Virginia - Day 17 - Norfolk

Virginia Beach KOA

Sunday, 17 March 2019

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

today's route

I really wanted to go to the Chrysler Museum of Art before leaving this area so today had to be it.  I'd planned this whole driving route, but neglected to take into account that Virginia Beach hosts the annual Yuengling [Pennsylvania beer] Shamrock Marathon - a weekend-long event that culminates today.  And the route goes right past this campground, blocking off the main entrance.

The campground had warned us of this and opened their back entrance so we could come and go, but it meant I had to revise my plans about what I could see today.  Actually, I spent so much time in the museum that it's just as well my plans were curtailed.

I passed an enormous building that had only the name Al-Anon on it, and I couldn't help but wonder if they really needed such a huge space for their meetings, so I looked it up.  Turns out the building is the Family Group Headquarters, and the worldwide clearing house for people who want help or more information about family groups or Alateen.  So that's why they need so much room.

I passed yet another craft brewery: Young Veterans Brewing Co.  I looked them up and they were indeed founded in 2012 by young military veterans who are very enthusiastic brewers.

I was surprised at the way types of housing seemed mixed up in Norfolk, with very nice townhouses a few blocks from less-advantaged housing a few blocks from probably-expensive-but-looking-middle-class rowhouses.  

Interspersed were office buildings and restaurants and various public buildings.  I turned a corner and was suddenly confronted with the huge Norfolk Post Office and Court House.  This is the only online photo I could copy; it's dated 1934, which was 2 years after it was built.  It still looks like that.  The building is in the National Historic Register because of its Art Deco design.  But you see how big it is and was such a surprise in that neighborhood.

Chrysler Museum of Art

Isn't that statue amazing?  It's called The Torch Bearers and is of cast aluminum.  It was modeled in 1953 and cast in 1956-57.

When I saw it, I kept thinking of a couple of lines I'd read in one of Charlotte MacLeod's mysteries: To you from failing hands we throw the torch, be yours to hold it high.  It was clearly a quote, but I'd never bothered to look it up, until now.  Turns out it's from the WWI poem In Flanders Fields, which I'd never read.  The explanation is as touching as the poem.  arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders

This museum showcases many forms of art.  The building is surrounded by an outdoor sculpture gallery.  The lobby on Sundays is host to tango dancers, who were demonstrating their own form of art.  There are galleries of paintings and photography and Precolumbian American art and ancient Egyptian art and art forms from around the world.  But one of the things they are best known for is their glass collection, so that's where I started.  And even though I practically raced through it, I was still in there 2 hours and decided that was all I could ask the critters to wait.

The exhibit starts with a room explaining glass.  This poster was only the first part of it:

By the mid-1400s, Venetians in the Murano Islands in northern Italy had perfected a secret glass recipe that produced colorless glass.  It was called cristallo because it was like rock crystal, and it happened to show off the color of local wines very well.

Venetian blown filigree glass, c. 1600

Around the world, artisans worked to produce variations.  For instance, the Venetians cared about clarity and delicate decoration.  The Germans focused on the practical and fun.  The Chinese used traditional motifs on their glassware - and inspired Louis Comfort Tiffany.

In the 1670s, Bohemians in what is now part of the Czech Republic added chalk to molten glass, producing glass that was clearer and harder and easier to engrave.  In 1676, a British artist patented adding lead oxide to improve clarity.  Alchemists found that adding powdered gold to hot glass produced a stunning ruby red color.  The Irish and English became skilled at cutting glass, and their skills were in demand worldwide.

When the British began using coal to fire their glass furnaces, it darkened the glass, which turned out to be ideal for storing wine, protecting it from daylight.

Glass was the first industry in the Americas, dating back to 1608.  It flourished as immigrants arrived, bringing European techniques.  In the 1820s the mechanical press was invented, which provided cut glass patterns in a fraction of the time and cost.  The glass in the photo on the right is all pressed glass except the blue cruet - it's blown.

