Field trip to the Montoya Art Museum

I have been finding all sorts of things (sites and activities to pass on to my students while we are not able to be together at school.  Some of these sites have been virtual field trips.  So at some point on one of the nameless days of the last week or so, I had an idea.  Being at home and doing show and tell with my 3rd and 4th graders from my library/game room has brought items that we normally wouldn't be able to show to each other at school.  It might be at least somewhat interesting to host a 'museum' trip through my house.  Now of course I could take a picture of a thousand different things around my house.  But, who would really want to scroll through all of those images?

So here we are.  We start in my library/game room.  Half of the room is filled with books and the other half has board games in it.  There is also a big coffee table by some chairs and a little couch where you can read or play games.  I also have a table where I am doing school with my students.  Normally it is a game table or a place to work on art projects.  This area is sort of a family memory area.  I have the pictures of both sets of my grandparents.  The teapot was one of Grandma's, and the ferris wheel music box was in my other Grandpa and Grandma's house.  My grandpa ran the ferris wheel, many years ago before I was born.  The tree picture frame is filled with family tree pictures, grandparents, great grandparents, and even great great grandparents.

The other side of the room has these two things on the wall.  Starry Night, (clearly not the real Starry Night), I love this painting by Vincent Van Gogh.  It might have something to do with my love of space, stars, planets.  Just the thought of these things makes me happy.  I love sitting outside and looking up at the sky.


Now the ship picture has a story of its own.  A long story that has lasted for many years even though I have only owned this blue velvety artwork for about a year.  Once years ago, when we were working to restore an old three-story Victorian we were looking for a ship to put on the wall.  We searched all of the antique stores.  We looked everywhere for something we liked.  But we never actually found what we wanted.  So that place on the wall remained empty.  Since then, I for some reason still look for this ship artwork.  I do not have that house anymore, so there was no need for me to find one.  I think some part of this search has to do with Narnia, and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  A sort of gateway into that imaginary world.  Maybe that is what all of my paintings/artwork is for.  I will have to consider that.  But back to this ship.  The girls and I found it at a thrift store.  So now it sails towards my starry night city.

 

This piece was supposed to go on the wall with Starry night and the ship.  But I did not like it there after I tried to place it there.  But it is not to far away.  Maybe my ship is not the kind of ship that sails on the sea, could be that it is a ship that will sail through the stars.  Either way, here is a map of the sky as we go out and explore.

I decided that I needed to take a picture of most of this side of the room, so that you could understand what was going on here.  We call this wall, "The Constellation Wall."  Now if you look carefully at the paintings and artwork, you will notice that nothing there is a constellation.  That is not why it has gotten its name.  These four pieces of artwork were purchased at a convention that my kids and I have gone to for several years now.  We have been working on the blue and red/orange combination in this room.  (This is also why the Starry Night and Blue velvet ship are in this room.)  What you cannot see is that there is a big empty part of the wall on either side of these pieces of art.  I like to think that we will continue to buy art at Constellation.  Though this is not the entire reason.  I have plans to embroidery on black fabric a large star map to hang to the right.  I also plan on making smaller embroidered constellations to between and around these items.  Some day I will get them all finished.  I had actually been hoping to do the embroidery with glow in the dark threads.  But we will see.

A Martian landscape?

Aslan, from the Narnia series?

No specific memories, just interesting art.

These items are also in my library.  I found them last summer on a garage sale for 25 cents a piece.  I liked the sayings on them, and I figured I was not out much if I decided on something different in the years/months to come. But at least for now they are up on the wall to make me think.

Some of the things in my house are relatively new, or at least new to me.  Others are not so new.  There are things I have had for many years.  This praying hands is something my brother made when he was in high school.  

 These metal flowers were made for me by my brothers and my dad.  Several years ago, they started making these and other types of flowers out of metal.  They were all so beautiful.  I am very lucky to have the complete set.  The one on the left is from my dad, the middle from Jason, and the right is from Philip.

This jewelry box is something we found at the thrift store for $1.50.  Can you believe that?  There is also painting on the top.  So many little doors and drawers.  It is an amazing piece of art, and fits so well with all of my Japanese vases and such.  Here is one of my vases.

