WILLIAMSTOWN

Hampered by colds and tons of family stuff, we still managed to escape a bit.  Skimming might be of interest to some. 


May/June 2017

I bought a Living Social coupon back while we were in Florida last winter.

It cost $170 for two nights at the 1896 House.  Values included were two breakfasts which we were lucky to be cooked by private chef.  That is usually reserved for the high priced rooms, but occupancy was low.  I had eggs both days to stay on the diet.  Elizabeth had French toast the first day.  Figure $20 value.

In our room was placed a bottle of wine which we could bring to dinner with us.

Value $26 =  It was good.  Canon Road.  California  Cabernet sauvignon  2015

On the market it might sell for closer to $10, but it was the cheapest bottle available in the restaurant, and so had we not brought it, we would have paid for one since all glasses were about $10.

The restaurant coupon was for worth about $20

So we figured we got about $76 in free add ons.  That makes this grand place just about $50 a night total.

The room was much like the old style motel, only upscale.  Our section, Pondside, had decorative wall paper and a fine, fancy look.  Window treatments shut out light if we wanted a nap.  Everything was very clean and well repaired.  Turner Classic Movies was on the television.  The shower had a small tub below it.  The beds were comfortable and we got extra pillows.  Along with a heating thermostat was an air conditioner and a dehumidifier. 

The electricity was a bit sparse, but we managed.  Next trip I need to bring my adapter because the computer was three pronged and the wall receptable only two.  I borrowed the dehumidifier adapter and switched it out.

Shampoo and soap were a bit down scale, but okay. 

Behind us was a small pond and some white ducks.

And an old coach was on display.

We thought with all that was going on in the family just now and these horrendous colds, we would lose our chance to go, but all we needed to do was to push it ahead a day and shorten our schedules a bit and we were fine.

We started about nine in the morning and wandered to Williamstown.  We stopped first for coffee at the 5 corners coffee spot

https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-store-at-five-corners-williamstown-2

and had some coffee and half a chocolate chip cookie while we looked over the map.

Their hazelnut coffee was really good.  It was Mountain Grown brand.  They also had cinnamon.  It was much better than the coffee with our breakfasts, and we went back the morning we left for early coffee before breakfast.  We could sit on a very pleasant sunporch and have a taste of a cookie, or a fresh baked scone.  I just had one small bit.  Yum.

Coffee cost just $1.75 and then 80 cents for a refill.

This spot had one of the most interesting rest room distinctions I have seen.  Important here was to let patrons know where the baby changing table was located.

I had not really understood how close Williamstown was to home.  I suppose we tend to go first to Guido's in Pittsfield when we do a day trip, so the ride is longer.

We stopped at the 1896 House, but we could not check in as early as eleven.  So, we went for lunch at the Indian restaurant downtown and then  on to the Clark Museum. 

It was an inexpensive small Indian buffet with some very tasty foods.  The proprietor told me which selections had added sugar.  It still left some fine tastes.  I can eat Indian at the buffets because I get to choose my food, but to go for a meal is difficult because it is mostly bread and rice and sugary dessert.

These colds have been sapping our energy, so we had a short visit at the Clark.

The special exhibit features some fine Dutch paintings and I enjoyed them a great deal.  Most were a bit dark.  Perhaps they will be restored sometime.

 This one was an exception.  It was very bright and still colorful.

This was so much like the Saint Jerome paintings.  It was a hermit doing pretty much what Jerome did. 

Hermit Praying in the Wilderness  1707  

Wilhelm Van Mieris  1662-1747

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There was a earlier painting of the Goya I had seen in Madrid.  It was not done well, but rough.  Still it was a thrill to find it and make the connection.

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 Then this Goya was there as well.  Not perhaps the best of his portraits, but another to add to my experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asensio_Juli%C3%A0

 Other paintings that struck my fancy:

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Our colds kept our visit short, but here are some of our favorites

http://www.clarkart.edu/Collection/7199

http://www.clarkart.edu/Collection/5538

This is absolutely one of my favorites.  I spent a good bit of time sitting and studying the details.  If I had any room on my walls, I'd buy a print.  I like the depiction of the three stages of women and their separate reaction to the music.

http://www.clarkart.edu/Collection/9026

Somewhere I have seen all of these in an exhibit.  I hate that I remember so little.

http://www.clarkart.edu/Collection/9814

The eyes in this Gainborough are memorable

Here is a fine link to survey what is in the permanent collection at the Clark.

http://www.clarkart.edu/museum/Collections/Browse-Collections#/?sortBy=2&FacetId=6

We joined for $150 this year.  It is $20 a pop to enter.

