osprey_archer: (art)
[personal profile] osprey_archer
My mother and I went to the Indianapolis Museum of Art today and had a rather marvelous time. We hadn't realized it beforehand, but the museum has a perfectly enchanting exhibition of Marie Webster's quilts (Marie Webster revolutionized American quilting in the early twentieth century).

My larger pictures didn't come out that well - it's hard to capture the detailed quilting in a photograph - but here's a close up of my favorite quilt in the exhibition, which Webster called the Magpie quilt because of it's black and white stripes:





I found the contrast between the black and white stripes and the pink flowers so striking. The plaque said that the colors had faded, too, because the Websters used the quilt so much, so originally the pink must have been even brighter.



There were also some perfectly charming children's quilts: I particularly liked the one with little Kate Greenaway girls, their bonnets covering their faces, accompanied by the suggestion that such a quilt could be made with the remains of a little girl's dresses as a keepsake for her. But unfortunately I didn't get a photo of that one.

I did, however, get photos of this exhibition of



Isn't that delightful? It shows the silhouette and style of American women's fashions from the 1770s to the 1960s. I took a photo because it seems like such an excellent quick resource for historical fiction writing.



A close-up on the dress in the 1912 style.



We also popped by the contemporary art exhibition, on the grounds that there might be something interesting, although I must confess we were both rather doubtful on this score. And there were a few baffling pieces, but we also found some we quite like, like



I rather wished they had a light fan on it so that it would turn gently in the breeze; I think that would show it off to best advantage. But I do like the fact that, lying still as it is, it casts these strange complicated shadows: it's like a second piece of art, echoing and complicating the first.



And I also very much liked this



I'm afraid the photo doesn't capture all the intricate detail that went into it, but it's marvelously made: an exquisitely detailed model ship, times three.

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