  

Now we are finally leaving the library.  So back to the story of the great ship search.  Before I found the blue velvet ship, I was at a garage sale of a cousin, someone I claim as a second mother.  She was selling this ship painting.  Again, I no longer had the wall I wanted to put the ship painting on, but I still had need of a ship.  So she gave me this ship.  It hangs in my house next to another Starry Night picture.  This Starry Night is a piece of art that my daughter, Ella, made for me.  It was a paper scrolling project that she did in high school. 

So once more, my ship, needs a map to follow.  We did a few modge podge projects several years ago.  I love maps. Books that have a map in the front are my favorites.  So it comes as no big surprise that I pick several maps that I like and put them on clear glass plates.  This is one of them that is sitting on the ledge under the ship and Ella's starry night.

This is a mask that Zeb made when he was in 4th grade.  We have several items like this mask and others or little bowls that my kids made at some point in their lives.

Next to the plate maps is a Mountain Dew ship that my brother made for me when he was in high school.  He got the idea to make these ships out of different aluminum cans.  He made all sorts and sold them.  I have had mine for years, and expect to have it for many more.

The cross stitch on the left was made by my sister-in-law, Eva.  The one on the right by a friend of mine from college.  I love having things that people made especially for me up.  Then every time I see it, I am reminded of them.

In college, I had to take a gen ed art class.  I had not had much in the way of art classes before that, really nothing since elementary, and we did not study artists then.  So all of that was new to me.  One night when studying for the final exam, our dormmates kicked us out because we were studying 'too loudly.'  We were singing and making up goofy ways to remember all of the names of the artists and their pieces of art.  So we had to go outside in the dark to study.  Well, it must have worked because my roommate and I did well on the test.  Now what does that have to do with Monet's Water Lillies?  Well, this is one of the paintings that I found out I loved.  I have had this print hanging in my house since before my children were born.  

This mirrored cross shelf was made by my dad, probably when I was still in high school.  This metal stable was made by a friend here in Hampton.  I have also gotten a couple other things from her.  Always beautifully done. 

Then down my hallway.  Not sure how this plays out as art.  But to me these are without doubt the most beautiful things of all.  On the left side are pictures of my nieces and nephews.  On the right side are pictures of my own children.

Above my bed and next to my writing desk hang these wonderful things.  I love to read (and write), and my favorite genre is fantasy.  I have quite a few castles, dragons, unicorns, and even swords, and bows.  This is just a small portion of them.

This is another piece of art from Constellation.  I did not hang this on my Constellation wall because it is not blue or red/orange.  It fits much better in my bedroom.   It is hard to tell by the brightness from the window, but this is a purple scene.  It is painted by the same artist that did the Martian - like landscapes in my library.

This is something I bought at a craft fair.  It is there to Inspire me to write, I suppose.

Another Japanese art product.  This is a scarf-like thing, that I have hanging in my room.  I love the colors!

Now back to our main living area.  I am not sure what this is called, as much of our house is rather open.  This spot looks down into our library from what I suppose is our music area.  It is opposite the bar counter/kitchen, and our dining room.  But whatever it is, it is where many of our musical instruments live.  Clearly you can see the piano, harp, and a couple of ukuleles.  What is there, but might not be seen are several recorders of various sizes and keys, other flute like instruments of bamboo and wood, a bamboo sax, dragon and unicorn flutes, little bamboo shakers, and two different sizes of ocarinas.  What isn't there are our guitars, and a lyre.  They are in a different part of the house.   oh, and Ella's bongo drums.  As you can see, Melinda's iPad is at the piano.  This is because she was using it to play music not that long ago.

 This giant 'artwork' was found at the thrift store a year or two ago.  This girl is playing a stringed instrument of some sort.  I loved it and knew that it needed to come and live at my house.  It is funny how sometimes for whatever reason this happens.  Now she looks down as we play music, and probably plays along with us.



These three little instrument plaques were found at an antique store.  I thought they would fit well on the narrow beam wall here by the piano.

This is something that I bought at the NE Ren Faire last spring.  I like the blues and how that will fit on the wall with my blue red/orange theme.  The tree is something I like for several reasons.  I suppose the biggest is the 'family tree' and the research that I do as far as that.  I have yet to hang it up.  I am strange, but any who know me well, already know this.  I actually like to let things set in the room before I decide to hang them.  I move them around to different parts of the house leaving them 'near' where I could hang them, until I find the place I really want them.  I am pretty sure I know where I want this, but just need to get the drill out to hang it.

