MOA at UBC continued...

The Museum of Anthropology 

UBC campus

if you have not seen the previous post please consider reading it before proceeding here,

it is the introduction...

Vintage Cowichan wool sweater

Slight segway...

my father had one very much like this one

he wore it traipsing around the province when he was employed by the BC Forest Service

I "borrowed" it on many occasions in my youth.

I bought my first Cowichan sweater when I was 15

with my BFF 

my current one was purchased with my BFF 

a couple of years ago

the Cowichan knitter's name is Arlene

here is my sweater

The art of knitting these sweaters could be lost

I spoke with an elder at Hills when I bought my lovely daughter a sweater in September this year

and she told me the young women are not embracing knitting these today...

It would be such as shame to lose these designs and warm water resistant garments.

and now back to the MOA!

masks 

cases and cases 

of carvings

works representing all the major tribes from BC

I have a particular fondness for First Nations baskets

(if you go back into my early blog posts you can see the baskets)

I confess that I was overwhelmed by the variety and number here at the museum and after awhile stopped taking photographs

I was on sensory overload!

dolls

look at the patterns and motifs...

I have never seen a table such as this!

we walked through several rooms 

cases and drawers full

Meandering and weaving through rooms

and then an open space...

prepare yourself...

this carving was made out of one large tree trunk

skill and craft merge

from all angles it is brilliant

I walk around many times in awe...

look closely at the details

Read about Bill Reid here,

I hope that you can read the plaque

The Koerner's commissioned this piece for their garden!

The museum has many other displays

a collection of ceramics

Japanese, Chinese, and Inuvit art

travelling shows

films and photographs.

We focused exclusively on the First Nations collection

and were not disappointed

and were most impressed.

We spent a rainy Sunday afternoon perusing this museum

which has a

 tea room, gift shop and grounds with totems, outbuildings 

and paths with reflecting pools 

I encourage you to visit if you ever find yourself in Vancouver, BC

this place is a treasure

bring your camera

it is a photograph friendly place.

I'll leave you with this lasting image

of 

admission stickers

not recycled

in the suggested container inside the museum!

urban art 

at the

crosswalk to the car park...

and as a post script

P.S.

I worked at UBC...not far from the MOA

at the Computing Centre

Computer Sciences Building

mid 70's 

(a beautiful campus located slightly south and west of the city)

 the IBM mainframe computers took up several rooms

the technologists

sat at a desk with a space age looking dashboard of dials and lights

they would manually feed the tapes onto the disk drives

we had card readers

(which jammed on a regular basis)

and dial up was the handset of a telephone resting in a connection box!

How far we have come from coastal villages of indigenous peoples

to 

communicating via the internet

and blogging on laptops...