Welcome Back!

By Louise Irvine

Visitors flocked to WMODA on November 19th to say goodbye to the museum in its Dania Beach location. They revisited favorite exhibits and reminisced about memorable events with the WMODA team of staff and volunteers. Louise was taken even further back down memory lane by Pam Smith of the Hollywood Antiques Club who brought in an article she had saved from 1988!

Long before WMODA was ever imagined, Louise worked for Royal Doulton and helped reunite a monumental vase shown at the Chicago World’s Fair with its original owners at Northwestern University Guild. As she unveiled the vase for the local press, she had no idea that 35 years later she would be looking after its mate, the Maharaja vase at WMODA. Read more.

Multi-disciplinary artist, Dave Rosenthal, helped us capture many new memories for the WMODA archive. He has been shooting videos and photographs so that we have a record of the museum experience for posterity. Public artist, Lloyd Goradesky, is also helping us to gather film footage that he has taken over the years so that we can continue to keep in touch with our audience at home and abroad while we are temporarily closed to the public. Send us any favorite photos that you would like to share to [email protected]

George Hawthorn, our “voluntold” has also been busy photographing the exhibits as has Julio “Flipper” DiFilippo. They were both at WMODA on Saturday taking photos, greeting guests and answering questions alongside other long-standing volunteers, Jim Read and Claudia Bailey. They will all continue to work behind the scenes to help with our move. We are also happy to welcome Alain Montour, our newest volunteer, who is assisting us with data management.

Many guests shopped for the Holidays and chatted to the artists who joined us for the occasion, including Chelsea Rousso, Anne Orvieto, Scherry Donato and Mirela Popovici. Guests also arrived with contributions for the food and toy drives organized by our logistics manager, Luis Montanez. The Thanksgiving box was filled to the brim when the team from Work2Live picked it up in the afternoon. It won’t be long until the toys leave also to create some Christmas joy for the less fortunate children in our community.

Curious guests peeped behind the scenes to see the expert packers at work on some of the most complex monumental pieces. It has taken us 8 years to build the WMODA galleries and we have 8 weeks to take them down! In February, we will start moving everything to our new location and we hope to open again in the spring. Keep following us Through the Looking Glass for progress reports and details of our new home.

Thank you to the WMODA team of staff and volunteers for making our museum the #1 visitor attraction in Dania Beach for the last six years according to Tripadvisor travelers. We look forward to seeing you again in 2023 and in the meantime, we wish you all a very happy Holiday season!.