Our last days in Sacramento were pretty damn good. While the convention ended too early for my tastes, and by the time we hit the dealer's room, the Lupoffs and Clutes were long gone, back to Berkeley and Volcano respectively. Dealers were already packing up or gone - darn it - so we didn't get to say good-bye to the terrific Stephanie of PM Press, but we'd had great fun getting to know her. The PM Press catalogue arrived a few days before LCC and it's so marked up it's ridiculous. alas, much of the political stuff which I think I'd find fascinating I'd find fascinating once, and not want to keep. However, I still see us placing One Big Honkin' Order with them soon.

We talked to the lovely folks who were left - Fender at Ramble and other cool folks, and checked in with Bryan Barrett, our good friend (and someone I've known for...um...blush, oh well) who had a train leaving at midnight so would be around most of the day. We made vague "we'll catch you in the lobby/bar" plans for us to go out for dinner.

So, it was a lovely day and we wanted to see some stuff. We'd been enjoying both the view of downtown from our room at the hotel; Sacramento has saved a bunch of historic buildings. Maybe they aren't what they were or it's a facade, but it was cool to look out the window and see for blocks. We'd been walking since there were places to eat within blocks and, happily Sacramento at least our part, was FLAT. That it is a state capital means nothing as I've been in state capitals which are impassable by wheelchair. In the case of this city, what killed me was the damn tram tracks. I LOVE public transit, love light rail, but OW!

While it was already after 2 pm, we decided to try to get to the Crocker Art Museum. We started out and within about a block, we stopped. I was gaping at an entrance - arched, carved to within an inch of its life. The valets standing on the sidewalk started to tell us how cool it was, invited us to go and and look around. We had to. Clearly an office building in its earlier incarnation, the Citizen Hotel has that fancy-shmancy lobby with elevators on either side and wow. They have, I note from the website a "political movie lending library" - fitting as they are in the capital of California after all. (thinking about sitting in your comfy room watching Redford's "The Candidate"). The lobby ceiling that looks like amber, must be stained glass. The images of political cartoons in the rooms. The comfy chairs. Oh mannnnn. Just wonderful.

So off we head again, wondering what THAT is down teh street, and then duh, as a woman walks towards us, al dressed up and carring...a palm. Oh, Palm Sunday. Right. There's a big cathedral over there.

And on we go until there it is. The Crocker Art Museum. Originally the Crocker Mansion. We head in, (it's 3 pm. I figure 1 1/2 hours to look, 1/2 hour for the gift shop, right?) The amazing thing to start with You don't really realize what you have. It began with the elaborate home of one Edwin Crocker, (a judge, whose brother was the actual railroad baron) but had been added to with modern wings. Probably really ugly but I was pretty focused on what was being offered inside. There were five - five special exhibits being offered. One was an installation based on the terra cotta warriors, which was pretty damn remarkable. (and I still adore the replica SJ was nice enough to schlep back from China for me. Once I heard she was going to see this amazing thing I asked if she thought she could sneak one back for me, putting it in the overhead compartment on the lane. And she's still my friend. Imagine!)

Other exhibits were remarkable, as were the museum's own stuff. We entered a room housing modern interpretations of glass and cracked up as the first thing we saw was a piece by Dale Chihuly. We traveled hundreds of miles to see Seattle's own glass master. But oh, the range of talent, color, design, the understanding of glass as a medium was terrific. And while I sorta passed by a giant crystal scorpion, I turned back when someone remarked on it and suddenly, there we were, five strangers (ok, I know Stu) noticing that the giant scorpion was make entirely of found glass. Salt shakers. Cruets. Tissue box holders. soap dishes. Serving dishes and holders of all sorts. All clear found glass. It was suddenly a much more approachable scorpion (geez, why am I so skittish? It's not real, darnit.) This was work from the museum's collection but displayed in a bright room where you could move around hte work and see it change. Cool stuff.

The first of the special exhibits that threatened to knock our socks off was a show of the work of a landscape artist named Edgar Payne. Huge glorious canvases portraying the American Southwest, the Alps, France and Italy and more. The guy had a long career but still, he was stunningly prolific and it was image after image that made me want to go into the painting and experience where we were.

There was a small and very special (to me) exhibit called "Surveying Judy Chicago" which covered 40 years, somewhat sketchily, which featured this artist's plans, test firings of ceramics, showed tapestry and plates from her major work "The Dinner Party" and other works as well. As I saw "The Dinner Party" (a wonderful day in San Francisco. The last day it was there and Debbie Notkin and I went, spending hours on line and never getting bored, chatting with the women around us and then seeing the installation. Which, absolutely, was one of the most memorable and mind-blowing works of art I've ever seen. It was very hard to leave the room. The names, the brilliant creativity, the beauty and sadness of the stories. It probably is the most political work I've ever seen that moved me strongly and I still look at the books of the ceramics, the floor tiles, and the stunning tapestries that made up the tables. So this small exhibit was a sort of flashback for me and a good one.

Finally, we saw all of this in a short time span, but honestly we did not rush. We were amazed to walk through room after room of exquisite, wonderful pottery. Ceramics of every style, shape, creation. They were collected by someone who developed a passion for pottery (thank the gods). I said to Stu "he must have had a dozen gallery owners looking for items for him every day." Raku, plain white, funky teapots and graceful pots and bowls. I imagine we saw 200 pieces and that we had not seen everything. So wondrous. The guy had such good taste to (by which I mean no majolica. What can I say? I hate the stuff.)

After spending a little mouth-open time looking at the front entry hall and a room of the original Crocker mansion (I kept trying to see myself walking into the front door to be met by these giant staircases and carved thisses and thats, phew, we still had 20 minutes for the gift shop! Oh museum gift shops, how I love the ways. The book of Payne's work was tempting but it was huge and heavy. Not right now, darn. What I ended up buying was a book of Charles Rennie Macintosh design (yeah, but, I love him!) and then a few small items that brought back Judy Chicago to my heart and mind.

We wandered back to the hospital after stopping to check out the outside and grounds of the Leland Stanford mansion (yow) we headed back to drop off our stuff, find Bryan and head out to dinner. We had wanted to try a particular place and dammit, it was closed Sunday night. Keeping in mind that we were downtown, lots of eateries were only breakfast or lunch or closed at 4 or 5, so we had to head elsewhere. And ended up at a rather loud but nice Italian place, and caught up with each other. Somewhat. Not enough as usual. I still noted that I didn't have much of an appetite but I really thought I was done being sick. I was. Mostly.

The Citizen Hotel: http://www.jdvhotels.com/hotels/sacramento/citizen.