Membership gives us each the ability to bring two guests.

It will also give us some discounts.

In addition it has a reciprocal agreement with about 300 museums including both the Albany Institute of History and Art and the Appleton in Ocala that we visit in wintertime.

What I like best is that I can go for just a short visit.  I can't absorb or remember an experience when I go for too long a period

I also enjoyed a young girl who was to be married in the religious section.  I have seen it before, but don't have the title handy.

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We moved into our room, choosing one across the street on the Pondview side in order to avoid the traffic to the restaurant and insure a quiet stay.

We unpacked and took a long nap.  That refreshed us for the rest of the day.

We decided against two plays in the area, both one man shows.

Instead we went to the little nonprofit art theater

Images

We saw the new movie Lovers

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5770620/

Some have not liked it much, but we thought it was great, and well outside the cliché movies on affairs and marriage.  We have been talking about it ever since.

Afterward we went back to the 1896 restaurant.

http://www.6housepub.com/   We ate at tables in the back.

We shared a fine Portobello mushroom salad.  Elizabeth had a martini lobster salad.  I ate a wonderful duck entre with garlic spinach and mixed vegetables.  They gave me more garlic spinach as a substitute for rice.

It is one of the finest duck dinners I can remember eating.  Very lean.  I'll certainly drive to have that meal again.

this was not our table, but looked pretty cool.

DAY 2

Wednesday we spent at Mass Moca which is not a religious coffee but an art museum.

As it is all very modern art, I have been rather unpleased with my previous visits and really went just to humor Elizabeth.

However, this one was great fun.
We managed to spend the day there, breaking for a fine Cobb Salad lunch to refresh our cold accosted senses.
We spent most of our time in the new building, Building 6.  Here we enjoyed
Laurie Anderson
She had a room full of charcoal drawings that were fascinating.  And for the first time we experienced a visual reality head set and saw what she had created there.  Elizabeth could not really see it, but I could and was amazed.  I could interact with floating bits of things, hear their stories and toss them far away, using my own hands that created chalk outlines of hands that worked in the virtual reality.  At the end my hand were the front legs and hooves of horses and I could gallop.
http://massmoca.org/event/laurie-anderson/




Here were two interesting found art works:

 

Nick Cave had an amazing display of hanging and twirling relectors.  In some way it was a Black statement, but I could really not get that. 
http://massmoca.org/event/nick-cave-until/

This seemed the silliest of what we experienced, but at least I know what to do with my worn out sneakers.

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Perhaps the most absurd was this one.  I can't help but believe that the artist is laughing at us for taking this seriously.

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We had a fine Cobb Salad lunch at the cafeteria.  They let Elizabeth bring in some expresso from the nearby coffee place. 

http://www.gramercybistro.com/


The background music was just great.  Even Billie Holiday was represented.

While there we admired these rock paintings by a local.

They reminded us of our painting of our rock wall by Susanne.

Afterward we napped as best we could, but some workman with an oversized hand drill spoiled the best of it.

Supper, however, was delightful.  I had the same meal as yesterday.  Green beans instead of mixed squash.  We brought our own wine.  The duck was better than yesterday, sweet and crispy. 

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In the evening we watched an old William Haines movie on Turner Classic Movies.  It was very funny.  Just a Gigolo

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021780/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_a_Gigolo_(1931_film)

Contrary to the note in Wikipedia, the song "Just a Gigolo" was not in this movie.

Haines was gay and living openly and honestly with his partner.  He was asked to present a different image, even to get married, but he refused.  He lived fifty years with his partner, but could not get acting jobs, so he did interior decorating for many of the great Hollywood stars.

http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/haines-article-012000

Joan Crawford was a good friend and helped promote his business.

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Sleeping was still difficult with these terrible colds.  We did better on our last night, but still wake up thick with flem.

