Garth Amundson in Ballard

On Sunday I toodled over to Ballard, Seattle’s fine Scandinavian neighborhood to visit the Nordic Heritage Museum.

There was a great little Marimekko exhibit too, tucked away in the Finland room and put together by one of the Museology students from the University of Washington. The N.H.M. should be capitalizing on these funny little pieces of culture they have tucked away- I literally stumbled upon it and it was a treat.

There were many displays focusing on not only the five countries of Scandinavia, but also the history of Scandinavian immigration to Seattle (and thus Ballard), impacting our logging and fishing industries.

The main reason I went was to see the exhibit by Garth Amundson, in the contemporary gallery on the third floor. Amundson, as I mentioned last week, is a photographer who manipulates and crafts his own lens contraptions out of clear plastic. It was a bright sunny day when I was visiting and the installation looked very elegant in the light. Definitely worth checking out, and if you have lived in Seattle with out ever visiting this Scandinavian outpost in Ballard, you owe it to yourself!

Afterwards I met up with my sister at the trendy Cupcake Royale . Even a few years ago people were still joking that quiet Ballard was for the “newly weds and nearly deads”, but I don’t think that is the case now at all.