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...
