{"id":4033,"date":"2022-03-30T17:03:35","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T22:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/?p=4033"},"modified":"2022-03-31T03:36:45","modified_gmt":"2022-03-31T08:36:45","slug":"va-round-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/?p=4033","title":{"rendered":"V&A, Round One"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature.<\/strong> Nice title and that’s what I expected: a nice, polite exhibition. I didn\u2019t expect to feel profoundly moved. But the familiar drawings and stories called up memories of listening to my daddy tell me bedtime stories about adventurous rabbits, with a whoosh of feeling safe and warm and cared for and loved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibit is geared to appeal to \u2018little rabbits\u2019 with a glowing mousehole at floor level, drawers of objects with PLEASE TOUCH signs, and scampering mice shadows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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TIL: it wasn\u2019t all floofy bunnies. Miss Potter was curious about all creatures great and small. She drew and painted bats and terrapins, and she was particularly enamored with fungi. Her walking stick had a built-in magnifier for examining details of the natural world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Miss Potter also drew on the postcards she sent, collected a treasure trove of objects she used in her illustrations, included her grandmother\u2019s cane chair in the miniature world she created. She had no use for the limiting expectations of society for a woman of her social class, left 4,000 acres of bucolic landscape to the National Trust, and coaxed a dwindling breed of sheep back from the brink of extinction. In many ways, she was far ahead of her time. Did I mention she loved dogs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The finale of the exhibit immersed the visitor in Beatrix Potter’s world with a floor-to-ceiling video loop of her beloved lake district. It spoke to the nature lover and knitter in me. Well played, V&A. Well played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n