kistha

Looking for Gifts (Christmas and Beyond)?

Try these:

For lovely line and full art, see mischief_wa's Cobalt Moon Store. With neat t-shirts, and holiday cards it's fabu!

For wire style beaded jewelry see rhienelleth's Byzantium Lotus Jewelry for beautiful pendants, necklaces and earrings. For some great beading supplies check out her supply shop Byzantium Treasures.

Also in the beading family see scarlettina's Rain City Arts for more traditional string beaded style jewelry in a cute, chic style. General jewelry and wine glass charms.

For Vintage and Steampunk clothes check out cheriezel's Sewing and Crafts Store.

For Claylike Wonders see winifred's Wayward Clay Baubles She's got some lovely clay items and is just getting started. Her "Holly Jolly Roger's" are perfect for that Christmas Pirate, and her Santas are pretty cute too!

For lovely line and full art, see mischief_wa's Cobalt Moon Store. With neat t-shirts, and holiday cards it's fabu!

For wire style beaded jewelry see rhienelleth's Byzantium Lotus Jewelry for beautiful pendants, necklaces and earrings. For some great beading supplies check out her supply shop Byzantium Treasures.

Also in the beading family see scarlettina's Rain City Arts for more traditional string beaded style jewelry in a cute, chic style and flashy bookmarks. There may be more types of crafts available later on as well.

And not to be forgotten (bad, bad I must be punished) cheriezel's Sewing and Crafts Store. Currently has cloth napkins, vinatge beads and the occasional sewn project. Lots on clearance to clear the shop for the new year.

So last weekend on Saturday dthon, argentyne and I made the crazy day run to Portland to see the Quest for Immortality Exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. dthon and I had to have the dog to the kennel in Monroe by 9AM, and then flew to argentyne's and were on the road just before 10. We hit Portland just before 1, and had lunch at BJ's.

Then it was to Powells where I managed to get out just over $200. I would have got out cheaper, but I had to go back in you see. *shakes head* Although what I got was well worth it. I also had someone take a picture of my hair while I was standing outside - he and I had a brief discussion about how he was likely to get hit one day. Had he gotten a *recognizable picture* we would have had harsher and longer words.

Then we moved parking lots, rested, read and then headed to the exhibit. Our tickets were for 6:30PM and the exhibit would be open until 2AM.

Other than some problems with argentyne's mom being late, and my Alias moment (ended up misdirected downstairs into the closed portion of the museum with another woman who decided "we look harmless" so we went behind the rope and down the stairs, and watched the suit get on the elevator totally ignoring us until I stopped him - who passed us off to the approaching security guard who directed us to the restrooms, and asked that we use the other stairs on our way out) waiting was pretty OK.

The exhibit was AMAZING. The average time was given out as one hour. We got out in 3. And I had the usual "what you are saying is more interesting then the audio" experience, but at least I wasn't followed around by a big crowd - which has happened at every other Egyptian exhibit I've been to. argentyne and I were followed about by a security guard for most of the exhibit, since we kept leaning in and around to examine the hieroglyphs more closely - which is ironic considering I saw a woman touching the large sarcophagus and "Oh, no don't touch" came out of my mouth. She seemed very put out, but it's a very worn stone sarcophagus, and I just couldn't help it even if it was one of the late pieces. There was some very late dynasty stuff shoved in with the rest of the very lovely 18-22 dynasty offerings. The advertised highlight of the exhibit was the "recreation of Amenhotep III's tomb." Yeah, not so much. It's not the fully illustrated text to start with (but is interesting because it is the first complete copy of the hours of the underworld) and then there were only a couple of isolated items in the 'tomb' and they were all pretty small and unimpressive. I was much more awed by the statue of Senmut and Neferura - something I never expected to see outside of getting to Cairo. They had an awesome set of coffin cases The Coffins of Paduamen which had excellent scribe work, and is excellently preserved (21 dynasty.) There was also the statue of Naktmin's Wife that is one of the most beautiful examples of wig and transparent linen carving I've seen (18 dynasty). It is gorgeous and you can see it in this highlight at First Center for the Visual Arts. The biggest surprise was a funerary gold mask, and jeweled net with gold plaques which I think are from the (relatively) recent discovery in the "Valley of the Golden Mummies". Anyway - I watched this get discovered on TV and Hawass was having a bit of a fit over the state of the net, so I was doubly stunned to see it out of Egypt. That man does not share well. To see some of the highlights yourself, see the different museums' web pages that housed the touring exhibit (Here are two to start you off Portland Art Museum and National Gallery of Art in DC - also has video tours!)

We stumbled out a little after 9:30, and I did the real Kamikaze drive home - so tired my eyes were having trouble focusing, plus I knew we had to get back since I had to take dthon to the airport for the Uber Computer Game Conference the next morning, and pick up Oba at the kennel. I was so tired I thought I was going to get sick before I got us all home. We made it though, intact and alive. Once we got home I fell into bed, and dthon said the snoring started less than 10 seconds later.

It was awesome - the exhibit's last site is in Huston at The Museum of Fine Arts starting in September. It might just be worth the plane flight, I don't know about it being worth spending time in TX though. :)