The weather yesterday was cool and drizzle-y, so we had Rainy Day Coworkout in the beautiful restaurant of the Brandywine River Museum, with great big curved glass windows overlooking the river:
When you carry a tripod and a router-box, bristling with antennas, into a museum, the VERY FIRST person you want to talk to is the head of security, and carefully explain what you are doing. Because in the movies, when you carry that stuff into a museum, the next thing you’re doing is firing miniature crossbows, putting alligator clips on video cables, and using mist to find laser beams.
Bob, the head of security, was very friendly and straightforward. He even exceeded my wildest hopes by telling us art-heist stories. Though, come to think of it, he may not have been TOTALLY giving us the straight dape:
ME: "Bob, when painting crews arrive unexpectedly, and you see that you are wearing those paper painter hats, do you arrest them, because REAL painting crews never wear those hats?"
BOB: In a broad Boston accent, through his Official Police Mustache: "Yes. Yes, that is exactly what we do. You’re very perceptive."
We had a wonderful time visiting the Edward Gorey art on display upstairs (until May 17th), and I of course went upstairs to visit the N.C. Wyeth pirates. Wyeth’s pirates are UNSTOPPABLE ASS-KICKERS; they are broad, muscular, and even when all they’re doing is walking from the right side of the frame to the left, they do it with such an air of profound intention that you can just imagine somene standing just outside the frame going “oh… snap!” in a squeaky voice.
I was delighted to learn that N.C. Wyeth painted from life; he hired models, collected pirate costumes and pirate pistols, and assembled scenes. Now I’m guessing that Chester County residents in 1911 did not actually look like Captain Bill Bones. But, by golly, the pirate pistoles were for real; the museum displays a case of giant matchlock hoglegs that you need a belt at least eight inches wide to hold a brace of.
The crowning part of the day was a lunchtime visit to N.C. Wyeth’s studio a half-mile away, built with his commission from the 17 chest-thumping pirate paintings Wyeth did for Treasure Island:
The building is one great big room from floor to rafters, painted a neutral gray. As you go inside the front door, there’s a rack of percussion rifles and an actual tommy gun. That’s across from the massive chest holding the pirate costumes. THE ACTUAL PEDIGREED PIRATE COSTUMES USED IN THE TREASURE ISLAND ILLUSTRATIONS. This is like the Ark of the Pirate Covenant, wouldn’t you say?
Anyhow, bookshelves inside the studio hold titles like "Wooden Ships and Iron Men." A birch-bark canoe — a FULL-SIZED birch-back canoe — hangs on davits from the rafters. It’s made of thick bark, stitched with rawhide and made waterproof with pitch. I’ve never been able to imagine a birch-bark canoe that you wouldn’t put your foot through, but this is clearly the Genuine Workhorse Article, and I can retroactively update lots of mental pictures I made when reading boy’s adventure fiction.
Doughboy helmets hang on the walls. Beaded moccasins and indian drums are piled in the prop room, along with a human skull and several saddles (eastern and western.) There’s a TRAPDOOR. Paint is daubed everywhere.
I’ve heard people say "Oh, I have a man cave in my house; it has a big plasma TV." I do not wish any disrespect to these people, but they do not have a man cave. I have SEEN a man cave. THIS is a man cave, and I urge you to visit it as soon as you are possibly able.
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