No Boat Travel
What with all the boat chores and doctor's visits, we decided yesterday that we would "take a day off" today and explore one of St. Petersburg's museums. Since I grew up in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania with Corning, New York and the Corning Glass Factory in close proximity, I have always been a lover of glass. My curio cabinet at home is full beyond capacity with all the pieces I have collected over the years. So, when Clark suggested we visit a museum, I requested that we go see the Chihuly Collection on display at the Morean Arts Center.
Before we left to walk uptown to the museum, we saw the loopers, Donna and Teri, who we met yesterday on a Mainship 390 named Imagine Too getting ready to head on to their next destination. Clark had seen them arrive yesterday as he never misses a Mainship, and we walked over and introduced ourselves. We found out that they are on the last leg of their trip having started in Jacksonville, Florida.
As we prepared for our outing, we saw them leave their dock and head on their way to Sarasota.
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| Imagine Too leaving St Pete Marina |
The museum is located in the 700 block on Central Avenue so we had a few blocks to walk to get there. Clark tried to warn me that part of Central Avenue was blocked off near the marina end of the street, but he let me lead him towards that street anyway. Once there he basically said, "I told you so!" I just had not understood that the whole block including sidewalks on both sides of the street were closed to all traffic. The end result was that we had a walk around the block to get back to a place where we could start walking the right direction.
Having declared today a vacation, we took our time walking up the street looking to see what shops we passed. We saw an ice cream shop that I thought had cute signage.
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| Subway Signage on Restaurant |
Eventually we made our way to the Morean Art Center and bought our tickets. According to them, we are not senior citizens yet and we had no coupons, so we paid full admission. A trip across the street to watch glass blowing in progress came included in the entrance fee, however, so it was well worth the $20 each admission fee. Since the demonstration occurs on the hour, and it was almost noon, Clark suggested we go there first.
After a very brief wait, two men, the glass blower and his assistant, gave us a fabulous demonstration of the art of glass blowing. I have seen glass work demonstrated at the Corning Glass Factory, but the demos I saw there did not last 40 minutes in length and give step-by-step commentary on the process. Clark and I both thoroughly enjoyed the show.
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| Hot ovens ready for when the show starts |
All glass is red when hot regardless of color. This piece being made will be green and black when cooled
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| Shaping hot glass on stainless steel table |
It takes two to do the job. One to shape the glass and an assistant to blow into the tube.
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| "Inflating" the glass by blowing into the tube |
The object being made was built up in layers of glass - started with clear glass then added green and finally black. Shaping of the object took place in between the additions of the colors.
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| Shaping the glass object |
As the final step to making the fluted plate, the artist spun the glass using centrifugal force to flatten the bowl out into a dish shape.
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| Glass Bowl becomes a fluted dish by spinning |
After the demo we walked back across the street to the museum to check out the exhibits there. I found the intricacy of the works amazing. As we left the glass blowing demo across the street, the artist said he hoped the demo would help us understand how many hours of labor went into making the pieces presented in the museum display.
When we started the tour, we had no idea how large or small the exhibit would be. Having found the display to be relatively small when we reached the end, I told Clark I would walk through the exhibit again, backwards, to get another, more-detailed look before we left.
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| Welcome to the Chihuly Collection at the Morean Arts Center |
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| Hanging from Ceiling |
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| Mounted on the Wall |
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| This made me think of the plant in "Little Shop of Horrors" and "Feed Me, Seymour"!!! |
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| Flower Garden floor display |
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| Close up of plants in the glass flower garden |
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| Colorful dishes that reminded me of clam shells |
Of course, no museum tour is complete without a trip through the gift shop. Instead of buying, however, Clark took some pictures home of the more interesting items on sale.
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| Probably the ones we saw being made will end up here for sale |
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| Hanging glass balls |
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| Glass reptile - salamander maybe? Fish maybe? It says "140" on it. Don't know if that is the inventory mark or the price! |
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| More items in the gift shop area |
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| More dishes like the one we saw being crafted |
We still had plenty of time left in the afternoon to do more exploring in town. On the way to the museum, I noticed a bike shop selling Brompton bikes. This is the brand of fold-able bikes that Clark and I have. I suggested that we check back after the museum to see what kind of accessories they might have for sale. With that in mind, we headed for the bike store.
Upon entering, we found the very amiable owner busy at work on a bike doing maintenance or repair or some such. Within seconds, he and Clark were chatting away like old friends talking about the bikes. We bought ours around 2012. We learned that, as production has increased, the price has gone down over the years. Although still not inexpensive, a bike bought today costs considerably less than what we paid, but we love them and have gotten our money's worth out of them for sure.
Besides talking about bikes with the owner, we did check out the accessories as I had wanted. We decided to check out our bikes to see what accessories might make sense to add. In particular Clark showed an interest in improving our headlight and taillight situation.
As we walked back to the boat, we stopped in CVS and Publix - not really on the way, but only a slight diversion. While there we got a call from the marina, that a package and letters had arrived for us, so we added that stop to our itinerary. My FitBit shows that I walked almost 5 miles today. My feet certainly felt like it, since other than the time we sat during the glass blowing demo, we walked the rest of the day!
Note: I wanted to publish this yesterday but the internet was so bad, it was not possible. Today it is working well. Hit or miss!
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