his honor in 1966; it is now the Burchfield Penney Art Center with the world's largest collection of works by Burchfield.

The Rattlesnake (1905, cast 1918,
by Frederic Remington)

To Noses That Read, a Smell That Spells Man
(1920, by Charles M Russell)

January (1937, by Grant Wood), apparently Wood
depicted the agrarian myth of harmony and abundance,
which was not the reality in the 1930s

Tennis (c 1919, by George Bellows), apparently Bellows
spent 1919 in Newport, RI where he observed tennis matches,
here seen as almost a dance in a theatre-like setting

Blanket Stories: Western Door, Salt Sacks and
Three Sisters (2017, by Marie Watt) uses
textiles donated by members of the community

If the woman in the wagon was scared to death at the sight of the prairie,
I surely had cause to be afraid; but I was not. I was uplifted.
(1921, by N C Wyeth)

Shoshone Painted Elk Hide (c 1900)
depicting a successful buffalo/bison hunt

Another nice little art museum, with its focus on Native American art.

Scranton, PA (11/29/2019)

Friday, November 2019
Heading north the day after Thanksgiving...

The Electric City mural as we entered Scranton

Scranton is the sixth largest city in Pennsylvania, and the seat of Lackawanna County. It was dubbed the Electric City in 1886 when the first streetcar system to be powered only by electricity began operation. It was also one of the first American cities to have businesses lit by electric lights in 1880. Long a center of anthracite coal mining, Scranton now is home to five colleges and universities. Many of us know the city as the location of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company of the televisions series, "The Office."

Coopers Seafood Restaurant, which is mentioned in at least
five episodes of "The Office"

Coopers Seafood has many "The Office" themed souvenirs/gifts;
Kent stands between Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute

Every booth has a porthole

Coopers Seafood Restaurant has a few
different collections, such as Transformers

Next we drove to Nay Aug Park, the largest park in Scranton.

Brooks Coal Mine, a model mine (1902, by Reese Brooks, general
superintendent of the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company,
of Scranton),  now permanently closed

The Pioneer, a gravity railroad car, used by the Pennsylvania Coal
Company Railroad on the line from Hawley to Pitton from 1850 to 1884

A gravity railroad is on a slope to allow gravity to pull loaded cars to its destination. Empty cars are then pulled back to the starting point by animal power or a cable hooked to a stationary engine.

Battleship Maine Memorial (1918)
with a 10-inch shell and bronze porthole cover

Everhart Museum of Natural History, Science and Art (1908, by
Harvey J Blackwood and John Nelson, 1928-1929 two wings
were added and all was wrapped in a stripped Classical façade)
is the first and largest public museum in Northeastern Pennsylvania

Statue (1911) of Dr Isaiah Everhart who had the museum
built to house his various collections as a gift to the city

Isaiah Everhart was a medical doctor and ornithologist who was also a skilled taxidermist. He assembled a collection of Pennsylvania's native animals and birds, as well as fossils, rocks and minerals, Americana and folk art, decorative arts, ancient and ethnographic artifacts, and 19C fine art.

Conuropsis carolinensis/Carolina Parakeet (Extinct)

In Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, I misread that the last stuffed Carolina Parakeet was lost by the Cincinnati Zoo. And yet, here was a stuffed Carolina Parakeet! What Bryson actually said was that the last known living Carolina Parakeet died at the Cincinnati Zoo, was stuffed, then was lost.
The taxidermied bird collection now has specimens from far beyond Pennsylvania.

Mercury Metal (2016, by Hunt Slonem),
is actually oil on wood...

The 1920s... The Migrants Cast Their Ballots
(1975 serigraph, by Jacob Lawrence) (KSS)

Burst (2014) in the Special Exhibition:
The Essence of Color: The Art of Victoria Lowe

Scranton, Looking North, by John Willard Raught,
one of the featured Northeastern Pennsylvanian artists

Dorflinger glass (1908-1920), champagne punch cups
and punch bowl on plate, etched in Kalana Poppy design

Christian Dorflinger was born in France and apprenticed in glassmaking. He moved the the United States with his mother and siblings, and settled in New Jersey to work at a glass factory. When kerosene oil was discovered, he was assigned to fashion an appropriate glass chimney for an oil burner. Due to his success, he started his own glass making company. Later in 1865 he opened the
Dorflinger Glass factory in White Mills, PA.

Dorflinger glass pens with lampwork beads (KSS)

Visible Storage Gallery (KSS)

Hey, another Carolina Parakeet!

Another Special Exhibition was:
Another Way of Remembering

Another Way of Remembering was a research project using artifacts from the museum to inspire creativity in patients with early-stage Alzheimer's disease, hoping to evoke memory and cognitive functioning.

Another sample from
Another Way of Remembering

We drove to the Marketplace at Steamtown/formerly Steamtown Mall.

Opioid Epidemic Mural (2019, by Eric Bussart) seeks to raise
awareness while dealing with a serious issue, features a
fast food worker caring for a grandchild, a child of addicts

Kent with the famous "Scranton Welcomes You" sign
seen in opening credits of the TV series, "The Office"

A short walk to Courthouse Square reveals that the "Electric City"
sign (1930s) atop the Board of Trade/Electric Building at the far end;
closer are the Soldiers and Sailors Monument (1900) and the
Lackawanna County Courthouse (1884, in Romanesque Revival style)

Next: Rockwell Museum, Corning NY