Rockwell Museum of Western Art – Corning, NY (Location)
We stayed in the Radisson Hotel overnight. Comfortable beds and a nice sleep until someone decided to start using a concrete drill in the room above us! The day started off with low cloud or fog obscuring our view of the hill across from the hotel but that soon lifted and , with the sun shining brightly, the temperature began to climb. We had no interest in staying in our room with the drilling going on overhead so quickly packed our bags and headed to the parking lot. We had chosen the Radisson, in part, because of its proximity to everything that we wanted to see so with everything packed away safely in our Subaru Forester, we found a nice place to eat and began our day of exploring. Considering my comments on the United States Postal Service in the previous blog entry, it was only fitting that one of their vehicles (not the bright red Ferrari of the previous post) should be just waiting for me to arrive.
As mentioned in the previous post, much of Corning NY activity centers on the glass industry with many buildings, signs and districts reflecting and using terminology relating to the glass industry. In the glass industry, three furnaces are used in glass blowing and molding process.
The first of the furnaces which is used to melt the initial glass block to a molten state is simply referred to as the ‘furnace’, while the second furnace, which is used to warm the glass during the blowing stages is referred to as the “Glory Hole”, and the final furnace used for the controlled cooling of the glass is referred to as the “Annealer” furnace.
Our interest for the morning was to visit the Rockwell Museum of Western Art. The fact that it has a buffalo head sticking out of the second story wall might give away the nature of the building and what is inside.
The main floor entrance provides access to the gift shop and reception area. May 2012 entrance fees were $8/person with $1 off for seniors, AAA members and students. Military and under 19 were Free. A $4 admission fee applied to local area residents from specific ZIP codes. A combo fee was also available for those wishing to visit both the Rockwell Museum of Western Art and the Corning Museum of Glass and a shuttle bus traveled between those two locations.
From the main floor, a broad staircase leads visitors up to the many exhibit areas on the two floors above.
Photography is permitted without flash in most of the exhibit area. There are exceptions where no photography of the exhibits is permitted but the signs are rather small and I missed the sign on one occasion. A security guard approached me politely and pointed out the location of the sign :-).
The special exhibition on display until the end of May, “Comic Art Indigene” is housed in two galleries exhibition areas, one on the second floor and one on the floor above.
The pieces on display reflect the many ways in which individuals (Choctow, Pueblo, and Navajo are represented) use cartooning to spread the news, entertain their neighbors or get a point across and in some instances cross cultural barriers. Some of the titles included an action series “Protector of Innocence” ; “When Titans Collide” showed lots of combat;  a beaded bracelet portraying “Wonder Woman” featured native beadwork styles; others with titles such as “Objectification” and “I Shall Call Her Freedom” dealt with the status of women. (My interpretations could be completely wrong but the cartoon art work was definitely an interesting exhibit to see)
My favourite room in the building was the Remington and Russel Lodge room featuring sculptures by Frederic Remington (1869 – 1909) – The Bronco Buster and the Mountain Man, a nice pistol display and a selection of artwork.  Most appealing though was just the layout, comfortable lighting and openess of the room. Click on the information sheet to see larger print.
 
Whitneyville Hartford Dragoon Revolver (More info about this model of revolver)
Walker Revolver c.1848 (More info about this model of revolver)
Colt’s Texas Paterson Holster Revolver (More info about this model of revolver)
 
Leaving the Lodge room behind, I headed for the third floor while my wife continued to enjoy looking at the Comic Art Ingenie exhibits.
The staircase to the third floor opens out into a spacious open area with a number of separate gallery exhibition rooms off to the sides.
 
An interesting museum to visit and worth the price of admission. It would have been easy to spend more time here and look at the fine detail of the many paintings and exhibits but we had to be on our way to our next destination – The Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania.
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