Visit A Museum

Just Go

Jump on your bike, get in your car, or let your feet walk you over to a museum.  Any museum, but I do recommend an Art Museum.  Specifically, if you are in close proximity to Reno, NV get yourself over to The Nevada Museum of Art to explore and take in Tahoe: A Visual History

Over 400 items that portray a visual history of Tahoe have filled the entire museum allowing the visitor to wander through time, artfully.  Paintings, Native baskets, photography, architecture, and contemporary art representing over two centuries of cultural and creative production are being shown.  If you live in the area you will realize a closer connection to your home and it's history.

The museum is also offering lectures and classes as a spin off of this exhibition.  Last month Gene Hattori, Curator of Anthropology at the Nevada State Museum, discussed their extensive collection of baskets and works by Washoe weaver, Louisa Keyser, aka Dat So La Lee, some of which are currently being shown in the exhibition Tahoe: A Visual History.  During his presentation he invited all in the audience to contact him for a private tour of the basket vault at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City.  Did I?  You bet!  Immediately!

Entering the basket vault, which at one time was a bank vault.

Shelves of baskets woven by Louisa Keyser

Louisa Keyser's hand print.

Behind more locked doors: Burden Basket and Covered Bottle created for the Curio Trade 

by Louisa Keyser

Feather covered basket.

Feather Decorated Basket.

What an amazing experience to stand among baskets that are a part of the local history, at least one dating back 2500 years.  If you follow my blog and my art work, you know about my Indian Woman Portraits based on basket weavers who lived in the areas where I live, who lived in the late 1800's into the early 1900's.  Visiting this collection was especially intriguing to me and to the continuing work on this series.  Thank you to Gene Hattori for hosting this opportunity.  Would it have happened if I had not visited the Nevada Museum of Art and attended a lecture?  Probably not.  So get yourself out to a museum today, and if not today go tomorrow.  There are great things to see and experience in a museum, knowledge to gain, and fun to be had.

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