Visiting the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art made me a fan of seeing original versions of pictures from famous books. Like meeting a movie star in person, there’s something thrilling about encountering a much-beloved picture out of its normal context, larger and more vibrant. Unnoticed details become apparent. Curated exhibits also offer the chance to see an artist’s process through sketches, notes, and examples that didn’t make it into the final version.
Dinotopia: The Fantastical Art of James Gurney now on exhibit at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington is a great chance not only to see some magical paintings, but to learn what goes into the making of this gorgeous collection of children’s books. The premise of the stories is that a Victorian explorer and his son are shipwrecked on an island where humans and dinosaurs live together as equals. The books are narrated by the explorer and include his illustrations and observations about the animals.
On display in this exhibit are numerous paintings from a variety of different books in the series as well as some of the models Gurney used in creating them – his process involves actually sculpting or building three-dimensional versions of the fantastical buildings he then paints for his books. He also takes photos of his friends and neighbors and uses them as models for the citizens of his magical land. The result is fascinating – a fully realized alternate reality where carts are pulled by pachycephalosauruses and where a boy’s best friend might be a triceratops.
Viewing these paintings wasn’t the only pleasure for our family; it was also in discovering an entirely new series of books. I can’t quite believe that these weren’t in our library before (trust me, we immediately rectified that situation in the museum’s gift shop).
Of course, this exhibit isn’t all there is to see here. I owe this gem of a museum a full post and promise to deliver later this spring. From the phenomenal collection of Pre-Raphaelite art with accompanying children’s activities to the Kids’ Corner where children can interact with art in a variety of ways (including touching it) there is something here for children of all ages.
The Dinotopia exhibit runs through May 16, 2010. Visit the website for museum hours and also to see the workshops for kids and adults, including one with James Gurney himself.
Image of The Excursion, from Dinotopia: The World Beneath. James Gurney (born 1958). Oil on board mounted to plywood, 28 x 42 inches. Collection of the artist. © 1995 James Gurney. All rights reserved. Used with permission of The Delaware Art Museum.
I’ll admit that this Monday morning I’m singularly uninspired. I just returned from a week in Vermont where I was helping out my father after surgery. Teddy and Matt both have the stomach flu. And I’m supposed to bring soup for the teacher’s lunch at preschool (thankfully I’ve got it all made).
This is one of those moments when my imagination escapes me and although I’d love for my situation to be different, it’s hard for me to think about being anywhere else. But the weather is improving, the yard is visible after weeks of snow, and there are crocuses poking their heads above the ground in my front flower bed. All this has me dreaming of spring in the Brandywine Valley. I’ve got lots of plans for some lovely outings in northern Delaware and southeastern Pennsylvania the upcoming months, including one to Winterthur where the photo above was taken.
I hope your Monday is a little less full of illness than mine! Please feel free to share a link to your own inspiration below, making sure you link directly to your post, not your site’s homepage and that you link back to this post. Questions? See About Monday Dreaming.
One of my favorite travel websites is Wanderlust and Lipstick, which recently sponsored the terrific WanderWomen Write contest. Although I didn’t win a trip to Vietnam, I am proud to share that my essay “The Return” was a finalist in the Family Fun category.
I hope you enjoy this story about my first visit to Florence as a mother. And be sure to take a look at some of the other winning entries including the grand prize essay “Building a Family in Kenya” by JoAnna Haugen. Armchair travel at its best! Happy reading to all.
It’s not often on this blog that I reveal the less attractive side of my personality to the world. Mostly that’s because I’m in charge of the content, and hey, I like to look good as much as the next person. But I think it’s also due to the fact that travel truly brings out the best in me – the side that is fun, resourceful, creative, and occasionally spontaneous. The happy side as it were.
I’ll admit with some chagrin that for the past few weeks that it is the darker side of my personality that has been more in evidence. This is the part of me that gets weighed down by the pedestrian and feels trapped in her own house. When this Mara comes to stay, I turn into a humorless, impatient person who can’t come up with anything fun to do but who also puts the kibosh on too many video games or too much TV. Oh, and did I mention that she’s a complainer?
This side is, unfortunately for my children, the one that shows up when a series of snow days comes along and wipes the slate clean of all my plans. And when those snow days are followed by a week-long head cold and then still more snow days, during the last of which my husband is out of town, the anti-Mara takes over as relentlessly as the weather. This past Friday the world seemed so small and impossible that I actually put the children in the car and attempted to drive to my sister’s house as I had planned earlier in the week even though it had stormed on Thursday night and school was canceled. I drove through blowing snow, jaw clenched, until I reached a steep patch of road in rural Pennsylvania that had not been plowed. Here I at last realized my own folly, turning around rather than risking a run into the ditch.
Three hours in the car and I was back at my own door with two very unhappy children and my own guilty face in the rearview mirror.
I’m pleased to report that Good Mara returned at that moment, rented Ponyo, and let the children watch it while they ate yummy quesadillas that she whipped up using a variety of odds and ends from her fridge. They both had “special drinks” (chocolate milk for one and pomegranate syrup in tonic water for the other) lots of cuddles, and then a good long read aloud before bed.
