Last 2 days of 2014... Columbia!

We took a short overnight trip to Columbia, SC, on the last two days of the last year.  Our main goal was to see the special exhibit at the Columbia Museum of Art: Norman Rockwell "Behind the Camera" which continues only until 1/18/15.

Though we have bypassed Columbia several times on our trips to the coast, this was the first time that we actually got off of Rt. 26 and ventured downtown.  Columbia is just a little over two hours away. We could have easily done it as a day trip, but we thought it might be fun to spend a little more time, have a few nice meals and just have a little change of scenery.

Columbia is the capitol of South Carolina, so there is a prominent state house at the intersection of Gervais and Main Streets.  When we walked here on Tuesday, it was overcast, so the building looks a little bleak against the grey sky.  It looked prettier on Wednesday in pretty much full sun, but of course, I didn't take a touristy shot of it that day.

I did take a photo looking at it from Main Street.

You can see a nice decorated Christmas tree in front of the building, but I'm surprised that you can't really see the elaborate scaffolded stage that they had erected pretty much right in front of that tree.

At this angle you can see it.  Turns out that Columbia hosts a free outdoor New Year's Eve party.  The festivities started mid-afternoon, just as we were leaving, with road races, concerts, and many other activities, including and outdoor skating rink that was right outside of the Museum of Art.  Might have been fun to check that all out, but we were headed home by 3 PM on Wednesday.

South Carolina is called the Palmetto State, with the palm tree being it's state logo.  Since we live just north of the palm tree zone, it does always seem a bit tropical to see palm trees thriving so near by.  So I had to take a few palm pictures.

This palm was on Main Street.  You can see the tent underneath that was set up for the New Year's Eve festivities.

This bit of wrought iron work was part of the interesting monument seen below.

This monument, on the Capitol grounds, was a memorial for the Spanish American War and, of course, featured the state tree!  

The grounds around the Capitol building actually had a number of interesting monuments.  One that we spent a bit of time studying was a horseshoe shaped three dimensional depiction of black history from slavery to the present.  

On a similar vein, we enjoyed seeing some urban art in the area we were walking in.  

There were numerous historical markers scattered throughout downtown, giving us a history lesson as we walked.

This large chicken was in a parking lot near our hotel, with no explanation of it's reason for being there.  Probably deciding if it should cross the road...

These two buildings were chained together!

It's always nice to see some colorful foliage in winter, so here are some camellias in bloom.

And I liked the contrast of the oak leaves still clinging to the branches against the green of the dormant grass.

And finally, the Museum of Art.  The Rockwell exhibit was well worth seeing!  We have been to Stockbridge, MA, several times and saw the museum there both when it was on Main Street and then in it's present location a bit out of town. It's certainly the best place to see the biggest collection of Rockwell art.  

This special traveling exhibit focused on Rockwell's technique for capturing just the right expressions and postures in his illustrations, and specifically his shift from using a posed model to taking photos and then projecting the images on his work surface so he could trace and modify them to his liking.  So in addition to showing final versions, each work was also accompanied by photos and sketches and other studies Rockwell did so that you could see how the work developed from inspiration to photo(s) to a completed piece.

We took advantage of an audio tour (complimentary) which included interviews of people who posed for some of the pieces and additional historical information about Stockbridge and Rockwell.

As always, I found his illustrations to be delightful and often clever and humorous.

The Columbia Museum of Art is well worth visiting.  Their permanent collection is housed in a very attractive building that has a lot of natural light.  The galleries are nicely themed and include not only framed art, but also artifacts and furniture of the period.  I especially liked the glass gallery which had several nice Tiffany pieces.  And of course, no art museum is complete these days without a Dale Chihuly piece.  Here is the large untitled chandelier that hangs in the CMA.

I believe it is said to weigh a ton!  

And it just begged me to take a shot of Russ standing in front of it with his orange jacket and Medusa hair!

I hope you enjoyed this little visit to Columbia!  Happy New Year!