Art Museum and Pumpkinland

Will and the Machine

Our Trip to the Springville Art Museum.

We decided to stay close to home for the Fall Break this year, so we took a trip to the Springville Art Museum. If you've never been there, you're missing out. First of all, the museum is completely free. It's hard to beat that! And secondly, it's easy to get to, just off State Street in Springville. There's sculptures outside and all kinds of stuff inside. We went on a Friday and they were serving a little lunch inside. And they have a gift shop!

Entertaining: Favorite Ladies II
by Jeanne Leighton Lundberg Clarke

They mostly have local artists, but don't be fooled - some amazingly talented people have lived and painted in Utah. The BYU Art Museum has a more well rounded collection, but there are still some great paintings in the Springville Museum, many by living artists. I love this one by a woman who used to work at BYU. This one is very cool because it has a collection of women from famous paintings, all gathered together to have tea. See how many women and their painters you can recognize. Props for getting more than five. (For answers, click here.)

Utah Impressionism

I thought I got the name of the painting and artist in the picture, but as you can see, it just barely got cut off. This was one of the paintings I really liked. I admit that I have eclectic tastes, but what I really enjoy is art that creates a mood. I thought this was just incredible.

Special Exhibit

One of the interesting things about the Springville Art Museum is their extensive collection of post World War II Russian art. Their website has a little background, but not much explanation about how a bunch of Soviet art wound up in Utah. Right now they have a special exhibit of art by Nikolai Borisovich Terpsikhorov, mostly celebrating Soviet life and culture. Lots of pictures of guys in tall, furry hats, but unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures.

Various Picture Book Illustrations
by Will Terry

Then we got to the kids' favorite exhibit - Picture Book Art. This was so much fun! They had all kinds of pictures from various books on the wall, including some by James Christensen and Brett Helquist, of Series of Unfortunate Events fame. They stuck a big, comfy couch in the middle of room and bookshelves full of the books by these artists so you could check them out for yourself. Ellen loved the picture of the frog above, while Sarah liked a picture from The Library Lion and Will and I loved 600 Black Spots, an AMAZING pop-up book. Most of the books are available at the gift shop.

Corn Maze at Pumpkinland

Then Monday it was time for our annual trip to Pumpkinland. We love to go to this little corn maze and pumpkin patch. It's just up the street from our house and it gets bigger every year. We thought about going on Saturday, but we got too busy. And every time we drove past, the parking lot was completely full with all kinds of people everywhere.

But this time, procrastination paid off. Monday was much less crowded and we got a prime parking place, right in front. Sarah was feeling under the weather (and she doesn't like the maze much anyway), so she stayed home while the rest of us - Randy, Ellen, Will, and me - tramped our way through corn stalks and dead ends, on to the pumpkin patch.

Corny Jokes

One of the best (or not!) features of Pumpkinland is the great variety of silly jokes posted throughout the maze. Ever noticed that there's always one person who has to read EVERY SINGLE ONE OUT LOUD? That would be Will.

Our family portrait

And every year there's a chance to get our pictures taken in one of these cutouts. In case you can't tell, I'm the attractive tree, Randy is the sexy scarecrow, and Will is the little pumpkin.

Will and his new friends

And there's scarecrows, witches, ghosts, and of course, PUMPKINS everywhere.

And they HUFFED,
and they PUFFED,

And they have the little houses and play area too. Ellen loves to see the bunnies and funny looking chickens. I like the goats. This is not the best picture of me, but I was hunched over trying not to get hay in my hair. Ellen looks good though.

So that's what we've been up to. Art and pumpkins. How's that for culture?