And I was kind to myself as well after the children were tucked in bed pouring a generous glass of Vigonier and then remembering that I hadn’t yet found a hotel room for the 2010 Travel Blog Exchange (TBEX) Conference, which I attended in Chicago last year. This year’s edition will take place at the end of June in New York City and it promises to be both fun and enlightening. Within the hour I proceeded to find a deal at the swanky Cooper Square Hotel (thank you Meg of Backpack to Buggy who posted the link on Twitter). I then banished anti-Mara completely with daydreams of a quiet train ride followed by a day of walking and museums and then a weekend of learning and merriment with many of the online pals whose blogs I so admire.
One new aspect of the conference that I’m excited about this year is the Community Keynote. Travel bloggers have been invited to submit posts in a variety of categories. The winning posts will be read at the conference and linked from the TBEX website. I am planning to submit an entry and may even offer you, my dear readers, a chance to help select which post I send in.
And so my Monday dream is a mixed on this week: no more snow days this winter, a grown-up trip to Manhattan, and having my writing validated by colleagues I respect. But most of all I dream that the Mara I like – the Traveling Mom Mara – sticks around, even when she’s stuck at home.
What are you dreaming of this Monday? Please feel free to share a link below, making sure you link directly to your post, not your site’s homepage and that you link back to this post. Questions? See About Monday Dreaming.
People who live in Delaware tend to be a little sensitive about the size of their state. It’s understandable: it is small and not everyone realizes its significance – or even statehood for that matter (I’ve had people ask me if Delaware is a town in New Jersey). Things have improved a bit now that Joe Biden is working in the White House, but I have a feeling that many of us could still justify sporting our “Dela-where?” t-shirts. For a lot of people the word Delaware conjures up nothing more than 12 miles of I-95 with a toll at either end.
This post isn’t meant to extol Delaware’s virtues as a tourist destination generally (although it does have them and that might have to be a subject of a future post), but rather to let those of you who are cruising through on your way to other places that there happens to be a great urban nature preserve that’s just minutes from the bustling highway that you think is the state’s only reason for existing. It’s an ideal spot to stretch your legs, let your kids run around, and maybe see some foxes, hawks, or even a bald eagle.
The Russell W. Petersen Urban Wildlife Refuge is 212 acres of protected urban wetland along the Christina River just outside downtown Wilmington. It is named after an environmentalist and former governor of Delaware who helped realize the Coastal Zone Act of 1972, which protected Delaware’s inland bays and waterways by banning heavy industry along them. Last fall, the DuPont Environmental Education Center opened in the refuge. Owned by a private development corporation, it is staffed and run by the Delaware Nature Society, a premier environmental and educational organization in the state of which I am a proud member.
During the first week of February, I took advantage of a lull between storms that left a total of three feet of snow over much of Northern Delaware (and had the kids out of school for an entire week) to pay a visit.
The place is a fascinating intersection of the industrial and the natural. Freight trains thunder over a sculptural bridge that spans the river.
To the north, the banks and churches of Wilmington stretch skyward. Not too far in the distance traffic hums by, the murmur of cars and trucks punctuated by the cries of Canada geese landing in the marsh.
On the day we were there, fox footprints dotted the snow.
A small botanical garden, which is beautifully landscaped and in warmer weather has series of stone-line paths and waterfalls, is a delightful place to play. Tommy and Teddy made do in the snow, playing on the artful sculptures designed to look like fallen trees and overseen by a metal owl.
We also admired the statue of Governor Petersen, who presides over all holding his binoculars (as a former president of the National Audubon Society should) and wished we had shovels to clear the snow from the paths.
Inside the education center you can get information on what types of wildlife have been spotted recently.
There are also several interactive exhibits. One shows a map of the marsh. Push different buttons and you can see the various flora and fauna that inhabit the place and where they have been sighted. Another exhibit offers the chance to learn about the human history of the marsh, from the very first people who inhabited it through the present day. Particularly interesting were the photos from just a few years ago showing the veritable junkyard that lined the river. It’s always amazing how quickly nature can reclaim even the most blighted areas.
The snow kept off us off the boardwalk that normally serves as a viewing spot for all kinds of wildlife. But we did get to see it from the lovely third floor room, which has windows all around and a balcony. The building still smells of the Western Red Cedar used to build it and is so bright and open to the environs that it’s almost like being outdoors.
This is a four-season kind of place – small enough that it will be great to bring the boys back so that they can compare the snow-covered landscape with the pale greens of early spring and the tall grass of summer. We’ll want to come back with binoculars at a time when we can cover every inch of the boardwalk, peering into the water to spy tadpoles, frogs, dragonflies, and maybe even a snapping turtle.
The Petersen Wildlife Refuge and DuPont Environmental Education Center are worth a visit if you live in the area. But I also recommend them as a pit stop for anyone who is trekking up or down I-95 en route to Philadelphia or Washington D.C. The area would make a lovely spot for picnic or just a place to stretch your legs. A walking path links the center with the Wilmington riverfront, leading all the way over to the train station (the one that Joe Biden so famously traveled to Washington from every day while he was in the Senate). Should you choose to walk it there are a variety of restaurants and lots of interesting industrial remnants to admire like gantry trains painted in a variety of primary colors.
But my favorite part of the whole place may be the bridge that stretches up to the education center. It’s a great place to admire the view or run headlong into the river wind.
The Petersen Refuge is easily accessible from Interstate 95 (don’t take the 495 bypass around Wilmington). The outside area is open daily from dawn to dusk; building hours are available on the website. The Delaware Nature Society offers a variety of different educational programs at the center, including day programs and summer camps.
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