Melinda has made wreaths for the State Fair for a couple of years now.  This is the first one she did.  She made this one for me.  She picked purples because I like that color, and the owl for my smallish owl collection.  And of course the books for my library.  She made these small books herself.

Speaking of books... Here is one small portion of my library.  Books are art.  The writing, the words are art of their own.  But even just the beauty of the covers, and how they look on the shelf are a different form of art.  I will always live in a house filled with books.

This desk was another amazing garage sale find.  My grandmother had a desk similar to this one.  Hers did not have the flowers painted on it.  I loved this desk in my grandma's house.  It had treasures; paper, and pencils, and cards and all sorts of things in the drawers.  I clearly must have been easily entertained as a child.  But it has been something I have been searching to own for many years.  So when I found this on a garage sale here in my own small town, I had to have it.  Now I get to fill it with my own treasures, and remember my grandma when I do so.

On top of my desk, I have placed these items.  The clear 'stained glass' puzzles are from two of my favorite anime movies; Howl's Moving Castle and Kiki's Delivery Service.  I found this lamp on a garage sale last summer.






The wizard hat is something I painted this year at Paint Yourself Silly.  I had a lot of fun doing it, and of course Merlin is one of my favorite characters.  We even had a cat named Merlin.  and you can ask my students about the Merlin the Cat picture books that I have written at school.  So a perfect addition for me.





 Now on to things that I still feel are art or at least works of art.  Many years ago, before my children were born, we went to visit my sister-in-law.  While we were there, we went to a swap meet with her.  She bought this set of china for me for my birthday.  Thanks, Eva.  I still love them.

 These wooden mugs are part of our Ren Faire collection.  We actually use the big mugs as part of our costume and take them with us to the faires.  The goblets on the right are from the faires.  Now if you are at our house and we get out a bottle of wine you are likely to be served with one of these.

This is something from or because of one of the novels that I have written.  Certain phrases or sayings have special meanings to us.  This I found as I was working on that novel.  Special points if you find the reference in my writing one day.

I also at some point started collecting Japanese tea and sake sets.  I never really start out saying, hmm, I would like to collect sake sets.  Or maybe I need seven Japanese tea sets.  But these things have a way of finding themselves in my house.  I have to consciously try not to buy them... That is unless they are exactly the one I need.  I am at the point now that if I buy another, it needs to 'replace' one that I already have.

The next three images, I am not sure I really call art.  But they are things that tend to find their way into my house.  So in some way I guess they must be.  The first is a picture of the rug in my dining room.   The middle one is one of the two cabinets that hold my china, tea sets, and Ren mugs  The third one is some of the curtain in my dining/music room.  I love circles, or spiral.  If you look carefully you can find them in multiple places in my house.

Now here is something else that I have been focusing on lately.  This is a candle holder that I bought last year.  I love the colors, but also the 'dragon scale' look of the glass.  My grandma had these green glasses when I was a child.  I have since found some of those same glasses at a thrift store.  I of course bought them.  Now my grandma only had one size of these green 'dragon scale' glasses.  I have three different sizes and even little ice cream bowls.  I am so happy that I found these things. 

This fairy table is something my Aunt Marie bought for me.  Oh my goodness, I love this thing.  I have it setting in my dining room, in the corner by my stairs.  When we were at the Celtic concert and they were bidding on this item, I never thought that it would be mine.  

This bow is made out of PVC pipe.  My dad and my brother made many different types PVC pipe bows (long bows, crossbow, etc.).  This one is mine.  My kids each have their own.  Oh, and they are not just for looks, they really work!

My brother has also been doing a bit of carving.  He has been making all different types of wooden swords.  This beauty is mine.   Jason has also been carving wands for all of us.  Here is my wand next to some of my other wizarding equipment.

I have mentioned that I love the stars.  I have a random assortment of telescopes.  Some will one day be part of my Steampunk Astronomer garb.  And of course some will not.  But all of them can be used to view the stars in the night sky.

My huge (or at least huge to me as I have seen much larger telescopes) telescope.  I love to see the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn.

Well, we have finally reached the end.  It is not exactly the end of the things I could show you.  But this is clearly enough for one day, and at least a glimpse into the world I see everyday.  With us all spending ever more time at home, think about the things you see in front of you and why you value you them.  It could be that they will give you a wonderful idea of what you want to do with some of your time at home.

Thanks for taking this tour and viewing our art show.