Frankie's Institute

Last week we went on a girls-only overnight trip to Philadelphia to visit the Franklin Institute in honor of my niece's 13th birthday. The big show stopping exhibit was The Art of the Brick, Lego artwork by Nathan Sawaya (an NYU graduate). For some reason I expected everything to be made out of legos -- the floor, the walls, the lights. Instead it was recreations of classic artwork and original lego sculptures. It was pretty cool, but when you are expecting a Lego house, it was slightly underwhelming.

It also had the effect of reminding me how much I love art museums. My favorite part about visiting the Franklin Institute with my mom, nieces (ages 16, 13, 7), and daughter was seeing how much the kids enjoyed all the interactive exhibits. Art museums don't always translate to a younger audience (no touching!). Still, next time we go back to Philly I plan on finally visiting the Art Museum or the Barnes Foundation. We can take the Pip for a lollipop and carousel ride after. 

Great Attempts

Killing time at the unopened MAM, employee entrance style.

We were all set to take a day trip into New York and go to the Met on Thursday. We were up early and out the door to the bagel shop, minding our business eating our breakfast sandwiches, when we let the local news put a fright in us about winter storm Hercules… Ominous music plays in the background. When did they start naming winter storms!?!! We had planned to be on our way back before the snow started, and we weren't really buying into the hype, but we got scared about all the other people who would be fleeing the city before the snowpocalypse. We saw ourselves sitting in tunnel traffic and aborted mission before we even began.

We wondered what other museums we could visit. We entertained the Liberty Science Center but both decided it sounded lame. (This could be wildly off base, but I prefer art museums.) We ended up heading to Montclair to see the Montclair Art Museum, which also houses a nice collection of Native American Art. 

We got there at 10:15, ready to embrace our new day trip when -- wait for it -- we found it didn't open til noon. Ugh. 

Montclair is a pretty cute town to kill time in if you have to, but it was about 20 degrees, so we didn't want to wander around too much. Still, there are some beautiful neighborhoods and really spectacular homes that we had fun touring. We made a pit stop at the Van Vleck House & Garden, which was special even in the bitter cold. Mr. Van Vleck was an avid horticulturist who created a yellow rhododendron -- gasp! We very well may have to get our hands on one at their plant sale the first weekend in May. 

We went downtown for shopping and lunch and ended up at Raymond's, a bustling high class diner I'd heard about. It was pretty good, but the little one had a meltdown, you know, throwing crayons, screaming, going limp and floppy when you try to pick her up, the normal stuff… I carried her out to the back hallway and after what seemed like an eternity, managed to talk her down. The good news is that it was so loud that I don't think anyone really noticed. After that lunch experience, the car seemed like a refuge. Trying our luck back at the museum seemed unwise, so we decided to head home. 

Later that night as the snow fell, we debriefed and decided it was actually nice to explore a new town (the homes are really to die for) and get out of the house, but it was also about three-quarters of a rigamarole. 

So, if you're keeping track on my birthday resolutions: Go to the Met - 0, Eat more vegetables - 1 (I had a kale salad for lunch in the face of all day brunch). You win some, you lose some.

Wondering around the Van Vleck House.

Making A Pilgrimage To Maira

Crappy photos illicitly taken with my iPhone while trying to look like I was checking my email.

I was pleased as punch to discover that Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World) was coming to The Jewish Museum in New York, having missed it by just hours when it was in Philadelphia last fall. My mom and I went for our annual Summer Day of Fun on Friday afternoon. For me, it was like snuggling up on the couch with the cats and a good book -- totally comfortable and reassuring. I have most of her books, and even purchased the companion book to the exhibition last year to console myself for missing it, so there wasn't much newness to be discovered. Nonetheless I really enjoyed seeing her originals, and being in a space carefully curated by the hands of Maira. And I really enjoyed hearing the sound of my mother's giggles from across the gallery as she watch Maira's TED talk with headphones on. 


I could go on and on and on about Maira's wit, wisdom, and talent, or my feeling of spiritual connection to her, or my profound admiration for the fact that she has made such an accomplished career for herself by plumbing the depths of herself and her life, but I won't, I don't have it in me today. It's too much to put into words. I would say just check out her work for yourself and you'll understand. 

A horizon of Maira. 

