Day 8: Philadelphia

Day 8: Philadelphia

QOTD: (This came from Laurie Anderson’s overview of life with Lou Reed) Mingyur Rinpoche said "You need to try to master the ability to feel sad without actually being sad."

Weather: Very clear, cool to very cool due to wind conditions

Pics: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Leger, Stacey Lee Webber Studio (Globe Dye Works), and many many pics from the SEI collection

Up too early, though it made it very easy to get in workout at FitCtr, do a posting, and have yogurt and fruit and two slices of DB’s bacon as well as read a bit of the paper.

This morning is the Philadelphia Museum followed by lunch at the museum café. The big show is Leger; he’s not great, the exhibit is quite good with lots of other artists represented, silent movies and the music that went with them, and plenty of space to see everything including a gigantic backdrop piece. After Leger, we get an overview of the craft collection (and very small exhibit) by one of the more enthusiastic curators in the country, Elisabeth  Agro (we saw her in 2009, as peppy now as then!).

Then THB and DB wander over to see a few of the rare pieces of Marcel Duchamp; they’ve mixed in Jasper Johns works, and you can really see the influence of Duchamp on the greatest living American artist (on THB’s list, Johns and Serra run a close 1-2).

Lunch is a composite plate of warm salmon, cold chicken, potatoes, salad, and iced tea plus cookies for dessert. As good as it was in 2009 (same chef?).

Then a ride out to northeast part of Philly to visit a jewelry artist, Stacey Lee Webber. She and her husband, also an artist, live and work in a converted dye works (lots of big spools of thread were left behind). Stacey did not have much for sale and thus didn’t sell much.

Back to the hotel for a short rest and then off to SEI, out of town quite a ways in heavy rush hour traffic on a Friday night (and where THB and DB visited as part of the 2009 trip). SEI is fascinating: they have a totally modular (with no cubbies) approach to placing staff and they buy a lot of art for displaying around the work place, at an average of under $10k per piece (it used to be $5k).

Lee Stoetzel, Collection Director, leads us around at an aggressive pace to make up for the traffic delays. The collection on display has changed somewhat in four years and they’ve added a warehouse to hold the ever-growing collection. We eat a catered meal (chicken, carrots, potatoes, salad with cheese and nuts, wine, and flan with fruit and chocolate cake.

A great event, appreciated by all, and a much shorter ride back (under an hour) with the easing of the traffic heading back to town.