Welcome! As curator of one of the “scrappiest” and “most random” collections of artwork in this entire apartment building, it is my pleasure to invite you within to peruse the prints, paintings, and other objets d’art that I have collected throughout my vast and varied travels to exotic locations like St. Paul, Minnesota, and the Episcopal Church near my parents’ house. Please, enjoy—and no flash photography.

 

Unicorn Tapestries poster
Source: The Cloisters gift shop
Obtained during an eagerly-anticipated fifth grade field trip to the Cloisters, this piece has been in the collection an impressive fifteen years. The pure white unicorn might symbolize Christ, maybe, or virginity, or something; fifth grade was a long time ago and nobody took notes. Wait, the pomegranate bursting with seeds onto the unicorn’s butt might ALSO symbolize Christ. We will get back to you on this.
Estimated value: Priceless

 

“Portia”
Source: Sara, friend of the gallery
A birthday present for the curator’s fourteenth birthday, this striking portrait of Thornburgh’s goth alter ego Portia has adorned everything from the lime-green walls of her teenage bedroom to the “I can’t be bothered to paint over the white” walls of her adult bedroom. The artist would probably be really embarrassed if she knew it was still on display, and as such it is a permanent fixture in the gallery, never to be moved.
Estimated value: Extremely sentimental

 

Old medieval music
Source: Aunt (and eBay)
Probably the most “legitimate” piece of “art,” in the Thornburgh Gallery, this dried-up piece of medieval sheepskin features neumes (like old-timey notes), a big red letter, and words that the curator has not bothered to figure out yet.
Estimated value: Fifty gold florins

 

Print of the temple at Carthage
Source: Episcopal church tag sale
It’s a temple! It’s in Carthage! It’s got a weird glob of something sticky on the back that melts into a suspicious ectoplasm-like trail when it gets too hot inside!
Estimated value: $2

 

Art Nouveau Bach evangelists poster
Source: It used to hang in the curator’s parents’ house until she made them give it to her
Both Bach and Art Nouveau are favorites of the gallery curator; she would like you to know that she is VERY CULTURED. Although the curator’s mother insisted in 2015 that the piece should “really be in a less crappy frame,” it has remained in its original arrangement. This print has provoked much scholarly inquiry on the part of the curator. Specifically, like, do you ever feel like Matthew got ripped off when they were assigning Evangelist Symbols™?
“Okay, cool, so Mark’s gonna be a lion, Luke’s gonna be a bull, John’s gonna be an eagle, and Matthew…uh, you can be a man?”
“…”
“Nah, but like, a really COOL man.”
Estimated value: 30 pieces of silver

 

Scenes from Shakespeare
Source: Etsy
These rosebud-mouthed vaguely pre-Raphaelite book illustrations depict various scenes from the plays of William Shakespeare. Originally from children’s storybooks, they were carefully hand-framed in artisanal plastic frames from the craft supplies store. Uneven margins indicate that scissors may have been used to trim them to size; the viewer is invited to withhold his or her judgment because do you know how annoying it is to pop these suckers back together.
Estimated value: $30 plus the shipping from Australia

 

Stan Rogers Memorial Maritime Wall
Source: Episcopal church tag sale
Though the specific provenance of these majestic prints is unknown, historians theorize that they once graced the walls of a cigar-scented study where red-cheeked old-money Chestnut Hillers got together and talked about “the party of Lincoln.” Added to the collection in late 2014, they take their name in honor of Canadian’s premier latter-day music-of-the-sea chanteur.
Estimated value: Maybe five bucks for both

 

“Frog and Toadstool” by Rebecca McKillip Thornburgh (above); “Cicada” by David Wiesner (below)
Source: THE ARTISTS THEMSELVES
It would be unseemly for an information plaque to brag, but nonetheless: the Thornburgh gallery is in possession of not one but TWO pieces of original art by prolific illustrators of children’s books, only one of whom happens to be the curator’s mother. The Cicada was a to commemorate the curator’s first published writing, a book review in Cicada magazine (get it?). The delightful frog and toadstool was a high school graduation present whose fairy-tale like imagery and sensitive watercolor treatment is said to have provided great comfort in the super-depressed first months of college.
Estimated value: You can take these from my cold dead hands

Giant Tristan & Isolde
Source: John William Waterhouse by way of the curator’s mother
The Tristian myth is a common leitmotif throughout the gallery. This reproduction, added to the collection after Christmas 2013, is “rapturously pre-Raphaelite”; notice Isolde’s giant jaw and straight nose and peaches-and-cream complexion, Tristan’s completely anachronistic full plate armor (because, you know, that’s what you wear to go sailing), the storm-tossed seas behind them, and the general LIEBESTODiness of it all.
Estimated value: The entire dowry of an Irish princess

 

Lil Tristan & Isolde
Source: Etsy
This smaller portrait of the doomed lovers is from “The Boy’s King Arthur” by NC Wyeth. Notable for Tristan’s Prince Valiant haircut and the crack in the frame, which, rather than an intentional expression of wabi sabi, resulted from a tragic incident from wherein the curator got very mad about something and slammed her bedroom door really hard.
Estimated value: The frame is not real gold

 

Tiny animals
Source: Paternal grandmother
This petite menagerie lend a cheeky playfulness to the dust bunnies clumping on the buffet and bar area.
Estimated value: How dare you

 

“It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere”
Source: Aimee, friend of the gallery
Having established a reputation for a persona she called “Facebook wine mom,” the curator was given this quaint cross-stitched plaque by her friend Aimee in January 2016. Today it rests behind the bottle of brandy bought to make sangria one time last summer, serving as a cheeky reminder to carpe diem and live life to the fullest.
Estimated value: [hiccup]

 

Tiny books
Source: Blair Thornburgh herself
As a reprieve from her job editing books, her other job writing books, and her schoolwork writing about books, the curator participated in a class on bookmaking and book arts in the fall of 2014. Bookmaking is a delicate and ancient art involving things called “bone folder” and a “kettle stitch.” The hobby was abandoned soon after the class was completed, archival-quality book glue being prohibitively expensive.
Estimated value: At least $27 worth of book glue

“Christmas chains”
Source: Blair again
The bookbinding class left a lot of leftover paper lying around, which was repurposed in a fit of decorative Yuletide inspiration into a bunch of festive chains. Astute viewers will not that there’s not really anything particularly Christmassy about them, which is good because they will probably never come down until the painter’s tape wears off or a landlord insists on their removal. Nevertheless, their presence invites visitors to consider art as omnipresent in all dimensions of the gallery.
Estimated value: $1.50

Thank you and come again! Be sure to grab a postcard on your way out!