Strolling through the passages viewing centuries of art had such an impact on me I can barely explain it or understand it but I can report that I am not alone with these feelings about the Appleton Museum. I had the pleasure to bring my neighbor Ms Donna on a visit to the Museum for the African-American Festival held on Saturday.
We had a wonderful time together.
Our adventure started with the viewing of the “African Folk Art” dolls on display by Linda Williams. She is a very talented local artist from Ocala that was gracious to spend a few moments to speak with me about her art:
As you can see she is a beautiful Christan woman that feels her art is all inspired from the man above!
The African Art we viewed after that was everything from paintings to sculptures. The talent was absolutely amazing. Each work of art was filled with dedication and had such a deep meaning you could feel the love put into it by each artist.
Next we headed to the auditorium to see the 11:00 AM presentation by J’miah Nabawi. He is a talented storyteller. I had contacted him online earlier in the week on twitter as we had exchanged a few tweets (jmiahspeaks) so I was looking forward to meeting with him and hearing his stories. And I must say he was an absolute delight.
“We all have a story to tell!” He points out in the video below.
This next one was a fun game everyone enjoyed to participate called :”Grandma the stones have hurt my hands.”
Showing the love for Grandmas!
After that we were just in time for cookies and sweet tea to enjoy while we created cards for local senior citizens. I thought this was an excellent and refreshing idea. Donna and I felt like we could give back a little something to someone as she had recently lost her mother and I my grandmother that had lived in my home the last five years. We both were in the same state of mind, recovering from a loss and this touched us both. It’s amazing how something so “silly” can mean so much! Huge Kudos to the Appleton for this kind gesture!
Like two school girls on a field trip we glided up the escalator to the second floor of the Museum in anticipation of what we would see next. The escalator is the only one located in Ocala by the way! The Appleton is very proud of that little known fact!
I did have the pleasure to tour the Museum just a few days before and the 2nd floor of paintings had given me an emotional sense in an awkward loving kind of way with words escaping me trying to explain it all after I left that day. Who knew there was such emotion from beauty and art?
Now on this day as Donna and I started the stroll through the magnificent paintings, I could actually feel it happening to me again while looking into a sad little girls face on a painting. As we soon passed through the center area ending to turn down another hall, before you is a painting that will not allow you to hold back as you look into the widows eyes. Not saying a word, I turned to Donna to notice her rubbing her arms as she said “I just felt the chills from this!” Suddenly I felt re-leaved because she had just experienced the same thing I did a few days prior and I actually felt happy to know it was not just me!
I can’t encourage people enough to visit the Museum and “feel” the paintings as they touch your soul!
Once we thought we had finished our perfect day out, we heard a soft voice speaking. And there he was, Mr. O.L Samuels. He was speaking about his amazing artwork and I was able to capture on video:
OL Samuels spoke to us all at the young age of 79. As you can tell from the clips, he is very charming!
Visit this site to see more of his work: O.L SAMUELS
I hope to more time at the Appleton Museum of Art.
Visit them on the web: AppletonMuseum.org
Be friends with them on Facebook
Give a shout out to my friend Donna aka: Grama Donna Blogs
GREAT JOB!! Loved it! Took me back to when we were there.