MOHAI Redux and Music, Too

6/6/13 Sailor pen, Diamine Eclipse ink, Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook

Last month I spent several hours sketching at the Museum of History and Industry, but I didn’t spend much time looking at the exhibits. Greg hadn’t yet seen the museum since it moved to its new digs, so we decided this sunny, free first Thursday was a good day to head for south Lake Union.

 

This time, I resisted sketching and instead went through almost all of the exhibits on Puget Sound region history, industry and culture. A short introductory film made especially for MOHAI showed lots of then-and-now photos from Seattle’s history. It reminded me of all that originated here, including Amazon.com, UPS, Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix and grunge rock. It was enough to make this Seattle native want to stand up and salute!

 

One of my favorite exhibits was Celluloid Seattle: A City at the Movies, which featured brief clips from many films that were made in Seattle (I guess I’d better see “It Happened at the World’s Fair,” which has somehow eluded me all these decades).

 

With 30 minutes left on our parking meter, I decided I’d had enough of history and needed a fix of the here-and-now. Leaving Greg to finish up the remaining exhibits, I went out into the sunshine in time to catch a rock band of aging Boomers playing tunes from the ‘60s and ‘70s. OK, so the music wasn’t exactly the here-and-now, but the moment was. As sailboats floated by on Lake Union behind the band playing “A Hard Day’s Night,” the warm sun on the back of my neck, it was enough to make me want to stand up and cheer.

 

(Technical note: I’ve been trying to use my Sailor fountain pen with the funky bent nib as much as possible so that I can learn to take advantage of its varying line widths. I still don’t have the hang of it, but one thing I’ve noticed is that my less-than-ideal control of the nib encourages me to have a looser line. Sometimes the looser line is simply messy. In this case, I think it fits the mood of the band, the location and the moment.)