There were a several other great exhibits going on at the museum but we were unable to see them before the museum closed (at 4:45 on Friday, for the Sabbath). I suppose we had spent too long luxuriating over lunch and lemonade at Sarabeth's.  For the record, Sarabeth's is exactly the kind of restaurant I would have if I ever had a restaurant: brunch food and baked goods all day. I would eat breakfast for every meal if it was nutritiously acceptable, and I have always been this way. A few years ago I ran into my high school sweetheart after many years of radio silence, and as we were catching up he asked "Do you still love pancakes?" I suppose I do, I just hadn't realized quite how much it made an impression on others. 


After picking up some things at the gift shop, I made the executive decision that under no circumstances should we take the 6 train downtown and make the horrible transfer to the E at 51st Street. It was a nice day (after several days of sweltering weather and thunderstorms), so we dared cross Central Park in hopes that we would come out on the other side and take the A/C/E directly to Penn Station. I use dramatic language to describe this decision because, well, have you ever tried to cross Central Park in a straight line? It's not really designed to be transversed on foot in this way, so it took some extreme diligence on our part. We consulted a lot of maps, and finally, when leaving Belvedere Castle and having to decide which way to take through The Ramble, I busted out the GPS on my iPhone. After all, my mother was wearing wedges and I am extremely pregnant. I could not stand the idea of us walking far out of our way. But what do you know -- we made it from the Jewish Museum to the Museum of Natural History in record time (not counting our respite at the Turtle Pond, where mom read Maira's newest children's book, Thirteen Words, and I took pictures of all the turtles in the pond). Once we popped out on the West side of the park, I made another executive decision that I was done with the smelly, crowded subway for the week, so I raised my right arm, stuck my belly out, and hailed us a cab to Penn Station. 

Mom reads to the turtles.

All in all it was another wonderful Summer Day of Fun for the books. Mom got off the train with me and Mr. SevPrez picked us up at the station so Mom could come back and get a tour of our new house -- well, our newly beautiful house with new hardwood floors. Photos to come!

Lazy Summer Weekend

Saturday I made a plum pie to bring to my friend's barbeque, but the dough was a little dry (started with too much flour) so instead of rolling out a second pie shell I made plum pielets. The crust to fill ratio was killer.

Sunday, after going to the private opening of my mom's new museum exhibit, I stopped at Delicious Orchards on the way home for some tomatoes and good bread for our gourmet BLT dinner. It was relatively empty for Delicious Orchards standards, so I had time to stop, smell, and buy some flowers. I love these guys, they are so gorgeously wild and even dry well. Anyone know what they're called?

Sonny likes them too.

Summer Day of Fun 2010

My mother and I have a tradition going back to the mid 90s, the Summer (and Winter, which was added around 2003) Day of Fun, in which mother and daughter come together and take time out from their regularly scheduled lives to do something that they have always been meaning to do, or would do if they led lives of leisure, which they are destined not to because of their genetic makeup. (Mom is busy with exciting work opportunities, museum stewardship, and grammy-ship since she retired; I have a full time job in which I commute to, a personal blog in which to maintain, and a marathon to train for. It's who we are.)


This year Mom met me in midtown Manhattan and we had lunch at Sarabeth's on Central Park South before visiting the American Folk Art Museum. Originally the plan was to go to MoMA to see the Matisse exhibit, but we'd been to MoMA together before, and it promised to be packed. I just happened to read a great piece on the Folk Art Museum in the New Yorker, and had always admired the flag outside their building, so we changed plans. And boy were we glad we did. Here's a photo of part of the line (that went all the way around the block) to get into MoMA, taken from the top floor of the Folk Art Museum, which is right next door.

We saw some truly inspiring things. I'm still not quite sure what folk art is exactly, but I think it amounts to Art-by-artists-who-are-not-Artists, that is people who did not go to school to be artists. They can be artisans, or craftsman, or, in the 20th and 21st centuries, just plain crazy people who are compelled by their imprisonment or mental illness to make art. It's somewhat unclear. But I still enjoyed all the exhibits. 

We saw some stuff by Henry Darger, who was clearly mentally ill and made some disturbing art (which I did not take photos of). Sad thing is, the Henry Dargers of today are probably too overmedicated to make compelling art. 

I was tickled by his filing system for images he clipped out of magazines, coloring books, and other printed material — all clippings he used to teach himself how to illustrate his magnus opus. This file was called "Only Trees Trees Not Bees."


But by far my favorite thing in the place was the Pieties Quilt, made by Maria Cadman Hubbard, aged 79, and completed in 1848.


See for yourselves. 

Besides this amazing quilt, there were also excellent weathervanes, a braided rug made out of Wonder Bread bags, a cafe run by a very nice pastry chef who baked all the goods, and live music. 


If you are ever about to get in line for MoMA, I highly suggest finding respite in the AFAM.