Museum of the Americas

If you wanted to use a slightly pejorative term, you'd call Weatherford's store-front Museum of the Americas a "mom-and-pop" museum, but it is so much more. Owners Harold and Elizabeth Lawrence have an amazing collection of artifacts from the Americas, and their displays are inventive, clearly labeled, and absolutely fascinating. They have a huge collection relating to the Day of the Dead and do an annual exhibit that outdoes many larger museums. I once listened in awe as Harold described the assembly of the arrowhead collection--it arrived in unlabeled pieces all jumbled in a box. Countless hours of research went into identifying each piece, labeling all, and mounting them for exhibit. It's fascinating to stand there and study them.
Tonight was the opening of an exhibit on Majolica pottery, with clear signage tracing the transition of the pottery technique from Europe to Mexico. Several pieces were of 16th-Centrury origin in Europe but much of the exhibit was pieces, both historical and contemporary, from Mexico, many of them absolutely stunning, a few whimsical. There were floor tiles--I was interested to learn that the edges of the colors were slightly raised to prvent running--and there was touristware from Mexico (what it sound like) and petatillo pottery characterized by a peculiar cross-hatch background, talavera pottery with its intense colors. Guanajuato Mexico is a major pottery center, but Puebla was the first to use the pottery wheel (introduced to Mexico by the Spanish) and to high fire pottery peices. I learned a lot time and loved it.  Of course I could see a book about it, but it turns out Harold is working on two other books.
The museum also has a small gift shop, with a wonderful and unusual collection of greeting cards. I came away with cards for many of the spring b'days among family and friends.
Harold and Elizabeth are gracious hosts, and there was good cheese, salami, wine, etc. Usually at these gatherings I see more people that I know, but tonight I only saw a few. Carol Roark and I had a good visit on the way out and back and agreed we were glad we went. Carol's husband, Lon Burnam, was tied up with family matters, and Carol said she probably wouldn't have gone alone. I wouldn't have gone without one or both of them, so it worked well.