The Maridon Museum

Among the summer fun Dear Husband and I had was a day trip to Butler, PA, an hour north of Pittsburgh. First we visited the Maridon Museum, an impressive private collection of Japonisme assembled by Mary Hulton Phillips (1920-2009). The museum's name combines hers and her husband's (Donald). To the left you can see "the scholar's table," complete with scroll and all the tools he would need to shape his brushes and mix his paints.

The unassuming building houses 800 items, including jade and ivory sculptures, textiles, and furniture. There is a whole wall of tiny netsuke (purse-string weights) set in front of mirrors so you can appreciate the carvings from all angles.  Below is a set of life-sized peacocks carved out of jade. We learned about symbols such as ruyi fungus for success, carp swimming upstream for perseverance, and bamboo for the scholar who bends but does not break. 

The small gallery of Meissen porcelain reminded me of the trip to the original factory I made with My Awesome Parents (MAP) on a chilly spring day in 2011 (here are all my photos on Flickr). Above is the lover the dog found under his master and mistress's bed.

The Maridon tries to be a vibrant center for Asian culture in rural Western Pennsylvania. Local school groups come for tours, there's a book club and meditation classes, and the museum hosts special events for holidays and lectures. These two suits of armor are a contemporary mixed-media sculpture called "Soldiers," created in 2002 by Fumino Hora (1959- ) and donated in 2011. They are part of an old Japanese tradition called "hina," which involved dolls of the imperial court passed down from mother to daughter meant to symbolize their happiness. Hora constructed these life-sized costumes out of brass mesh that she pleated and sewed with wire. The flat plates of metal are embossed with images from her mother's album of family photographs. Together, they make a striking testament to memory and history.


Editor's Note: This is part 1 of our trip to Butler, PA. Click here for part 2.