Mini Time Machine Museum; Fort Lowell; Madaras Art Gallery

What a night of thunder, lightning and rain! At around 3 am the coyotes started to howl and they were so close we thought they were outside our bedroom window! They obviously sensed what was to come. in about half an hour the thunder started and it was very close too and this continued until around 7am. Temperatures are down too this morning to around 11 degrees C and it was chilly having our breakfast outside.

Today is a museum day. First stop the Mini Time Machine Miniature Museum. The amount of detail in the exhibits is absolutely amazing!

There was a huge tree in the centre of one of the exhibition rooms and it had little scenes in holes - very cute!

This was entitled "Friends sharing a meal.

There was a complete section devoted to Christmas.

I found this a fascinating story. His stitch pictures were fantastic and traced events from his life.

Ray Materson was born into a troubled family and experimented with alcohol and drugs as a young student. Being introduced to cocaine changed his life and he literally became a junkie overnight. He begged, borrowed and stole to sustain his habit but was eventually arrested and served 15 years in a state penitentiary in Connecticut. It was there that he eventually transformed  and mended himself using a sewing needle instead of a hypodermic needle. I love the name of his biography - Sins and Needles!

A miniature on San Xavier del Bac.

These two miniatures are part of the same miniature house with the upstairs devoted to the husband's passion - the art of the Southwest - and the downstairs devoted to the wife's passion -  ceramics in the Wedgewood style.

This couple are in their bedroom suite on a cruise ship!

                                                  A green bedroom - really beautiful.

This is vignette Irish room 1 and below is vignette Irish room 2. All made of pewter.

I am assuming that it should be Lough Neagh rather than Lough Leagh. I could not restrain myself from telling them!











We enjoyed this museum very much.

Next on the list was Fort Lowell Museum but it was not open on a Wednesday so we just wandered about the park. We might go back if we have time.

We now had some time on our hands and I remembered that there was an Art Gallery that came highly recommended. It turned out that it was not very far from where we were so off we went. It is the Madaras Art Gallery owned by the artist Diana Madaras, an award winning artist. It has a lot of her originals at enormous prices and also showcases some other artists.

Only these last 2 are by Diana Madaras.











So that was our day. Back to the house early to do some housekeeping and planning for the next week or so.