Welcome Autumn with more art from the Wichita-Sedgwick County Museum

It's time for summer to shed its heat and humidity and time to welcome in autumn. Many believe this is their favorite time of year. I'll take anything that brings on cooler weather, including today's autumnal equinox, that time twice a year (spring and autumn) when days and nights are equal in length.

Although I have no prepared autumn images or art, here are some from my latest stay-cation, which was at the Wichita-Sedgwick County Museum last month.

If you are new to my blog, or missed my previous post on this museum, you may not be familiar with my self imposed rules.

The self imposed rules:

1. Round trip must be less than or equal to 80 miles.

2. Must be achievable in a single day.

3. No more than $15.00 can be spent (does NOT include fuel).


I hate to admit this, since the photo is so dark and grainy, but this is my favorite photo from a compositional standpoint. Symmetrical balance was everywhere. And I didn't crop this a millimeter or a single pixel! When I was taking these off my camera, I was so happy. This looks like something I might have taken when I had an incredible SLR (not DSLR). Again, I know it's too dark, especially under the piano legs, but the lighting in that entire museum was difficult to shoot, especially if you have a point and shoot camera that doesn't even have a decent macro setting (like mine). I might as well be taking photos with one of those disposable cameras!


Working my way toward the left hallway, I fell in love with all the rich furniture. When I was collecting antiques, I never went for anything breakable. No glass, no plates, no figurines, no nothing (except rocking horses, which is a whole other story) that could be broken. I'm just not good with breakables. But, if you've ever seen photos of my home, you know I love old quarter-sawn oak. It's hard to break furniture. And most of my accessories are either wood or metal of some kind, too. I was overwhelmed by how close I could get to all these antiques. We were even allowed to walk on the rugs.


It seems I was walking left a lot, because I took the first left off the hallway shown above. To my surprise, I walked into this well lit room that looked like a soda fountain and apothecary shop.



Although some of the photos are dark, you can still see some amazing antiques and collectibles.


Here's another view of these pieces, and one


that is horribly out of focus!


Look at all this wood. Beveled glass mirrors, too.


I even weighed myself on those scales another visitor is standing in front of. Yes, there were others in the museum, but I tried to take photos when no one was around.



I spent a good amount of time trying to capture the beauty of these stained glass windows.


This was as close as I got to their true art deco beauty.


I also spent a lot of time trying to get a decent image of all these tins, but


no matter which direction I turned, it didn't happen. At least I got a good view of this lovely wood, all oak.


I finally made it out of the soda shop and arrived in the room I saw behind the piano in the first photo I showed. All these rooms are interconnected, and I enjoyed the surprises I encountered in each room. I'll show more photos of this lovely museum again soon.

How did I fare? As I related from the first post:

1. Round trip must be less than or equal to 80 miles. Round trip was under five miles.

2. Must be achievable in a single day. I stayed a total of four hours, because the museum was only open from 1-5 on the Saturday I visited. I didn't even have time to visit the gift shop!

3. No more than $15.00 can be spent (does NOT include fuel). Admission was $4.00 and I had to pay for parking, which was $2.00.

I hope you enjoyed this "leg" of the museum tour. It's such a unique and fun museum, I can't say enough about it. It's probably the best museum in Wichita that I've been to.