Miko and Me: February 2019

After spending the last few winters down south, I guess I am no longer as thrilled with the loooonnnnngggg Minnesota winters. Enough is enough. I decided that a little sun and warmth was what was needed and I hopped a plane to Tampa Florida. How wonderful to be flying into the area and seeing the green water and white beaches. Best of all, there was sun.

There were a few things on my agenda. First up was the Bowling Ball house. This was just a regular house in a regular neighborhood where the owners really got into decorating their property. It was rather a visual treat and a nice change from snowy white Minnesota.

My mother, who loves the ocean, could not understand why I chose to spend my time in Tampa in museums rather than go to the beach. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

The Dali Museum was absolutely amazing. This museum had the largest collection of Salvador Dali art outside of Spain, his home country. I've always liked Dali, his work is inventive, fascinating and sometimes just plain weird. What's not to like?

The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory

One of Dali's better know pieces

There was a virtual reality display where you could actually go into one of Dali's paintings.

Archeological Reminiscence of Millet's "Angelus"

You could walk across the sand, climb the towers and see the backside of the objects in his painting. When you are in the painting, you are about the size of those two figures in the front of the picture. At one point, I saw these giant elephants walking across the sand. They were as tall as the towers with long, long skinny legs. I was totally in awe as I watched them walk by me. You only had four minutes to explore the painting. I almost got back in line to go back into the painting to experience more. Talk about really getting into the art.

I moved on to the Chihuly Collection. “A pioneer of the studio glass movement, Chihuly is credited with transforming the methods of creating glass art and thereby leading the development of complex, multi-part glass sculptures and environmental art.” If we are talking art glass, I'm all over it. While it was soul satisfying to see the various art forms, the best part was a film that was produced at a week long workshop he did at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York state. The film showed how, each morning and each afternoon during the week, Chihuly and his team produced most of the different glass series Chihuly is known for.