In the morning we just decided to call it a trip and head back early.  We stopped in Pittsfield at Guido's and bought a few good things.  Then we went home and took a nap.

We've been napping ever since.

DANA'S BIRTHDAY PARTY AFTER SPAIN

It was quite a challenge to be up for such a long stretch.  I had gotten up very early in Spain and just napped a bit here and there, arriving in Boston just before Dana's birthday party.

I was fairly tired and it took a while to find the shuttle that was to take me to the hotel.
Finally, Elizabeth found a number that worked and told them I had arrived and was looking for them.
There was a parking lot called "Shared Vans" that held about fifty limos and vans. That was there mine was supposed to be.  No one greeted me with a sign.
So, as I walked into the lot, I started shouting at the top of my lungs.
"Anyone here going to the Kendall Hotel? "
The limo guys all dressed in their prim suits smiled.
"Anyone WANT to go to the Kendall?
And slowly the driver found me.
He knew me by name after Elizabeth's call.
Off we went.
At the hotel I caught up a bit, showered, changed clothes, and off we went to Dana's birthday party which was ironically held in a Spanish tapas bar near the hotel.

I like this hotel.  It is really as much museum as hotel with plenty of firehouse bits and other interesting antiques.

We had stayed once ore perhaps twice before

http://masstravels.blogspot.com/search?q=hotel
http://masstravels.blogspot.com/2017/06/old-post-from-cambridge.html

Connecticut

http://foxwoodspokertr.blogspot.com/2016/08/hartford-bushnell-park-and-mark-twains.htmlJust thought I'd toss a link in here that had no

ANNIVERSARY TRIP TO ROCKWELL AND GREAT BARRINGTON

It was a hot and humid day, but we were determined to give ourselves the present of a day with no dishes.  I'm tired of dishes.  Generally, I am not.  It is a piece of my overall being tired of so many things these days.

The sugar numbers and the undiagnosed nose smell put me off my adventurous mood.

However, I managed to eat right. My sugar numbers are off the chart, but I know what I know.

We started by finding the cork screw trail not far from home.  It was too wet for our shoes, but it will be a fine trail, all covered in a woodsy canopy so it will stay cool.  It is a new addition to hiking opportunities, privately owned but accessible.

http://eastwickpress.com/news/2015/06/opening-of-the-corkscrew-rail-trail/

 

Then we went up beyond Stephentown and stopped for breakfast at a great little diner all decorated for the West with Indians and cowboys.  It was a bright and good place.  The coffee was good.  I had a burrito.  Elizabeth had a Portobello and egg on English and perhaps I'll try that next time and just skip the muffin. 

This diner was located in a plaza and along side the plaza was a fine little flea market.  We walked around and enjoyed some of the old things.   There were some dollar deals.  I bought a fine little brass like dust bin and brush and a flexible spatula like the ones I bought from Sherry's mom.  I had two of those and one just split in half. 
This one had a fine and untarnished blade but the black handle had been cracked a bit.  When I got home a few minutes of grinding the handle down, smoothing it, and spraying on a coat of black paint did the trick.  I'll love this!

It got too hot and we started toward  the Norman Rockwell Museum
http://www.nrm.org/

It was $17, a good bit I think.  And it was crowded.  Still, it was fine to see all the painting and other bits there.  A cartoonist was also featured, but I was not so thrilled with that display.

Favorites included:

BOY WITH BABY CARRIAGE

 

 

In Rockwell's time there was a great fear that feminism might take over.  Here a young fellow suffers the barbs of baseball buddies because he is doing child care that day.

 



 

 MERMAID    or    LOBSTERMAN

 

 

Of course, I'd like this one.  It is a fisherman's dream.

 





 

 

THE DUGOUT

 

Here is a fine depiction of jeering baseball fans.

 

 

A baseball classic from America's most beloved folk artist! Entitled "The Dugout", this famous piece was originally published as the cover art for the September 4, 1948 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, and perfectly captures the feeling of being a losing road team in hostile territory. As a franchise on the decline in the late 1940s, the Chicago Cubs were the perfect target for Rockwell's inspired art - little did he know, the Cubs would feel little but dejection for the rest of the 20th century. Forget the curse of the Billygoat...the Cubs may be a victim of Rockwell's hex! 

