Welcome to the pond

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!! I hope you're all wearing green and enjoying your green beer, corned beef and cabbage, fish and chips, or whatever it is you're using to celebrate. I'm listening to Lunasa at the moment and getting my Irish music freak on.

Today I went to the Univ. of Oregon Museum of Art and looked around, and it is so wonderful! The museum closed in 2001 for renovations and upgrades, right in the middle of my college years! It reopened this January and I must say they've done a fantastic job with it. I haven't seen the museum since it was closed, so I was very excited to go in there again.

Much of the original structure was preserved, including the peaceful courtyard. No fishies in the pond anymore, but it's still a great place to be. The ground floor now contains an interactive kids (I think) exhibit, new store and cafe, lecture hall, meeting rooms, and other such facilities. The good stuff has all been moved up to the second floor. New stairways take you right up to the back of the museum where a giant room features the newest changing exhibit of the moment. Right now, it's an exhibit of Andy Warhol's work. Colorful, interesting stuff indeed. The other galleries circle the top floor and include galleries for American and Contemporary art, Korean art, Japanese art, and European art. The Chinese and Japanese art collections aren't fully installed yet, but I'm sure they will be in the next year or so. The front part of the building looks much like it did before, and the general layout of Asian art exhibitions is the same. The rest of the galleries have been seamlessly added to the original structure. There's even art in the stairway/lobby areas leading to the other galleries.

There's SO much to look at that I'll have to go back several more times to see everything I'd like to see in detail. What impressed me the most today (other than the splendid Warhol prints) included:

- An ancient Chinese painted scroll depicting the "festival of lanterns." It's a short-lived exhibit and will be changed after tomorrow, I believe. There is SO much detail on this scroll!! The original scroll is very worn and preserved in a glass case. Above the case was a new, digital recreation/restoration of the scroll in full color and detail. On the walls surrounding the scroll were paragraphs of information about it as well as larger shots of various scenes on the scroll so that you could look at all the details. There will be a CD-Rom of the scroll available and I'll probably purchase it when it's released.

- The Korean art wing, which was very impressive. There's not much other Asian art up to compare it to, but the Korean stuff is very delicate and detailed. The art is very much inspired by calligraphy. There are big painted screens up to look at, nature scenes, and even some paintings of tigers.

- The European art collection. It's quite different from all the other art in the museum, more in tune with what Americans typically think of as "fine art." One thing that I really loved was the separate collection of Russian religious icons. These included paintings, sculptures and even some jewelry. Especially impressive were the carved models of Russian Orthodox churches. The artists even put in individual steps on the staircases!

I'll definitely be back again and again. I missed the museum a lot when it was closed, and now it's open again with a lot more beautiful things to see!