Museum of Salt & Pepper Shakers

During our October 2018 stay in Gatlinburg, Tennessee (see previous post), we selected just one of the many tourist themed museums to visit: The Museum of Salt and Pepper Shakers. Well away from the frenzied crowds of the downtown tourist area, this experience was fun and unique, and a feast for the eyes with an amazing amount of visual detail.

This charming museum houses more than 20,000 pairs of salt and pepper shakers from all over the world. The museum was founded in 2002 by Andrea Ludden, a Belgian archaeologist, with the goal to show the creativity of all the artists that have crafted an everyday item into a myriad of shapes and materials. There is also a sister museum in El Castell de Guadalest, Alicante, Spain, which displays another 20,000 pair.

Andrea started collecting pepper mills in 1984, and very soon after that salt and pepper shakers became the focus of her collection. The museum itself appears to be a converted house, with the rooms dividing and organizing the different collections and galleries. The many display cases exhibit shakers in dozens of categories, including Christmas, Plastic, Americana, Amish, Wood, Vegetables, Transportation, Chefs, Foods, Drinks, Chickens, Cows, Cats and Dogs, Wild Animals, Marine, Characters, Souvenirs, Asian, Glass, Metals and Delft. The shakers are also organized by material and color, and if a particular set comes in more than one color, these are included to show all the possibilities.

The shakers on display are not for sale, but there is a small gift shop with a generous selection of salt and pepper shakers that are available for purchase. Andrea’s stated purpose for the museum is that it be both entertaining and educational, to see how civilizations can change, and to see one aspect of those changes through the evolution of salt and pepper shakers. The museum is often visited by art students and home schoolers, and is a dog-friendly establishment.

The price of admission was just $3 each, more than worth the experience. The designs ranged from fun and frivolous, to intricate and artistic; covered the gamut from whimsical to functional, with many capturing the social, political, and entertainment themes of the day. It would take several visits to really take it all in, there was so much detail, over so many displays. We were welcome to take pictures, which only hint at what it was like to be there in person, but here at least is a little glimpse of the collection.

Pima Air and Space Museum (Tucson, Arizona)

I find myself conflicted about visiting places like the Pima Air and Space Museum because I assume the emphasis of the exhibits will be all about war. I don’t understand war, don’t support war, and don’t like being subjected to war propaganda. I also understand that most people don’t relish the thought of war, and that despite our deepest desire to not see any countries in conflict, the possibility will always exist that at the very least we may have to defend lives on our own turf. (I try to keep this thought first and foremost when walking through museums of this type.) And while the Pima Air and Space Museum did have its share of war related and military machinery, it also had many other displays that I found quite fascinating.

There was the airplane once recognized as the world’s smallest aircraft, known as The Bumblebee; mechanical displays of intricate engine design; home-built airplanes made from “kits”; space travel; aircraft depicted in the movies; a huge exhibit devoted to Women in Flight; and brightly painted planes of all imaginable shapes and sizes.

There were many examples of “nose art”, paintings on the fuselage of airplanes during World War II, a form of aircraft graffiti. At first I was slightly uncomfortable with what seemed to me the trivialization of something that should be somber and entered into regretfully. But after reading some of the history of this custom I had a greater understanding of how this practice provided an outlet for military personnel to express individuality, evoke memories of home and peacetime life, and as a kind of psychological protection against the stresses of war and the probability of death.

Another kind of graffiti was also on display in the Round Trip: Art From The Boneyard Project, which resurrects disused airplanes from America’s military history and puts them into the hands of contemporary graffiti and street artists from around the world. Here, entire airplanes were painted with colorful and imaginative scenes by thirty different artists.

We concluded our visit with the hour long bus tour of The Boneyard, where an on-board docent narrated our drive through more than 4000 aircraft from the Air Force, Navy-Marine Corps, Army, Coast Guard, and NASA. These craft, resting on over 80-acres, are in varying degrees of storage, regeneration, or preparing to be recycled.