As we head into summer, we are already hot at WMODA! The museum team has been busy unpacking and rebuilding your favorite galleries and more. Our reference library of British ceramics now has a new home, and we are creating an Ardmore Design shop in the heart of the Hollywood

By Louise Irvine The African hoopoe has been popping up on Ardmore designs for decades and flitted into our thoughts again as we reset the new Ardmore gallery in Hollywood. The bird was a star of the Camp Critters textile pattern and Savuti wallpaper design and interacts with monkeys and

By Louise Irvine Wine has been made from grapes in Sicily since 4000 BC and the state of altered consciousness caused by drinking was considered a religious experience in ancient Greece and Rome. Dionysus was worshipped by the Greeks as the god of wine and he was identified as Bacchus

By Louise Irvine The Georgian and Regency eras were periods of elegant refinement with fabulous fashions and décor made famous by Bridgerton, the popular historical romance on Netflix TV. Movies inspired by Jane Austen’s novels also conjure up the style and social life of the Regency period in the early

By Louise Irvine The first Artist Showcase exhibition at WMODA featured Rose Cabat’s porcelain “Feelies” to celebrate her 100th birthday on June 27th, 2014. At that time, Rose was the oldest practicing ceramic artist in America and she was still working at her potter’s wheel. She passed away in 2015

By Louise Irvine Glass is one of the world's oldest materials created by humans and it has been used to make art for millennia. The ancient Egyptians made colored glass beads for jewelry and the Romans developed hollow molded glass vessels. Glass blowing was first practiced in the 1st century

By Louise Irvine One of the most challenging works of art to relocate to the new WMODA in Hollywood was our monumental Royal Doulton terracotta lion. It was modeled by John Broad at the Lambeth Studio in 1904 and the clay sculpture was cut into two parts to be fired

By Louise Irvine Arthur Wiener, the founder of WMODA, loves Ardmore Ceramic Art and has a vast collection at the museum which we are currently resetting. In recent years, he has also fallen in love with Ardmore Design and purchased sofas and love seats for the collection. We can’t wait

By Louise Irvine Ancient Egypt inspired the Art Deco Day celebration in Florida this year during the World Congress. Not surprisingly, there were many reincarnations of Egyptian pharaohs including Cleopatra and Tutankhamun. The discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1922 led to an Egyptomania craze during the Art Deco era.

There are lots of funny “three men” jokes including how many it takes to change a lightbulb! However, at WMODA we are very grateful to the three men who have volunteered at the museum throughout our massive moving project. George Hawthorn, Julio “Flipper” Difilippo, and Alain Montour have been stalwart