The Kelvingrove Museum

Here is my trip to the Kelvingrove Museum. It is Glasgow's main museum. It is an interesting, place. It is sort of like our Museum of Natural History, National Gallery, and History Museum all rolled up into one.

Kelvingrove first opened to the public in 1901 when it formed a major part of the Glasgow International Exhibition.

The museum has a wonderful collection of Mackintosh objects along with other famous Glasgow architects/designers of the time from the Glasgow School of Art.

Here are some highlights!

Here is the front of the building. The building is so huge, I could not fit it into the frame. It extends way out on both sides.

This picture gives you an idea of the vast size of the place. This is one of side wings. I love the floating heads! It is a contemporary work of art. Each head portrays a different facial expression.

Classic chair in the Glasgow style Art Nouveau by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Famous gesso panels by Mackintosh and his wife, Margaret MacDonald.

Isn't she a charmer! A Harpy statue, 1902.

And we can't forget the beloved Queen Victoria, 1888.

They may have a queen, but we have the king!

They have three rooms dedicated to armor! Love it!

This ship is PURE SILVER! I can't imagine how much it weighs. The detail is beautiful and amazing.

They have one of my favorite Salvador Dali works; Christ of St. John of the Cross, 1951!

Love this little guy! Well, he's not that little....about two feet tall!

Gotta love Vincent van Gogh!

One of the coolest things this museum has is a giant pipe organ! An organist gives a concert every afternoon for an hour. He plays wonderful music! Very unique and memorable.

You can see the organist way up top performing. If you look just below the veranda, you can see flat screen televisions that show up close views of the organist playing the pedals and keyboards.

Walking back from the Kelvingrove museum, we crossed the river, which offered a beautiful view of the Gilbert Scott building spire on campus and the surrounding Kelvingrove park.

To view all of my museum pics go to...

https://picasaweb.google.com/cantrell.stacy/KelvingroveMuseum

Thanks for reading!

Art Nouveau walking tour and a great start for class #2!

Hello all,

My second class is going great! My teacher and guest lecturers are inspiring and the group of girls in this class are wonderful and I've even made some wonderful new friends!!

It's been here three weeks now. Only one week to go! Although I'm enjoying Scotland, I will not miss my accommodations! I'm a little old to be living in a dormitory. Ugh!!

But here are some pics of my dorm room. This dorm rooms comes with positives and negatives....My neighbors downstairs are noisy partiers! I've had an issue with them since I arrived. I love the bay window in my room, however....in Glasgow during the summer, the sun rises around 5AM and sets around 10PM! So that's about 17 hours of daylight. Can be a little difficult to get a good nights sleep when there isn't much darkness.

It's a double room, but I have no roommate.

My front door with grocery bags.

Love my bay windows! They have giant windows that open up and let nice fresh air in.

Not really liking the curtain print....lol!

Another interesting thing I saw here was on my 'google' webpage. You know how when it is a holiday or a special occasion, google will modify their logo to accomodate? Well, they do it here in the UK as well. It just so happens that the UK was celebrating the 200th birthday of the person (Sir George Gilbert Scott) that I am writing my paper on for my last class, 'Gothic Revival'. I thought it was cool so I had to document it.

Check it out! Great timing.

Here are some pics of my Glasgow walking tour, and they have a subway system. It is called the 'underground'. It the reference books, they call it 'clockwork orange' because it basically goes in a circle around the city, and it is orange, but the locals never call it that. Anyways, I had to take a photo of it because it is soooo petite compared to US subways. It's like riding a toy train!

Getting ready to do a walking tour of Glasgow to discover Art Nouveau buildings were some of the ladies in my class. The woman who is third from the right is our much loved teacher Dr. George, and the blonde lady on the left is my new wonderful friend Pamela. I think we are kindred spirits! :) This group is a great bunch of ladies.

For this class, we did a walking tour of downtown Glasgow to view Art Nouveau style buildings. Glasgow contains a lot of Victorian buildings designed architecture around the turn of the 20th century. This architects and designers include Charles Rennie Mackintosh, James Miller, and many stained glass artists, carvers, etc.

Here are some of the highlights from this tour....

This building has a tower that looks out on all of Glasgow.

Tower stairs that go up.....Ugh!

To the wonderful view of downtown Glasgow from the top...

Tower stairs coming down.....Say cheese everyone!

We discovered the cutest signs for the restroom! Had to photograph them.

Gotta love their sense of humor.

