December 24 -- still at UMMA

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Red car, in front of the art museum.





All the rest of the stuff in this post is 1900, plus or minus 20 years.

Frank Lloyd Wright. Totally different sensibility from Tiffany work from about the same time........





Ceramics from the Markham Art Pottery.







Unfortunately, this is the only image of the descriptive info I brought home. If I had to guess, I'd say this might be Tiffany, especially as there was a lot of his work right nearby.





Tiffany.

This thing is so fragile that even here in the museum it has a metal stand cradling and supporting it (I arranged the pic so the vertical part of the support is behind the stem, but you can see two prongs just under the "flower").





Can you believe people spent this kind of money on a front door??????

Tiffany.

On this side, we can see square glass panels, and some fancy metal work with ... glass blobs(? stones?).







It was only when I walked around and looked at the other side that I realized that the whole top part of the door is glass. You can see the glass blobs on the other side as light areas in the dark parts of this side........





My favorite of the square panes. Top left.



I am utterly boggled that anyone would spend this kind of money on a door, which is so totally vulnerable to any random vandal with a crowbar. Gives me the shivers. Maybe they hired it a guard? Or maybe this wasn't the real exterior door, but was inside a more ... work-a-day door?



So you know a house with a door like that had to have had a similarly (dare I say) excessive sort of decoration inside.......

A fireplace screen. Tiffany.







Cold-air intake.

Yes, seriously, a Tiffany cold-air intake.

!!!!!!!!!!

You couldn't even appreciate its shadows, with that function.................

[shaking head in bafflement]

This piece surprises me for aesthetic reasons, too. It's from the same house as the door and the fireplace screen, but so geometric where the other pieces are so organic........





Staircase balustrade. Tiffany, from the same house.

A member of our party who actually read the description said that the staircase was suspended, and that many parts of the balustrade were not tightly fastened, so there was a pleasant soft clatter when you walked up or down the stairs........





I'm glad that artists and craftspeople had work, and I'm glad we can see the results in museums, but I can't help but think how many people could be fed, clothed, educated for the amount of money spent on the creation, storage, preservation of these kinds of things. How many whales saved, how much global warming reversed, how many redwoods allowed to continue to soar............

I also can't help but think -- if all this stuff is in a museum, the house no longer exists. "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings," etc, etc, etc...................

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