On Fri, 31 May 1996, Jan-Erik Nilsson wrote: > >we have a lot of trouble with ethnographical > >objects and we're never shure if it's the soul of all these stolen god's > >ore simply PCP and dioxin. > > > How about souls? I have a Chinese Tang dynasty (ca 750 AD) stone figure of a > young girl. Technically I think it4s a fake but it4s still a good sculpture. > This thing has such a presence that I can feel this "girl" looking a me > across the room. > Does someone else have this feeling about things? I have such feelings about *many* things in museums, especially items that were once the personal property of great (and good) people, and stone-age tools. My deepest reaction always comes from James Hampton's altar assembly at the National Museum of American Art in Washington DC, a tinfoil and found-object construction over which he labored joyfully for many years in a back-alley garage. It affects me more powerfully than the great European cathedrals I have visited, and makes me wish I had known Mr. Hampton. Or rather, it makes me feel I *do* know Mr. Hampton, and wish I were more like him. Hank Burchard * <[log in to unmask]> * Washington DC | USA