House built by Mackintosh

Huge building built in 1893

Love this building

Me sitting in a Mackintosh designed chair.

I also had to throw this beauty in.....The UK's version of the 'Dollar Store'. :-)

To view all my walking tour photos go to.....

https://picasaweb.google.com/cantrell.stacy/ArtNouveauWalkingTour

Thanks for reading!

Mount Stuart and the Isle of Bute

The last field trip we took for our Gothic Revival course was to the Isle of Bute. A charming little isle off the west coast of the mainland. It's a 30-40 minute ferry ride across the Firth of Clyde. It's just like out of the movies. Charming little seaside towns and green, green, green as far as the eyes can see!

Me hanging out on the ferry.

The weather is also very crazy but beautiful....we have the sun shining and at the same time it is raining, rainbows, and passing wild clouds. But for the most part, we have wonderful sunshine and mild weather. Such a beautiful day to be out on the water.

You can see the rain coming straight for us!

Rain on the other side of the island. Crazy weather!

On the island, we went to Mt. Stuart. Mt. Stuart is an amazing Gothic style manner, or mansion, or whatever you want to call it. I just call it amazing. It is the home of the Stuarts of Bute. They are the descendants of the Royal House of Stuart. The isle of Bute is an ancient stronghold of Scottish kings. The Stuart family line has famous rulers such as King Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and James I. The family today has like 6 houses and only visits this house occasionally.

They wouldn't allow photography inside, which broke my heart! That place is a treasure trove of paintings, stained glass, and all the decorative arts one could want. Whenever you view an object or painting in a book, the objects will be labeled with the artists name, date of painting, artist life dates, and where the object is located.....now some of them will say (Smithsonian National Gallery, or Metropolitan museum of art and so-on). Some will say (In private collection) they some times will say which private collection but most often not. Well....the day I went to Mt. Stuart, lets just say that I found a lot of those objects on the wall and sitting around their house!! OMG!!!

Such a charming little house on the way to Mt. Stuart

Mount Stuart...need I say more?

It's a Monkey Tail Tree!

But it is a magical place! It sets on a hill over looking the sea. There is a small trail that leads through the woods to the water. The forest there is so unreal. There is moss on the stones, everything is green and bright. I was expecting a fairy to fly by my head at any moment.

Love the green moss that grows on everything

A real enchanted forest

Almost to the sea!

Me standing on the other side of the Atlantic!

And now for a 'wee' bit of nature....courtesy of the Isle of Bute....

And what a better way to top of the ending to a perfect day....

A rainbow!

To see all of my photos of Bute go to....

https://picasaweb.google.com/cantrell.stacy/IsleOfButeAndMtStuart

Thanks for reading!

Stacy

The Queen Again!!

Another Queen photo!!

I had to share with everyone! One of my classmates was on the other side of the street and got a GREAT shot of the queen and she sent it to me. The Queen left Holyrood Palace and went up the street like three blocks to the church. She had just gotten out of the car. It was a fantastic day in Edinburgh!

University of Glasgow and the Burrell Collection

As part of our couse requirement, we had to write a paper on an object, then we had to give a presentation of it to the class. They sent us to three different locations.....Gilbert Scott Building (University of Glasgow), The Glasgow Cathedral, and the Burrell Collection. My object was at the University. It was a lamp post just outside the building. Lucky for me (not), there was no information on it what-so-ever! So I am the first person to document this object and do research. It's sort of exciting because the university is keeping my research to add to their archives.

The University here is very beautiful! The main building is Gothic Revival designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott so it is called the Gilbert Scott building.
Here are some highlight photos of this building....

Here is my wonderful professor, Dr. Sally Rush. She is amazing! She got to meet the queen last Wednesday. She is doing serious academic research on Stirling castle and was invited to meet and have lunch with the queen!

Like I mentioned above, my object was a light fitting beside the university's main building. Here is a photo of my object. It is very unique and I was able to discover a lot of interesting features about it. One being that top and bottom motifs are the same as the design of the Scottish crown.

The Burrell Collection is a wonderful collection of art given to the city of Glasgow in 1944 by Sir William Burrell. Burrell was a wealthy shipowner with a passion for collecting art. Burrell has also bought a large portion of William Randolph Heart's collection of medieval objects.

Here are some highlights from this collection.

To see more of my photos go to...

https://picasaweb.google.com/cantrell.stacy/GilbertScottBuilding

https://picasaweb.google.com/cantrell.stacy/BurrellCollection