A Glass Museum

A few days ago I came across some pictures I took last year when His Madness and I visited the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass in a nearby town. Recently I've been sidelined by a pulled muscle in my neck so it's been nearly impossible to accomplish anything, much less coerce Ivy and Burt into doing silly stuff. To pass the time I decided to delete unwanted photos. It also kept me away from the news and being outraged by Trump's latest offenses - why is that moron still president? Anyway, this was in one of the photos I was going to delete. It's from the museum mentioned above and although it's a saying that's been around forever, I suddenly felt the need to analyze it, concluding that it can apply to anything but it describes nothing. Or does it? I always thought it was just one of those things people say when they get caught off guard and can't come up with a positive response. This is exactly the kind of thinking that makes my brain hurt so I decided to do a post on the museum so I can delete the stupid photo and quit thinking about what it says. I do like it as a piece of art.

When HM first suggested we visit this museum I thought, paperweights? Really? What a snore. I did not say this out loud, or at least I don't think I did. Anyway, the thought of wandering through room after room of frilly glass balls wasn't exactly my idea of a good time but there was nothing else to do so off we went. After all, they could have a great gift shop or we might find a nice restaurant nearby.

Much to my surprise, there was an exhibit of neon art. It was actually pretty entertaining to watch the miniature lightning bolts flash to the buzz of the transformers although it could've used some spooky lighting. A few of them would be great as Halloween decorations but done in black, of course.   

There were plenty of the old fashioned, classic paperweights, around four thousand to be exact but also a few new styles with pop-culture themes from Star Wars and Harry Potter.

Then there was this one, I could definitely relate to it. Ha!

Betty's Big Night by Ricky Bernstein is undoubtedly the largest piece in the museum's permanent collection. It's made of blown glass on an aluminum armature. According to Google Arts & Culture, Betty is a 1950's housewife who hopes to win her husband's office party competition by steadying a broom with a bowling ball and one boiled egg on fourteen teacups while balancing on yet another bowling ball with only one foot. It is obviously a metaphor of the expectations of women in the mid-twentieth century but I'm afraid it's still kind of true now, except today she would also have a career.   

Indeed.

The Set for Luna was created in 2011 by Carmen Lozar. It's one of the loveliest little jewels on display, in my estimation anyway. You can see more of her beautiful work here.

It's very small, the catalog dimension are 12.5" x 5.5" x 2.5". I couldn't decide which photo best captured it so I'm including them both. It reminded me a lot of those cute paper dress blog parties. 

The museum itself is fairly small and even on the weekend it wasn't very crowded. After an hour we had seen everything and since the admission was free we left a donation and headed to the city of Appleton to check out the Houdini Museum.

Let's just say that things got a little more interesting there.

Don't worry, I let him out, eventually - but I'll leave that story for another time.

Would you care to share your thoughts on, it is what it is?

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!