A SCOUT IS HELPFUL  1941

 

 

This is quite a photo of a hero, the way we all wanted to be in the scouts.  Here one carries a girl and her cat to a rowboat as her house is destroyed by the 1938 hurricane.

I did encounter quite a bit of Rockwell as a boy because I always had a subscription to Boy's LIfe and he did the covers to that oversized magazine.  I should have saved all of them   I remember Dick Bull also loved the magazine although he never because a scout.  He was always showing me some article, especially those that had to do with building some camping trick. 

I liked the quilt.

 

 

 

COUSIN REGINALD SPELLS PELOPONNESUS

 

Rockwell had a whole series of Cousin Reginald pieces in which the nerdy guy outsmarts the popular and good looking boy.  Fun.

 

THE GOSSIPS

 

This Post cover was represented as depicting the process of his work.  First he had some Arlington neighbors pose for a photograph and then he used them in the painting.  He paid $5 a sitting and always insisted that an artist should pay the models something as the modeling was much improved.

 

 

 

 

There was a lecture, but we did not attend but used that time to see the works with less competition from others.  I did pick up that Rockwell was so pale that as a baby he was called "Snow in the Face" 

THE DISCOVERY

Here a young fellow discovers Santa's outfit in a bottom drawer and begins to get the idea.

From this painiting I learned the word, doorkijkje,
http://www.essentialvermeer.com/glossary/glossary_d_i.html#doorkijkje


Santa's outfit It was particularly important to me because it is exactly the sort of artistic experience I have from my bed, looking out the door at all the many angles in the kitchen and beyond.

 

 

 

We took a bit of a rest on the porch.  It was fairy cool there.  I fell asleep for a bit.

 

 

 

 

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Then we poked around Great Barrington, but it was too hot to be of much comfort.  I heard some fine outdoor music playing the songs I love and doing it quite well.  Elizabeth poked in shops and ended up buying a dress.  I added my Veterans status to get an extra 10% off and had a talk with one of the owners who had been in the Navy.

I went into a gallery
http://vaultgallery.net/

and that might have been interesting except they featured http://marilynkalish.com/  and this stuff was just terrible.  Much of it was women with only partial faces.  I hated all of it.  It was as if someone one time sloshed and ruined a nice portrait and then decided that the error might be a great artistic technique.  But what do I know.

It was Tax Free weekend in Mass. so we decided to eat a bit out of town to avoid the crowds.  We went to Agean Breeze
http://www.aegean-breeze.com/

for a fine dinner.  Elizabeth had baby lamb chops and I had sardines.  Both came with a greek salad and it was a great meal.  I skipped wine.  The sardines were perfect.  I loved this dish in Portugal and this was very similar.  I also would eat them grilled at the fiestas in Spain, but those were not cleaned and we had to eat around the stomach.  They are a mackerel like fish only much sweeter and blended well with the fine salads.  Many more dishes were on the menu.  I saw wraps but I was not taken with those.  We'll be back;  however, I'll probably have sardines again.

So, it was a fine day.  We had fun.  We had time together and processed a few things. A perfect celebration.

The Clark to see Whistler's Mother and the Van Gogh one more time with lectures and brunch

It was a perfectly planned outing. 
As members of the Clark, we were there at 9 and let in to see the Whistler's mother.  I did not really understand there was only one.  Mona Lisa exists in so many varieties.  What would the actual Whistler's Mother be doing at this isolated museum in Williamstown Massachusettes.
But there it was.   This piece that had made so much history.  On load from
http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/history-of-the-museum/home.html

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire/commentaire_id/portrait-of-the-artists-mother-2976.html

The "talk" was really fine.  We learned a good deal.  With the centerpiece were other prints that whistler did to make the money he needed after he sued John Ruskin for libel.
http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/Landry.htm

He won a farthing.

And then he had all the lawyers to pay.

