Return to Canada

I am now caught up on travel that happened between when I finished writing about Australia, and since I started updating this blog again, and I am not sure when I am going to go somewhere next.

I would like to go over some local attractions as well, and you can't keep me from traveling for long, but there are some places that we visited before Australia that I either never wrote about, or wrote something general on the main blog, where I probably do have some things to say. There are some complications, like only having non-digital prints of some spots, but we'll see how it goes.

For now, two places that I have been drawn to are the trip that we took before I started blogging again, to visit a friend in Vancouver BC (2011), and a trip I took in 2006 to Toronto. So, basically the next few posts will be about Canada.

Before I really get into them I want to give some background. Growing up in a large family that was not particularly wealthy, anywhere we went was by driving. (The first time I stepped on a plane was leaving for the Missionary Training Center at the age of 21.)

We went to a lot of places within Oregon, some of which are pretty dimly remembered. We could also go down to California, visiting cousins in Redding, or sometimes going to Disneyland, and one time even parking in Calexico, California and walking across the border, spending the afternoon in Mexicali, California.

But also, sometimes, we would head up to Canada, ending up in either Vancouver or Victoria, but never on the same trip. It was only after the 2011 trip that I understood why.

McMinnville Oregon - Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum

http://evergreenmuseum.org/

Most of my family is plane crazy, especially jets. I am not, so I could not feel the same level of excitement about the excursion as they did. I went anyway, because I love my family.

That being said, I have to give major props to the museum collection and the design. They have veryimpressive items on display, and they are well-housed.

You need something pretty vast for objects of this size, including the Spruce Goose, and the museum is large, but it feels manageable, neither crowded nor cavernous. Part of that is probably accomplished by using separate buildings for aviation, space, and the theater. (The water park is on the same campus, but a little bit separate.)

Despite the separate spaces, there is a unity of design among the buildings, not only among all the buildings on the campus, but also the building across the street for the aviation company near the airport. So in addition to everything being spacious, it is harmonious, and it looks good. The design is clean and makes good use of natural light.

Inside as well as there being a lot to look at, both inside and out, there is artwork, information, and videos occasionally add to the experience. When you sit, it is in airline style seats, which is kind of fun. Between the two museums the pavement is decorated with a representation of the solar system.

Admission is a little expensive, but gives you both museums and a movie. It is worth seeing, at least once. There is a fair amount of walking, but there is a shuttle between the buildings if needed.

Still the most significant thing is probably that Mom got to stand next to a Blue Angel plane. 

Chicago - The Art Institute of Chicago

http://www.artic.edu/

In any art museum there are familiar names. With the Art Institute of Chicago is that it's not just that the names are familiar, but the paintings are familiar. These are the works that are used in encyclopedias, and in articles about the artist, and on the covers of paperbacks of classic novels. That is an amazing feeling.

Even when they did not have the best works, there was something. There are better places to go for Goya or O' Keefe, but there is still something here, and there is Miro and Calder and Grandma Moses. We spent most of our time in Impressionism and Renaissance, but there was just so much of everything. In that way it was similar to the Field Museum, where it seemed to keep growing as you explored. 

We did not see everything. We saw a lot, but it is huge. Also, there were some navigation issues, which I will get to more at the end. The point I am making now is that you really can't cover the whole thing, so I just picked various photos (none high quality, sorry) that stood out to me because of things that I felt. This is not even every story of an emotional reaction or hint of recognition that I had, but it is my attempt to make something vast personal.

Head of Medusa by Antonio Canova: This is silly, but we were there in October, so I had just changed my Twitter name to Gorgon Harris, and here was a gorgon. I thought about changing my AVI to a photo of the bust, but did not end up doing so. Part of what strikes me is how close the snakes are to hair. She could be so close to being an ordinary woman if you only caught a glimpse.

Self portrait of Vincent Van Gogh: One thing you hear a lot about famous artwork is that when people see it in person they are surprised by how small it is. This was surprisingly small, yet I think that lent it an intimacy, where I was really struck by Van Gogh's fragility and vulnerability, and it humanized him.

We got to Monet, and I saw pictures of water lilies, of course, because that is what you expect, and I remembered the Monet at the Portland Art Museum, which is a haystack, and so may not seem that memorable, but suddenly I saw four paintings of hay stacks (specifically, they were stacks of wheat) in a row, and this light went on, that was something he did. It's not an anomaly, where we got the painting that no one else wanted. This was something he did.

The Ancestors of Tehamana, by Paul Gauguin: This is one I have seen in magazines, so there was that thrill of familiarity. It was less so, because I have never really liked Gauguin, but seeing many portraits together that covered multiple time periods, I could see the evolution of his art style, and I could appreciate that.