This odd thing is a Grand Harmonicon, dating to about 1824.  Those are all large-mouth glasses in the case, each with a letter on it, signifying the note of the scale it should play.  The performer ran a moistened finger around the rim to produce a tune.  That's a mahogany case, a piece of art itself.

In the 1780s, Franz Mesmer was accused of hypnotizing patients using a harmonicon, producing our word "mesmerized."  Eventually, after these claims were debunked, Francis Smith patented the instrument in 1825 and the product became respectable and elegant home decor.

Ancient Romans developed a multi-part glass mold but the technique was lost over time.  In the 1800s, the British and Europeans rediscovered it.  Following the Civil War, the American middle class began growing, and the mold technique allowed them to afford elegant cut glass products of their own.

examples of heat-sensitive glass

The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore has an original Song Dynasty vase that was bought in the US at an auction in 1886 for the unheard of sum of $18,000.  American glassmakers copied the technique for what was called heat-sensitive glass: they reheated glass that already contained gold or uranium, a process that turned yellow glass into other colors.

In 1845 during Queen Victoria's reign, the British repealed a century-old glass tax, and the industry really took off there.  The photo on the left shows some British glass art: in yellow, a mold-blown epergne from about 1890 and, in pink, a blown candelabrum from about 1875.  Stunning in person, so to speak.

The museum has on display a decent-sized collection of Tiffany glass, and also artists that used similar techniques.  Tiffany didn't invent the iridescent glass he used so much - the ancient Romans did - but he mimicked it, to great success.

This piece is by Mark Peiser, called "Passage 7," made in 2015.  It's hot cast phase separated glass, which I don't understand at all but is explained in this caption.

I just found this piece stunning.

But I'm saving my favorite for last.

Just look at this amazing work of art.  I hope you can blow it up and see the individual pieces better.  Yes, it's a chess set, made in 1985 by an Italian artist.  It stole my heart.

There was so so so much more just in the glass exhibit.  I would think you could spend a week in this museum and not get tired of what it holds.  And it's all free.  Always.  Open 7 days a week.  Incredible.

Across the street is a whole separate building for glass-blowing, and they do demonstrations.  Something else to come back for another time.

Brunswick Stew at Taste
I figured since I was in Virginia, which reasonably claims to be the birthplace of Brunswick Stew, I should see what they think it's supposed to taste like.

I found an online list purporting to rank the locations for the best stew, and the most accessible to me was #3: Taste Unlimited.

This turns out to be a chain in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area that has made a name for itself with fresh soups and salads and fancy sandwiches.  I went to the location that's about a mile from the museum.

As it happened, I witnessed a crime while I was waiting for my order: a man who'd given me ugly looks as I was trying to park in the somewhat cramped parking lot grabbed the tips jar off the counter and made his way out the door, with an employee right beside him saying loudly, "Sir, sir, you just took our tips jar," over and over.  She followed him out into the parking lot and I lost sight of them, but then I saw 3 large male staff members hustle out the door after them.  And I didn't see the men again while I was there - I was only getting my order to go, so it didn't take long. 

I was absolutely amazed at how polite the employee was, saying sir sir the whole time, and she didn't try to lay a finger on him.  I'd have been much more inclined to say hey buddy and grab his arms to stop him.

The employee who was helping me said she thought he might be the same person who stole their tips jar a couple of weeks earlier.  What a shame for the hard-working staff, and what a shame this man felt so desperate he'd grab somebody else's money.

I waited until we got back to the campground before trying the stew.  I always prefer to feed the critters first, so they're not staring at me while I eat, making me feel bad.  The stew made the cabin smell really good the whole time and was still hot enough to eat when I finally sat down for it.  They provided a hunk of fresh-baked bread to go along with it.

My opinion is that it tasted almost exactly like the Brunswick Stew our family's been making for decades, which was reassuring, actually.  Same ingredients, almost the same flavor.  Theirs was good and made a great supper.  And now I know what Brunswick Stew is supposed to taste like.  Like ours.