Cool Museum Day

A couple of weeks ago Denise and I took advantage of our air conditioning being on the fritz by escaping to downtown Atlanta for a museum day. She went to the Christian Dior exhibit at SCAD while I visited the Museum of Design Atlanta and High Museum of Art on Peachtree Street.

The High was featuring Amy Sherald’s American Sublime exhibit. Sherald was raised in Georgia and the exhibit dedicates two floors of the Anne Chambers Wing to her work covering the nearly twenty years of her career. Her portraits highlight “the wonder what it is be a Black American, creating a rich unconstrained world in vibrant color.”

Considering my Midwestern roots, I liked the A God Blessed Land (Empire of Dirt), but I will refrain from showing more photos. You can visit the High website or see more for yourself at the museum as American Sublime is there until September 27th.

Paper Trees

In the lower level of the museum in the photography wing there is a new exhibit called Paper Trees, which features drawings and paintings of trees. Again, my iPhone photography skills cannot capture it so I will refer you to the museum’s website to get a better sense of the experience. The exhibit is well air-conditioned and it includes a soft breezy soundtrack of birds chirping in the trees.

At museum gift shop, I became my book shopper and bookseller self and scouted books for my next Destination: Books popup. (I like to visit museum book shops whenever I travel and they often give me ideas to add to my inventory.)I bought a The New York Botanical Garden’s The Trees of North America and scouted out a couple of other tree books that I have ordered for my September popups (Freedom Farmer’s Market September 5^th and Wylde Center Fall Plant Sale on September 12^th.)

MODA

Across the street at the MODA I met Denise before lunch and we went to the exhibit on the history of salt (ends October 31st). Other than recalling the scene in film Gandhi when Ben Kingsley marches his people to the Saltworks at Dandi, I really didn’t know that much about the centuries-old history of salt.

The exhibit includes a salt and pepper shakers display which was worth the price of admission.  The one with Lot and Lots Wife was especially noteworthy. During the burning of the sin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, God (remember this is the Old Testament punishing Jehovah) warns them not to look back, but Lot’s wife cannot resist and is immediately turned into a pillar of salt.

The fires of Sodom and Gomorrah and the zapping of Lot’s Wife reminded me of our air conditioning being on the blink, but then could I really whine about it?