Lightner Museum

St. Augustine, FL

March 10th, 2022

https://lightnermuseum.org

Description

The Lightner Museum was founded in 1948 by Chicago publisher, collector, and professional hobbyist Otto C. Lightner. The museum offers an immersive experience of art, architecture, history, and design. The museum was formerly the Alcazar Hotel, a Gilded Age resort hotel commissioned by Henry Flagler. The middle of the museum displays compelling collections from lamps by Louis Comfort Tiffany and shells and geological specimens from across the globe to porcelain produced at Sèvres and Victorian mechanical musical instruments. 

Exterior Photo #1

Exterior Photo #2

Artifact #1

This is the Excelsior. It is a blown and drawn glass steam engine, featured in full working operation in exhibitions throughout the Northeast. William H. Allen and his wife Nora Allen (1850) were the master scientific glass blowers and designers.

Artifact #2

Emperor Moth: Saturnia atlantica. Latest classification: Hyalophora cecropia. Originally Painted on Stretched Canvas Attributed to Charles Willison Johnson. Johnson first came to St. Augustine in 1881. He made extensive collections of chiefly insects, mollusks, and fossils. He helped create the city's first museum, now the Saint Augustine Historical Society. This painting is one of the many enlarged insect paintings original to the museum. It was created to graphically enhance the insect collection then on view. 

In Conversation Image #1

                                       

https://www.upwell.org/hawksbill

In the Lightner Museum, there was a tortoise shell along with materials made from it on display. Tortoiseshell is a material produced from the shells of the larger species of tortoise and turtle, mainly the hawkbill sea turtle. Tortoise shell is a natural thermoplastic material, and behaves very much like certain synthetic or semisynthetic plastics. Using heat and pressure, you can mold and fuse several thin pieces into one thick piece and then form it into desired shapes. Tortoise shell has long been used as an ornamental gem material for art objects, jewelry, and personal items such as combs and eyeglass frames. Though humans have used tortoise shell for thousands of years, the material reached the height of its popularity during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.  

In Conversation Image #2

                        https://www.microscopemaster.com/history-of-the-microscope.html

R. &J. Beck's (1860) brass microscope was on display which inspirited me to converse about the creation of the first microscope. Grinding glass to use for spectacles and magnifying glasses was common during the 13th century. In the late 16th century several Dutch lens makers designed devices that magnified objects, but in 1609 Galileo Galilei perfected the first device known as a microscope. Dutch spectacle makers Zaccharias Janssen and Hans Lipperhey are noted as the first men to develop the concept of the compound microscope. By placing different types and sizes of lenses in opposite ends of tubes, they discovered that small objects were enlarged.

Passage/ Concept from ENG202

At the heart of the museum’s offerings are its compelling collections. From lamps by Louis Comfort Tiffany and exquisite shells and geological specimens from around the world, to porcelain produced at Sèvres and Victorian mechanical musical instruments, the Lightner Museum’s collections are rich, broad, and engaging. It contains a large variety of different artifacts, and there is great effort in preserving each and every one of them. In "Parable of the Sower" by Octavia Butler, there is a panel at the top of page 21 that Lauren displays her official belief of “God is change” written on loose-leaf paper. Lauren’s note taking system implies preservation of her ideas. Since they are written down on paper, now indexical, they are no longer only in her own mind. If she never decided to journal, her ideas wouldn’t be as preserved because they would solely rely on memory and word of mouth, which isn’t as official and reliable as indexical evidence. The fact that she wrote it down and the valued ideas are accessible to anyone who comes across it makes it strongly preserved. Much like the Lightner Museum, it contains indexical artifacts. And like any other museum, we are able to physically come back to the information whenever we desire to, just like Lauren could with her notes in her journal. We could access the artifacts and embody the moments as we read through or see the valued information preserved the Lightner Museum.

Creative Component 

I decided to make a few finger bowls in honor of the room full of glassware in the Lightner Museum. I personally have never made any ceramic piece, but my sister is really into it. I was able to make these three pots by going to the clay studio with professor Mongiovi a few times. The first day, she showed me where the clay was as well as tools to make little patterns or designs. I came in the next day and made them, which probably took a little over an hour. I then went back to the studio a week later after they were dry to glaze them. After the glazing, they were fired and I was able to take them home two days later. The one in the front is colored with lime green glaze, the flower one to the right is colored with strawberry for the petals and dark yellow for the center, and finally the one to the left uses the dark yellow for the outside and a glaze that contains little beads that burst into color after being fired for the inside.