This Belongs in a Museum

At Harvard University’s Museum of Natural History, there is a unique Glass Flowers collection, which includes nearly 4,000 models of over 800 different plant species. Professor George Goodale, founder of Harvard’s Botanical Museum, wanted to teach botany with life-like flowery creations instead of the crude wax models that were common at the time. Luckily, one of his former students, Mary Lee Ware, was quite wealthy (shocker!) so her family helped finance the new (and very expensive) botanical models. So at the end of 19th century German artists Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka experimented with different coloring techniques and glass blowing methods to create these magnificent pieces of art. And good news…they’re in bloom year round. Oh, and as far as I know none of the plants need watering or sunlight. Bad joke. 

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Even though most of you young’ins live in a paperless world, that shouldn’t stop you from visiting the Degenhart Glass and Paperweight Museum in Columbus, Ohio. The former owner of the Crystal Art Glass Company and proclaimed “First Lady of Glass”, Elizabeth Degenhart, bequeathed over a thousand paperweights, 55 factory molds and a large collection of 19th century glass and cruets to help tell the story of glassware produced in the Ohio and Western Pennsylvania region. Anyone reading that sentence fast…it’s glass lady, not gas lady. Take note, the museum is closed on weekends…don’t want to disappoint any road trip paper and glass fans out there. Well, except this Saturday when the museum celebrates the BIG 3-0! Even though I have been to Ohio several times in my life, I can’t say I have ever stepped into the “city” of Columbus. But I feel like I’ve been there. In college I knew this insecure girl who boasted about the greatness of her hometown whenever she got the chance. Sometimes I think it was because she couldn’t compete with the fact that I came from a real city like Chicago. But with some time I’ve come to realize it wasn’t about me at all, it was because she just liked talking about herself. Surprisingly, she no longer lives in Columbus or even the state of Ohio for that matter. Various people I’ve known through the years told me they were happy to leave the town once they were done with their studies at Ohio State. Anyway, I think this museum (located behind a Starfire Gas Station, which kind of works with the “gas lady” joke) perfectly sums up Columbus and why I never want to go there.

P.S. Our 300th post! That should make me feel extra special inside, but instead I feel dead…like a paperweight.

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