The Little Blue Dot

I have had two glorious days! The first two days I was here, I focused on 'duty' and got my sewing jobs finished. Yesterday I got to spend most of the day with my beloved daughter - refilling my heart, in many ways (see my next post to find out about Indianapolis quilt shops:). :) Today I have managed to refill my soul.

One of the most anxiety-reducing uses for my iPhone is the Maps ap. I am very (extremely!) gifted at getting lost - my daily life is full of disoriented physical wandering as I move around my world. (sigh) I am passionately attached to that little blue radiating map pin that shows me where 'here' is at any given moment on my iPhone's screen. God bless the human team that first proposed GPS technology! :)

I have used Maps extensively on this trip to find my way around the Indianapolis area - both to find places I've wanted to go (like the quilt shops and restaurant yesterday) and to figure out how to recover from missing my turnoffs from the highway into town. Best Christmas gift I ever got, this iPhone ... I hardly use it for a _phone_. :) Calendar, crutch, interface to the Net, library for both entertainment and reference, game machine and all-round keep-me-not-bored, yes!

Today, after I dropped my son off at the Convention center for the last day of gaming, I drove to the White River State Park where, among other things, the Eiteljorg Museum is located. Wonderful place dedicated to the native life of this continent and to 'art of the west'. Right beside the museum is a canal through which the White River flows. In this part of the downtown there is a lovely walkway with gardens, museums, the Indiana state museum as well as the E., the Zoo, etc.

I parked in an underground ramp and took the wrong exit (of course!) so I strolled down the promenade beside the canal (along with a generous number of families walking, biking and paddling duckboats in the lovely weather:) to get to the Eiteljorg.

Two wonderful life-sized statues beside the canal of mastodonts - the sort that ranged across the area that is now Indianapolis - with a visiting little girlie for size comparison. (Isn't she cute?:)

One of the benches where I stopped to rest was in a sort of prayer circle with a bronze statue in the middle depicting a life sized Chiricahua Apache elder, titled 'Morning Prayer.' I sat there for a while in the shade and made a sketch (in my Sketchbook Project moleskein) of the setting ... and thought about what it means to be a 'native.' There have been times in the past when I thought that only the people whose families have lived on this continent since prehistory could be called 'native' and that the rest of us were interlopers.

But, damn it, at what point do you count as true blue anyway?? My personal ancestors have been residing on this continent for almost 400 years (since 1620 that I know of for sure)!! The ones that weren't actually prehistoric natives, that is (I am a descendant of Pocahontas and the Powhattan natives on my maternal grandmother's side). Making a life for yourself and your own descendants counts, too. Might be the first time in my life I have believed that viscerally. (sad smile).

I wandered into the museum to view a wide gallery full of mid-19th to early 20th century art - including pioneering paintings of native life and the vast geography of mountains and plains of the western part of this continent mixed with the bronzes of Frederick Remington and others depicting cowboys, desperadoes, and natives in various action poses.

Visited the extensive and temptation filled museum shop. Had lunch in the museum cafe and sat on the outdoor terrace overlooking the canal promenade to read the book I bought in the shop about the history of women's costume in the Americas from early 1700's to the present. Glorious, especially with the very pleasant breeze and temperature in the high 70's!! :)

Tomorrow we drive eastward, back to life as usual ... And I am well feeling satisfied with this journey!

:) Linda

Comments

[LindaSchiffer]

HI, Kathi, thanks for telling me! I have been to the Indiana State Museum but not for a couple of summers. How exciting that there is such an extensive quilt collection! :) I'll have to come see the new exhibit when I am in Indy next summer.

I can tell quilts are popular from the size and busy-ness of the quilt shops in town. :)

Linda

[Kathi.wordpress.com]

Sorry you missed spending more time at the Indiana State Museum (www.indianamuseum.org ). We have 443 Amish quilts and 725 non-Amish quilts in our collection, which are rotated in the galleries. We also have quilt shows every other year or so, so be sure to watch for the next one, "Eye of the Beholder", opening within the next year or so. We love quilts around here!