American Gothic, by Grant Wood: This is one of the paintings that you have to see, and this was where I finally got it all sorted out. I think it is normal for people to assume that it is a couple, but I was always told that it was the dentist and his sister. However, "his" in this case does not mean the dentist, but the artist. So it is Grant Wood's dentist playing a farmer, and Grant Wood's sister playing the farmer's spinster daughter.

It occurred to me here that I was not aware of other work by Wood, but reading about him here, he didn't really live very long, and I think that is a big part of it. We know one painting of his, and may not even remember his name, but it is one of the most familiar images in the world.

Picture of Dorian Gray, by Ivan Albright: This was completely unexpected. I have seen the end of the movie this was created for, so I had seen the picture, and I had read a little about some of the choices they made with creating and filming the portrait, but I never thought about that picture being somewhere, and suddenly it was right in front of me. Nearby is another painting by Albright, and as it floridly conveys death, you can see that he was the right man for the job.

America Windows by Marc Chagall: Of course I had heard the name Chagall before, but I was not really familiar with his work, and I thought of him as painting on canvas. I did not know that he also did stained glass. We had seen a lot of stained glass and how it had developed the previous day, which may have caused this to resonate more. Even so, this is just a gorgeous piece, and it is large, and it is displayed perfectly to let the light through where you can really appreciate the color, and it is just beautiful.

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte by Georges Seurat: Again, this is one from the encyclopedia, and I would look through it a lot. Really, this picture is the masterpiece of pointillism, so any work that goes over different styles will show this one. There was that, but then also we remembered that this is the picture Cameron gets lost in from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I had only seen it on television, and was distracted, so I had thought it was some really abstract work. My sisters did remember, and we checked with the security guard to be sure. Watching the scene again, yes, focusing too much could be unsettling, but as a child flipping through pictures, I was always looking at the dogs and the monkey.

There were at least two field trips going through the museum, though I am not sure how the teachers would have felt about us inserting ourselves into their lines.

There was one famous painting that we did not see, Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper. It was visiting another museum. Again we asked a guard, and I could see this look on her face as we did, that she felt bad that she was going to disappoint us. It was only gone for another two weeks, but we were leaving that afternoon.

Actually, we spoke to multiple guards, and this is where we get to the navigation issue. There are many places that you cannot get to from other places, and if it is obvious that you can't, and what you need to do instead, that can be fine.  To get to American Gothic we actually had to press a handicap button in the elevator so the other side would open, and there was no way we would have gotten there on our own. There are things that the maps do not tell you.

To be fair, you can be in any section on any floor and see amazing things, which is pretty valuable. Navigation is not a reason not to go, nor is a really overpriced cafeteria. (That is a reason to make other plans for lunch, but not to skip the Institute.) And the fun and pointless trivia I will give you is that this was the only place we found in Chicago with toilet seat covers in the bathrooms. (The airport has automated plastic covers, so it does not feel like the same thing.)

Those things don't matter much, though, because it is really about the art.

Chicago - Magnificent Mile

http://www.themagnificentmile.com/

This was the part of the trip that I was least interested in, but it was one of those things that people say you need to see.

Millennium Park was right across from the Art Institute, and it would make sense to do them together. As it was, after exploring the park there was not enough time to do the Art Institute justice, but looking at the map we realized that we were just a few blocks from the Chicago River end of the Magnificent Mile, and at the other end we would be relatively close to our hotel, so going down that route seemed like the most logical thing to do. That was a day of much walking.

It is not the only place in Chicago where you can spend a lot of money. On my morning route bringing back breakfast, I would pass a dealership with many luxury cars, and nearby was a fancy organic grocery. I am sure we could find many stores with fancy brands, but this area is the famous one.

If you love shopping, or the window or regular kind, then you will probably find it kind of cool. In some ways it reminded me of the shopping areas you have in casinos, except there is usually more in the way of themed decoration (which I like) and also, you would not have to keep crossing the street. If you do intend to check it out, it may be useful to see which shops are where, and start out on the correct side of the street.

Ultimately I just found it annoying. Yes, there were familiar names and some really big stores, but it just felt like crass commercialism. I had just finished reading Peggy Orenstein's Cinderella Ate My Daughter and oh look, there's an American Girl Place. One cab driver had suggested that ribs or steak might be another food to try, and we hadn't really taken it too seriously, but looking at the menu outside Michael Jordan's restaurant, no, that was never going to happen.

I know not everyone will feel this way. That being said, my sisters love shopping may more than I do, and still the only place they went in was the Disney Store.

So, maybe it needs to be seen, but if you go on a bus tour that drives down it and see it that way, I think that would probably be good enough.