My Visit to The Rooms

The Rooms



All my St. John's friends said that i HAD to go visit "the Rooms". And so I did. And just what is "The Rooms"? An incredible public cultural space....a combination of Museum, Art Gallery, Archives and Restaurant. What a great place to spend a Sunday afternoon!  The inside is light and airy, with museum on one side, art gallery on the other.  

I loved the art gallery.... a super mixture of old and new, newfoundlander and person from away.... there was a super exhibit on the library, and I really enjoyed myself looking at the Adrian Norvid exhibit, large (wall sized) paintings/drawings that were reminiscent of a mashup of Breugal's paintings (like (Children's Games") with Robert Crumb's 1960s underground comix.... here is a small piece of one of the pieces from the web.

Adrian Norvid: 'close up detail!'

Breugal, kindergames....



Crumb comix



Not everyone's cup of tea, but full of humor and ironic jokes when you took time to investigate close up.



The "Art Pod" in The Rooms



Truly, the curators at The Rooms have done great stuff with the space.  The walls are painted with 'notes' about how to view paintings, notes that give you ideas about how to linger longer with the material in the gallery.  They also had a great "Art Pod":  a small area in a nice enclosed corner, loaded up with bean bag chairs, and art books and supplies... encouraging you to grab a paper and crayons, and to try drawing something. 



The View from the Restaurant



My attempt at drawing the view...

 I was inspired to take up the challenge.  :-)   well... inspired by the menu and the view..... After filling my eyes in the gallery, i headed off to the restaurant on the 4th floor for a bite... and what a bite!  a delicious coconut and beef soup, with an equally yummy spinach quinoa salad (with dried blueberries, cashews and shredded apple).  ... and the view?!   Inspirational enough to leave me wanting to try my hand at sketching it out.  The conclusion?  I will not give up my day job.   Stillll..... such fun to eat and sketch at the same time!  :-)



the door to the archives!

oops...I  nearly forgot.... given that my friend Susan is also an archivist, I did have to get a shot of the archives!  It was Sunday, so they were closed and I couldn't get in.  Still... i did stand with my hand on the door in a moment of reverence (surely due to all archives!), and admire the fabulous doors, inlaid with squares of coloured glass (sort of in the shape of fish?)