Melissa's Amusings: Out And About / Illinois State Museum, Springfield Art Association

The Illinois State Museum (ISM) is a great place to view some wonderful exhibits. For quite awhile I knew they had several temporary exhibits that I was interested in seeing, but time was running out and I still had not taken the time to go see them!! Nathaniel and Geoffrey were still visiting for the Holidays, so we had a fun family outing to view these exhibits :-)

Phillip is missing....he was at work(and not interested)

Turtles on permanent display....caught my eye right before getting to the first temporary exhibit :-)

AUDUBON-SELECTED PRINTS FROM THE COLLECTION was the first exhibit we saw. ISM has 97 prints from The Birds of America in their collection. From these, the handful of prints being shown were of Illinois species that are now extinct, extirpated, endangered, threatened, or compromised. Two prints displayed, Ivory-billed Woodpecker and Purple Martin, are from the first edition of The Birds of America. Like the other 433 prints in the book, these two are etched, engraved and hand colored from Audubon's original paintings by Robert Havell and Sons.The making of all these plates were quite an undertaking and were made from the years 1827-1838. The rest of the plates displayed are from a later edition of the book, in which a new method of color printing was used.... chromolithography by Julius Bien. This edition was started in 1858 and was never fully completed,so there is only one volume.

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker; Jim checking out the Barn Owl in the background

Comparison of Purple Martin prints; Chromolithograph on the left and on the right- hand colored etching with aquatint and engraving

Wild Turkey, Ruffed Grouse

Brown Pelican

Ruffed Grouse, Blue Jay, American Crow

I could have spent quite some time here; very cool to observe .......

Fish Hawk or Osprey

the very fine detail !!!

close up of Osprey's under wing

Carolina Parrot

The Ruffed Grouse in print form and then....

the Ruffed Grouse in the Hot Science Gallery's temporary exhibit; Distress Calls:Birds of Illinois. This exhibit is in memory of the 100 year anniversary of the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon.

Left- Ruffed Grouse Right- Eskimo Curlew

extirpated....not twitterpated (like in Bambi)!!

This exhibit had a lot of data, which included the 40 year study of the birds in Sangamon County by David Bohlen. Too much information for the little time I had there....so luckily for me, ISM has his study available to view on their web site :-)

There was another temporary exhibit that we looked at.....but no pictures were allowed :-( Sketches,Journal,preparations....Everything in Place. The last day to see this exhibit is Feb.15 '15. I enjoyed seeing the sketches, diagrams, studies, etc. that inspired and documented the creative process. I especially enjoyed the work of Virginia S. Eifert- a writer, illustrator, and editor for ISM. I still have a few days to get back and take a second look at all the work displayed in that exhibit!
On our way back to the entrance/exit we pass through some of my favorite permanent exhibits.

Carolina Parrots, Heron

My absolute favorite....a wall of fossils!

Geoffrey was impressed by this creature :-)

Colorful gift store at the entrance.

Really like the snowflakes :-)

Jim, Justin, and I did one other outing this month. The Springfield Art Association ( SAA), located at the historic Edwards Place, had the exhibit "Down From the Attic: Curiosities from the Permanent Collection" that sounded interesting. We went on the last day of the exhibit's showing.

The SAA maintains and gives tours of the Edwards Place-the oldest house in Springfield.

When we arrived, we found out that they had already started to take down the exhibit :-( They were under a time crunch to get the next exhibit up and going; Scholastic Art Competition of Junior and High School students.