Andrew and I pay $85 a year to be members of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  In addition to being able to go to the museum every day for free, we also get free admission to Art After 5, and most special exhibits.  The photo is from Art After 5.  Every Friday the Museum stays open until 8:45 p.m. and there are two jazz sets in the main hall.  I love going because it's a nice walk up Ben Franklin Avenue from our apartment and they serve some great red wine.

During the last year, we went to the Dali exhibit, a Wyeth exhibit, and (yesterday) Tesoros: The Arts in Latin America 1492-1820.  Tesoros is open until December 31st.

There were some amazing crafts in this exhibit.  One of the first was a set of religious vestments in feather and embroidery.  There was a ground of feathers (which didn't really look like feathers, more like delicate stitch work) with tiny detailed embroidery on top. I'd never heard of such a thing.  It was striking.

The embroidered pieces in the exhibit were mind blowing. Now we would make that kind of fabric with machines, but back then, they hand stitched all the detail.  One piece had people in elaborate scenes, and you could barely see tiny individual threads of the embroidery.  One figure had at least 7 different colors of brown and blond thread swirling around to make his beard and hair.

They also had an embroidery sampler made by a young girl who was living at a nunnery until her marriage at 14.  It was very intricate, colorful, and skillful.

The exhibit has many examples of South American weaving, which looks similar to the weaving you still see today from that region.  I was also interested in all the sewing boxes they had sprinkled throughout the exhibit.

I'm sad that they didn't allow photography in the exhibit.  I would have taken a ton of reference photos. I took some notes, but that's not the same as a photo. I also discovered the idea of open-toed boots.  There were many paintings where people had on boots where the ball of the foot was uncovered, but there was still a sole under the toes.  I think it's going be the next big thing.  Just wait. :)

The exhibit is heavy with paintings, furniture, and statues, most of which are religious in nature.  The statues of Jesus were fascinating, stunning, and gruesome.  I've never seen so much blood on a statue before.  One of them had bloody footprints all over it's base, too.  I'm a huge horror movie fan, and any of those statues would make a terrifying prop in one of them.  The mood was lightened in the most blood-heavy rooms when someone's cell phone rang and Hava Nagila (a Hebrew folk song) started echoing around us.  I couldn't stop giggling.

I totally recommend this exhibit.  It isn't something I would have gone to, if I didn't get free tickets, but then I would have missed out on some amazing craftsmanship.