Picturing Ceylon & Kandy Dandies September 19, 2013
Posted by nrhatch in Art & Photography, Mindfulness, People, Travel & Leisure.comments closed
After dropping our weekend house guests at the airport on Monday, we swung by The Ringling Museum of Art to view the Picturing Ceylon exhibit.
Several well-appointed (and well fed) Kandy Dandies inspired our visit. I imagine them eyeing their fabric-expanded girth while broad-casting, “This outfit makes me look phat!”
On our way to learn about Ceylon (a/k/a Sri Lanka), we stopped to admire some shaded and shady-looking statuary we’d never noticed before:
Their gnomish figures made us grin.
And emit audible giggles.
Let’s hope they didn’t hear us.
In the museum proper, immersed in the fascinating array of albumen prints of Ceylon’s temples and tea plantations, taken in the 1880’s and sold as souvenirs, we saw a rather ironic gallery sign: “No Photography Allowed!”
After learning a bit about Ceylon’s 3,000 year history, we visited the Witness to War exhibit to view photographs taken by service men and women during WWII. Despite the sobering nature of the exhibit as a whole, we enjoyed the exquisite and explicit nose art which adorned many of the fighter planes.
We also visited the interior courtyard where Joseph’s Coat plays out at sunset amid the oohs and aahs of delighted sky gazers.
The serene space, created by James Turrell, is a calm meditative oasis filled with sunlight and climbing vines by day and kaleidoscopic light shows by night.
We paused to admire the unadulterated sky peeking through the open skylight.
Rested and relaxed, we headed home for . . . LUNCH.
Aah . . . that’s better!
Spirit Lights The Way 