a little trip (part 2)

This week I'm sharing part 2 of my trip to Shelburne Museum and beyond. If you missed the first part you can click here. You can see the steamboat Ticonderoga just over the knoll - I loved visiting this boat as much today as I did when I was a child.

This painting by Anna Mary Robertson Moses: The Mailman has Gone is housed in the Stagecoach Inn.

The Webb Gallery has beautiful paintings including this Carl Rungius: Bow River, Alberta.

Liam loved the lip bench.

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I adore this old image of the Colchester Reef, Lighthouse built in 1871. Its so cool to be able to see it's original location.

The Electra Havemeyer Webb Memorial Building (Mrs. Webb the founder of Shelburne Museum) was completed posthumously and contains whole rooms of the Webb's Fifth Avenue Apartment - the walls, the furnishings, the fabulous art - Monet, Degas, Cassatt, Rembrandt and more.

The rooms are luxurious.

The circular staircase in the hall is breathtaking.

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Mrs. Webb's Mother was a lifelong friend of artist Mary Cassatt and was one of her most ardent patrons.

This painting in the hall by Cassatt is of Electra Havemeyer Webb and her mother Louisine Elder Havemeyer.

Day 2 was beautiful and sunny! Yay! Our first stop was the Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education. We were eager to view the two exhibits In the Garden and Playing Cowboy.

Splendid! This image is currently my screen saver. The history - The vista! I love it!

The In the Garden exhibit features actual insects made into art. My son really loved the locusts on the wall. It also offers additional art, textiles, jewelry and garden accessories.

The Playing Cowboy exhibition shares how the Cowboy image was manipulated and marketed to the public - most cowboys were actually Native Americans or Mexicans not Caucasians. The exhibit includes archival footage of Buffalo Bills Wild West Show from 1910 which is incredible.

The three oil cloth paintings of Powhatan, Tecumseh and Osceola from the 1850's are extraordinary. At the time these paintings would have been placed inside a tent and back-light by candles - then stories of each of these Native American leaders would have been told.

The Carousel was closed for maintenance; I think my sister and I were more bummed about it than Liam! So we made our way to the Circus Building which houses two hand carved Circus Models.

The first thing you view upon entering is The Kirk Brothers Circus - a complete miniature three-ring circus made up of more than 3,500 pieces. Edgar Kirk fashioned the figures over a period of forty years using only a treadle jigsaw and penknife. It's nothing short of astounding.

Here is an aerial of the building - a large horseshoe shape with an incline to the center apex.

What stopped my sister and I in our tracks... we both had very clear memories of it.

The Arnold Circus Parade was crafted between 1925 and 1955, the parade is more than 500 feet long, with 4,000 one inch to one foot scale figurines ranging from acrobats, animals, clowns and circus wagons. The collection also includes circus memorabilia and animals too fragile to use on the carousel.

This page is from my childhood coloring book showing the museum campus.

It was such a wonderful visit.

Before we made our way out of VT. we stopped at the Champlain Valley Antiques Center. I'm happy to report we all brought home some treasures. I picked up a great pocket photo album of Vermont, along with a set of lovely vintage colonial street scene prints, and a sweet small hand painted wooden plate. Liam found a toy boat with wheels and an airplane. My sister bought a beautiful print.

some of these treasures are shown along with a few more I picked up on a stop our last day traveling.

We took another car ferry over to New York State - two in two days Liam was in Heaven!

Our next stop was Fort Ticonderoga, NY. The Fort is a large 18th century star fort built by the French at the south end of Lake Champlain. The stonework and the views were both amazing!