"MY BED" AND "MUPPETS IN MOSCOW" (Cheri)

Mark and I have mentioned South Carolina's Upcountry History Museum before.

While we were at the Mac Arnold Blues concert last month, maybe 15 miles from the Museum, we told a local what a great museum it was and he said that though it was not far from where he worked, he had never been inside.

I'm not surprised.  I'd have to say that the Museum's name is misleading, suggesting a narrow focus on local, rural issues.  In fact, it has a wide focus and gets a lot of traveling exhibits.  We hope to visit a D-Day exhibit that it will have this Fall.

Anyway, knowing this, I was still surprised at one of the exhibits we saw during our last visit.  As we were paying, the docent mentioned that a current handwork exhibit was outstanding.

I still wasn't buying it.  OK, I'll look, but I'm sure I won't enjoy it!

The exhibit featured a dozen or more shadowboxes, holding pieces that had been created by Salley Mavor, to illustrate the children's book My Bed:  Enchanting Ways to Fall Asleep Around the World.

Here is the text that accompanies the picture above:

Rebecca Bond wrote the text, and the book is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.  (All text, and the content of the photographs is of course copyrighted to that company.)

I immediately checked the book out of the library when we returned home, and would highly recommend it for gift-giving!

With rare exception, everything in the shadowboxes is created from felt and hand-stitching:

So many individual stitches!  For example, go back up and check out the rug in the Afghani scene.

The level of detail was just amazing:

I loved these little pictures on the American girl's wall!

One advantage of seeing the actual shadowboxes was being able to appreciate the level of three-dimensional detail, including the Japanese tatami mat:

and the trunk and blossoms on this tree:

A couple more detail photos:

and a picture of the barefoot artist, working in her studio!

I recently finished listening to a really enjoyable book, entitled Muppets in Moscow: The Unexpected Crazy True Story of Making Sesame Street in Russia.  This was another situation where what I encountered was much more intriguing than what I expected.

I anticipated a book mostly about the business negotiations necessary to take an American production abroad.  I guess I just wasn't being expansive enough in my vision of what had happened.

I learned so much about Russian politics during the very short period of time between the fall of the U.S.S.R. and the takeover by Russian plutocrats.  I was delighted by the descriptions of the artistry necessary to create the Muppets that were unique to Russia and surrounding countries.

Most of all, I was drawn in by the explanations of cultural history that drove the Russian partners' actions.  Russians are incredibly proud of the centuries of rich culture that they have absorbed, from extremely early ages.

This is another book that I highly recommend, particularly in the audio version read by Emily Lahey Shoov, who was incredible at both Russian and American accents.

I would love to take a textile tour of Russia . . . though I'm thinking that is one of my less-likely dreams for the future!