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Friday, September 11, 2015

Mainely Museums

I guess I lied a little bit when I said I wouldn't post anything about Maine.  Here's just a teaser as we head down the road to Vermont today.  We popped in to a few small museum during our 3 days in the Camden area and here's what we thought of them.


1.  Owls Head Transportation Museum- a steal at $12 each was how we felt about this little gem!


Everything from model airplanes to real planes and replicas of historical  prototypes covered the flight aspect.  For cars things went from wagons to model A's to race cars and exquisite touring cars.



There was even a gallery featuring the art of Melbourne Brindle. He produced ads for car manufacturers including Ford and GM and I really liked the cars showcased with a variety of landscapes.


I enjoyed the beautiful artistic details on the older car designs, Wayne enjoys the mechanical aspect.  We both enjoy trying to imagine the lives of the people who owned the vehicles, I think.


Clara Bow's 1929 Phantom Tourer was divine!


Wayne was tickled by the 1926 Model T snowmobile.  Conversion kits were available to convert the four wheels of the Model T to snowmobiles, what a great idea!


Much to see, and they even had the option to get a ride in a Model T but we had other places to see.  Maybe another time.




2.  Farnsworth Art Museum -

I'm not big on museums featuring paintings usually and I strolled through this one quickly without Wayne who is not into them at all.  The maine (haha) reason I went at all was to see their exhibits featuring the Wyeths, Andrew, N.C., and Jamie.  I especially like Andrew's work (homeschooled by his illustrator father, N.C.) which features a lot of realistic rural landscapes in watercolor and egg tempura influenced by his time in Maine.  I really liked "Airborne" on display at the Farnsworth, but there were others I enjoyed as well.

Photography was not allowed at the museum, which is always a bummer.  After I left the Wyeth exhibit I realized I liked the work mostly because it mirrors the kind of subjects I like to photograph.

building that housed most of the Wyeth collection

The gift shop was nice and I was happy to see they were carrying "Making Whoopies", a book written by my mother's cousin! I found this pumpkin whoopie pie recipe online which features a maple marshmallow filling instead of the usual cream cheese filling. I found a recipe for marshmallow fluff without corn syrup too, so I'm all set to make it dairy and corn syrup free when I get home!


Coming soon to Rockland thanks to the Farnsworth?  Internet Cat Video Festival.  I kid you not!



3.  Penobscot Marine Museum -

At $12 each we felt this one was a little overpriced.  The museum includes a collection of buildings that house a variety of items, some marine related and quite a few not.  In my opinion this should be called the Penobscot Historical Museum as the overall feeling was of a general historical outlook for the area which just happened to be heavily marine influenced.  The marine related exhibits were all designed with grade school children in mind.

Wayne entering old town hall

Three of the buildings are off limits to visitors, the old town hall mostly off limits and all we saw was a cool chandelier and a giant wooden lobster claw carving inside.


What saved the day was a photography exhibit titled "Through Her Lens: Women Photographers Of Mid-Coast Maine,  1895-1925".  My favorite of the five female photograhers exhibited was Ruth Montgomery.  Her photo of Miss Addie Rice above was a sign of the changing times, when the suffrage movement was gaining momentum, and women's roles were changing.  While still wearing long skirts and high neck collars clothes were less restricting and they were entering the work force, travelling, and riding bicycles.  Can you imagine living in such a time where riding a bicycle and being able to leave the house were considered revolutionary?


Their collection also included a lovely scrimshaw collection, but the most fun for us was to check out the life sized pinhole camera or camera obscura.  We went inside, sat down and after our eyes adjusted to the darkness we saw the passing cars on the street moving across the wall, upside down of course.


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