ANOTHER DAY IN ST. LOUIS! I went with a group from the classical school where I have been teaching an art co-op class in the afternoons this year, to the St. Louis Art Museum yesterday. We took two vans and a car. It turned out overall to be an uneventful day but a very interesting one. I was so worried we'd be delayed and I ended up being one of the ones who delayed us in the morning:( I was copying some sheets to make the trip interesting for the kids, got delayed in traffic and was very embarassed.)
We arrived about 5 minutes late in St. Louis (3 hrs. away) for our docent. They were very gracious and took us around for a highlight tour of the museum. I learned a lot. I think the children did too. The tour with the docent was one hour. She showed us a few paintings and told us stories behind them. It was a very interactive presentation that also included a lot of interesting stories behind the art. One story that was especially interesting was the story of the Burghers of Calais. It is not a painting but six life-sized statues. The real life ones are in Calais, France. Five of the six smaller copies are in this museum. It is a human illustration of people giving their lives for others.
After lunch we divided into groups and toured again on our own for about 45 minutes. We girls took one route that took us through a lot of art objects from Asia, Egypt (including mummies), Africa and New Guinea. Some of the items were rather dark as in witch doctor paraphenalia, masks, etc. Others were Asian porcelain or brass objects that were beautiful because of their color or intricate design. There was also a section of furniture that had some very intriguing pieces in it as well as ornate clocks and silver pieces. there weren't duplicates of any one item so it was quite interesting and as you can imagine, with a group of 2-6 graders, I was not able to read the information on them like I would have liked. We were just getting into a section that had shields, swords and armor, but our time ran out...or rather the time others decided had run out because they had planned to end the day with an hour at the zoo!! I must say, that took me by surprise.
I felt that we had such a limited amount of time for the art museum and we lost an hour of that. Oh well, I wasn't totally in charge of the trip, so on we went to the next thing.
The boys meanwhile, had gone to the U.S. artists and had seen the art I had wanted to see. For some reason, I didn't think to look for the area of artists that we had studied all year. . duh! I really enjoyed the trip and hope to return soon on my own.
I had hoped to include pictures of my new granddaughter Quinn here, but I can't seem to get them to coordinate with the dealy that transfers them. Hopefully, I'll be able to figure out how to do that soon. I'll be leaving for Seattle in a week. I have VBS crafts to get in order before then. I must get going!