I did not expect the subject of some of his prints to be fisherman and wharves.  This one is actually on the wall in the Whistler's Mother painting.

http://etchings.arts.gla.ac.uk/catalogue/subject/display/?catno=K042&rs=1&key=s_stairs

Because I have no sophisticated art skills, I tend to like bits of boats and water and fish.  Then too I like those that have stories around them.  Even Mad Magazine (you know, the one that J. Edgar Hoover sued) was involved. 

http://www.madmagazine.com/blog/2015/06/05/don-martins-whistlers-mother
https://www.google.com/search?q=whistler's+mother+mad+magazine+cover&tbm=isch&imgil=2fB3iaq6jLiJeM%253A%253BKhRp6M5qL-yjeM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.legendaryauctions.com%25252Flot-48125.aspx&source=iu&pf=m&fir=2fB3iaq6jLiJeM%253A%252CKhRp6M5qL-yjeM%252C_&biw=1280&bih=540&usg=__4QXjYcPzP5RA3llGOwXLccns3AA%3D&ved=0CCoQyjdqFQoTCI3t4o275cYCFQrQgAodm5sH8A&ei=Uq-qVY38LoqggwSbt56ADw#imgrc=2fB3iaq6jLiJeM%3A&usg=__4QXjYcPzP5RA3llGOwXLccns3AA%3D

Poor Whistler lost so much to lawyers that he had to hock the painting and for ten years it was with creditors. Then the French bought it and it became the first American Painting to be displayed in the Louvre.

She was a pious and conservative mother.
He was an extravagant and "dandy" sort of fellow.

It must have been hard living together in his studio.

That is how she ended up posing.  His model did not show up.  He wanted her to stand, but after a couple days she got tired. So she sat.  She was sour because these were long sessions and because photography had taught folks not to smile.  It was too hard to hold a smile for those old cameras.

The frame was also probably original and that in itself was exciting.  It was like the frames that Whistler loved, thick and gold.  I liked it.

Some of his prints were in "nocturne" style where things are a bit dark.    Then there were some very colorful Japanese prints.  I was to see these in the Van Gogh exhibit as well.

When Depression hit, Whistler had a better American audience and there was an American Tour of "Whistler's mother" that was very popular.  Before that he had a better French than American or British audience. 
In 1934 there was a postage stamp

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We then went to brunch, a buffet of great fruit, thin and crispy bacon, grand sausage, good coffee and some pastry.  I went off the diet for a bluebetty muffin and I did not pay for it.

After the food the lunch included a fine lecture on Van Gogh with slides and lots of information.  He was a letter writer and has 800 letters that survived.  They are on line. Some are collected here

http://vangoghletters.org/vg/

Much of the focus of this exhibit was Van Gogh's love of nature.  I don't respond well to Impressionist painting, but I did like this theme in connection with other writers of the time and before. 

I did like some of the painting. 
"Rain" is so sad.  It was his last.  He had been in and out of mental facilities.  He put a bullet in his brain.

In many ways his life is very sad.  He sold one painting.  Now, here he is being celebrated by people all over the world. He never knew that might happen.

Just as the crowds of people were arriving, we were leaving.  How nice!
I love being a member.  What it cost we have retrieved many times over.  We hardly ever visit without Elizabeth buying something at the gift shop and as members we get 10%.

Also, Elizabeth went once with Ann Marie and they assumed she was part of the family dual.

Finally, we are able to visit for a few hours and then go home without thinking that we had wasted out entry fee.  An art museum to me is like a buffet.  There are many more things to enjoy than is possible to enjoy in one visit. 

Elizabeth spent most of her time in the Van Gogh, but I went in search of my regular favorites.  They are well documented in other visits/posts.

I was introduced to these as new to me.

Albert
Bierstadt's Pugent Sound on Pacific Coast.
This was actually on load as a football wager. 
http://artery.wbur.org/2015/01/29/museum-super-bowl-bet

The Poacher by DeCamps

Death and the Maidens  Chavannes

I really get this painting. I want to choose just the maidens.  However, there is the old fellow just waiting for me.

Gainsborough's Elizabeth and Thomas Linley

I was really caught by this portrait.  The photo does not do justice to the what the faces were developed. It was stunning.  I'll be adding this one to the favorites I visit each trip.

I liked this one. Another card playing painting.  From 1631 by Dirck Hals

And finally, I spent a bit of time with the little Goya they have and wished I was in the Prado or eating wild pork at El Pardo.  To decorate El Pardo for the king, Goya painted this in 1786 and others that were so celebratory and light.  I love them.  So did Christine from France who toured the museum with me many years ago.

All in all it was a great visit and I can't wait to go again.