Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio

October 29, 2009

Day Two of the Adventure started out with much hope for the theoretically repaired GPS, but within half a block of the Wilson's I realized it still wasn't working.  Luckily I was only about a half mile from a Target, where I bought a new GPS, a thoroughly unanticipated and not happily made purchase.  Tonight I have to figure out how to use it, a project I'm dreading.

You probably didn't know, as I hadn't until Tuesday, that the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio was established in 1919 as the first museum dedicated to American art.  And it's a beautiful gem of a museum.  There's the usual early American, Western art, mid- to late-19th century art, and a tour de force of 20th century work.  My favorite piece Raphael Soyer's "My Friends," painted in 1948 and donated to the museum in 1963.  His brother Moses Soyer is featured in the painting, and Raphael's back is to us ont he right.  Why my favorite?  My grandson Soyer is named for him, and seeing the artist's name gave me a thrill.  Unfortunately the gift shop doesn't carry a post card of the painting. 

A "super realist" sculptor, Marc Sijan, has a large show up there and it's fascinating.  Very lifelike figures, many humorous, and a few kinda scary in their real-ness.

I wouldn't recommend going to Youngstown just to visit the museum, but if you're in the vicinity, it's a lovely spot in an otherwise rather dismal city.  I was reading up on the settlement of Youngstown, sittuated in an area of vast natural resources.  Unfortunately, the only way to profit from those resources was extraction, and now the city is poor and much-diminished.  Gives me pause about what it must be like in West Virginia.

I did't have printed directions to Cleveland, but decided just to follow road signs to get there.  I called the Glidden House, where I'm staying, to make sure they had a room for tonight, which they did.  Despite numerous phone calls to the Inn, and the help of various and sundry police officers, it took me well over an hour to find the place.  Which means now I have to learn how to use the new GPS.  Ugh.