Lacey takes Erica to the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art

Awesome BFF necklaces from Kelsey's Patch on Etsy, our delicious lunch at Blackbird Gastro Pub, then the art museum!

I had a four-day weekend over the Labor Day holiday. \(^_^)/ On my Friday off, I revisited my old stomping grounds... The University of Oklahoma. I graduated in December of 2007 and haven't really been back much to visit. The campus has received a complete face lift --OMG new buildings everywhere-- and Campus Corner is almost unrecognizable. (All of my favorite bars are gone!) Anyway, Lacey is finishing up her graduate studies in art history and also interning at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art. I went to the art museum once as a student but this time I would be going with a museum employee who knew all the best exhibits and could give me detailed information on the collections. My own personal tour guide; I was pumped!

I honestly don't know who that is in the photograph. I took the picture for the puppies.

We started on the top floor, which housed the Ellen and Richard L. Sandor Photography Gallery. The exhibition was Visage: Photography from the Permanent Collection. This was the current showcase at the museum. The exhibit entailed numerous black and white photographs of interesting and/or famous individuals. There were a few photographs of Igor Stravinsky. There included one that he sat for professionally and then a few candid of him composing & conducting. I have a CD of his symphonies; I used to play it as background noise when I studied so I thought getting to see photographs of him at work was pretty neat. Also pretty neat was a photograph of David Phelps (below). He sculpted the Pastoral Dreamer, which is my absolute favorite piece of art on campus. Lacey & I used to walk around campus for exercise and we always made a point to visit Carl (the name I gave to the Pastoral Dreamer). Then when friends & family came to visit, I always took them to see Carl. Today, I got to see Carl's dad. LOL

(Sorry guys, I can't undo this goddamn highlighting. It always does this to me when I copy & paste, which is what I did to get the link to the exhibit.)

The next floor housed the Art of the Americas and the Eugene B. Adkins Collection. It was mostly Native American art. Many paintings, clay vases and tribal jewelry. My interests don't really get piqued by Native American art but it was still an interesting collection. And a very large collection. Lacey noticed it was already 4:30pm. The museum closes at 5pm and we still had 2 floors to go! I was determined to see the entire museum because I didn't know when I would have another day off to return. 

This painting came the year I visited the museum as a student. I remember because I received a poster replica which I hung on my wall for several years.

We had to breeze through the first floor and basement area. I would rather have taken my time but that's what I did on the second & third floors to get us in this mess. I'm sure Lacey was glad I didn't have time to ask her too many questions. Haha! The first floor was my favorite. It housed the Asian and European art collections. The Asian Art collection is getting rotated out because the museum has more pieces in storage and it is also receiving a donation. Part of Lacey's job is to determine which artists are already represented by the museum so the curator knows what to accept from the donation. She's also been researching contemporary Chinese artists. So much more fun than my job.

Also on the first floor was the James T. Bialac Collection. Mr. Bialac gifted his collection of over 4,000 pieces of indigenous art to the museum. I know I mentioned earlier that I didn't find Native American art very sexy but this collection was different. The pieces were colorful and vibrant. There was a piece that looked like an oil painting but was really constructed from yarn. There were also the pieces above, which were constructed from wood and beads. 

The last part of the first floor was the sculptures. Lacey filled me in on which sculptures get rotated in and out of the museum (The Mustang does quite frequently) and which ones were going back into storage. She has the coolest job as an intern. She works directly under the curator and is the first to see all the new pieces that come in. She said she watched as the curator unwrapped a vase that was donated by Mr. Bialac. She performs various tasks for the curator, such as drafting the descriptive note cards that accompany each piece of art, so her boss can focus primarily on curating.

@fjjma #allthefeels #happiness #joyful #hunger

Lastly, was the contemporary art in the basement. There was an interactive exhibit of various paintings. The goal was to engage the audience and gain exposure on social media. The exhibit encouraged visitors to take pictures of the artwork and then post them on social media using hashtags representing the emotions that the artwork evoked. There was a piece of installation art that was a tv screen laid on the floor with green bubbles on it. You blow through this long tube to move the bubbles on the screen, so pretty much, you're the artist determining the arrangement of bubbles on the floor. It was really neat. We ran through the entire basement in less than 15 minutes (one of the security guards reminded us that the museum was closing very soon) so I couldn't appreciate the art as much as I wanted to. 

@fjjma #allthefeels #sad #anger #dammitjustletthatpuppyin

I had a very enjoyable afternoon at the art museum. I wish we had another 2 hours so we could properly experience the first floor's and basement's collections. The museum is free and definitely worth an afternoon's visit. There is so much there; I think it rivals the Oklahoma City Museum of Art in its permanent collections. Lacey couldn't answer all of my questions, probably because they were dumb (Does anyone know why that woman in the sculpture has two horses' heads for legs? And how come interns can't touch the art?...Doesn't seem fair that she can't touch anything.) but she did make my visit a lot more fulfilling. Our last stop was the gift shop. It was small but jam packed with fun, nerdy, art souvenirs. I got these badass socks for myself and Wes. Totally wearing them to conquer Open Enrollment season at my job (the smaller girl's pair reads "badass" on the top).

All in all, a very good day! I would definitely recommend going to the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art on the University of Oklahoma campus and I would love to return myself.  Let me know if you want to go!