Last week I was invited by my niece Madeline to the Museum of Natural History in order to catch the Horse Exhibit. She had received a few tickets for the event for her birthday and chose a select few of us horse lovin' relatives to come with her. I was honored to have been chosen and tried my best to rest up this past weekend and recover for this affair.
To say I was disappointed is an understatement. The exhibit was pretty lame and grossly paled in comparison to the display at the Kentucky Horse Park.
at the 81st subway station
No, really, I'm not being mean spirited or negative in any fashion. I'm just stating that this exhibit could have been incredible and it wasn't even good. The only stuffed items (ala museum style) were right at the beginning of the exhibit and they were of primitive horses which, upon close inspection, turned out to be painted resin, not fur. Don't get me wrong. I'm totally not hide-hungry, but there is a classic beauty to those stuffed displays that I find helpful to the student because like it or not, it's still real.
There were no stuffed horses or any type of breeds, other than "this is a big draft and this is a small Shetland" displayed anywhere. There were some cool skeletons behind rope, but visitors were banned from photographing anything.
Nope, no cameras allowed!
I wouldn't have cared since there was very little I wanted to photograph, but there WAS a small carved horse statue with rider in ivory that could have competed in any hard East Coast show and it could have won HANDS DOWN! It was an amazing piece. I truly wish that security guard wasn't eyein' me. He knew what was on my mind. But that is where the piece stays forever....in my mind.
There were a few stirrups on the wall and horse armor on a chocolate covered horse form. No western saddles or English saddles anywhere, but there were polo boots displayed. Woo-hoo! Well, a polo boot IS what you want to see when you come to view a horse exhibit, no?
Again, nothing stuffed in cool scene set ups with Indians or squaws in a wilderness setting which fades into an incredibly painted backdrop. Who paints those backgrounds for the museums anyway? They are amazing pieces of art! There wasn't even a bead on display from a (gasp) Arabian costume!
There were quite a few TVs playing videos, but I honestly didn't have the patience to sit there and watch and I felt sorta insulted since I can watch a screen at home. When I go out to a museum I like to go out so I don't have to look at my computer or TV.
The rest of the museum was fun though and we went from floor to floor enjoying new exhibits and revisiting old favorites. I got a few cool sketches in the ol' sketchbook and found my mind, of course, wandering badly on ceramic ware. Vessels with legs and hooves dominated my mind and trinkets about the necks also filtered through. I couldn't stop those ideas from flooding my brain and I put as many as I could down as the rest of the party shopped. I didn't feel like buying anything. I had most of the choice books on display in the store and I'm totally out of the spirit of buying gifts.
It was nice to be at a museum again. I'm craving the MET even more now and I think I better make plans to get back to that particular museum. I want to make a few new vessels and take them from start to finish then head on back to the MET for inspiration.
Despite my disappointment in the Horse Exhibit I did have an amazing time at the museum and I'm filled with many new inspirations and I found some umpf I totally lost last week with getting so ill. It's good to be back.
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