Wes and Erica's vacation photo album // Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art // September 2023

I saw online that there is a Kusama exhibit on display and knew I needed to go!

We drove to St. Louis, MO via Bentonville, AR because Andrea suggested that we visit the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. While not the biggest fan of American or contemporary art, I decided to go because 1. it has free admission, 2. I've never visited Bentonville, and 3. it was a good half-way point on our drive. 

The Lantern Bearers, largest picture in the top center, was my favorite painting in the museum.

We stopped in the Barnes & Noble in Rogers, AR (there aren't any in Bentonville) so I could get my customary tokidoki Unicorno figurine for the trip. They claimed to have a wide selection online but there was only one lone figurine in the store and it was of a zodiac sign that didn't belong to me, Wes or the dogs, so I didn't buy it. I fully understand that superstitions aren't really true but I ALWAYS get a Unicorno at the first stop on our road trip and place it on my dash so it can "lead" us and bring us luck on the remainder of the journey.  I didn't get one in Arkansas, and when I Googled the first Wal-Mart store & museum (the other thing besides the art museum we wanted to do while we were in town) to confirm its operating hours, I found out it was closed for renovations until Spring 2024. The first sign of bad luck so I was determined to find a figurine asap. 😱

Anyway, our trip to the museum!! 🎨 - The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is pretty neat. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. 😀 I really enjoyed all the large installation pieces. (Installation art is the only form of contemporary/modern art that I really get in to.) Wes & I watched a documentary about artist, Yayoi Kusama, a few years ago that we both really enjoyed. I was SO excited when I saw on the museum's website that they have their very own Kusama installation!! It's a tiny room that is filled with bright color-changing lanterns. The walls & the floor are mirrors so it looks like you're surrounded by a zillion of them. You can go in alone or with your group, but it's really intimate so you don't go in with strangers. You get a minute to stand in there and be in awe. We went through it once together; I loved it so much that I stood in line to go in again by myself when Wes went off for a bathroom break. 

Is this not the coolest thing you've ever seen??!?!😮

Another art I wanted to experience was "the gift of song," a performance piece. There are singers dressed in plain clothes in the lobby who will come up to you and ask if you'd like a gift. If you accept, they'll sing to you. 🎶 Wes didn't want to be sung to so I went out on my own while he stayed at our table to wait on our lunch to arrive. I met the best museum volunteer ever -- an elderly gentleman who knew EVERYTHING about the museum! Firstly, he complimented me on my pants (which I made), then he offered me a Spanish map/guide (they were out of English language ones), and when I mentioned that I came for the Kusama installation, he pointed out a short cut on the map for me. We waited around for the singers to arrive but they didn't, and then the volunteer said he actually thinks he saw them walk away to go on break a little bit before I got there. I could have chatted to him forever about the museum and art trivia, but didn't want to keep Wes & our meal waiting any longer so thanked him and left.

The museum is a giant donut shape with a pond in the middle. I made a bee-line for the Kusama installation and then we walked around the rest of the museum. I stopped in the art studio, which was mostly for children but whatever, and made a "post card" for one of my pen pals. I took pictures of all the art that featured dogs 🐕 and sent a picture of the Italian greyhound sculpture to Lacey (they look exactly like her Prescilla & Wrecker! 😍) One of my favorite pieces was a series of hummingbirds. The artist camped out somewhere in Arkansas for ages studying them. Then they used all their knowledge to paint the most realistic hummingbirds ever. So beautiful!!

You must see these in person to see how detailed and amazing each painting is. This is just a sample; I think there were about 20 paintings total.

After seeing everything inside, we headed outdoors. The museum has several trails to hike and I wanted to take the Art Hike. It was less than a mile, but felt like much more because it was really warm that day (like +90℉ at the end of freakin' September😡). After we finished our hike, I noticed on the map that we missed one of the sculptures that I wanted to see but it was way too hot to go back again to find it.

There is also a Frank Lloyd Wright house on the trails. 🏡 I reserved us tickets for 4:30pm, but we got there earlier and the security guard let us in. We were the only ones in the house! The house was originally built elsewhere but the museum bought it and moved it piece by piece onto the premises. Then reassembled it all. We got little mp3 players with an audio tour of the house. The tour spoke a lot about natural light and the placement of windows, but the house was currently being renovated and their windows were covered in protective paper. 😒 So much for experiencing the wonders of natural light. LOL The house was really neat and I liked how the audio tour took us through each room. I especially liked the ultra modern functionally designed chairs. 

The house doesn't look like much from the outside but it was pretty cool inside. No photography is allowed inside, sadly.

We met Hamish, the museum cat outside of the house. The security guard told us that he lives in the neighborhood and likes to visit the house to sunbathe in the driveway and stalk squirrels in the yard. We were at the museum practically all day. We got in around lunchtime and walked out to the parking lot just as they were announcing their closing over the intercom. Reviews online state you only need 2-3 hours but I would plan for much more time. And thus concludes our visit to the art museum.

The next morning, the hotel clerk noticed Wes's Saxon shirt when we checked out. He told us he loves that band and is a huge heavy metalhead. I told him we were on our way to St. Louis to see Babymetal and he told us about every concert he's attended. He was a very nice man, talkative and friendly, but maybe too much so 😐 At one point the phone rang and he just ignored it to keep talking to us. We weren't on an extremely tight schedule but we did have to get on the road. We chatted for a bit longer and I had to end the conversation because he didn't know how to and Wes is too polite. Then we headed out... Missouri bound!! 🚗

My collection of all the artworks with dogs. 💗

Wes & Erica's Vacation Photo Album - Lincoln, NE (musuems) - February 2022

 

American Museum of Speed

International Quilt Museum

International Quilt Museum (but with pictures of quilts this time LOL)

About a month ago, Wes & I drove to Lincoln, Nebraska for a Ghost concert; we also ate some good food and visited a couple of museums. We went to the American Museum of Speed and the International Quilt Museum. We visited one per day but they're both pretty small so if you're short on time, they can be fit into a one-day museum excursion. Both were really interesting, enjoyable and worth going to if you're travelling through.

The American Museum of Speed was advertised as a hotrod and racecar museum but there were a lot fewer cars than I thought there would be. The entire first floor and some of the second floor were filled with automobiles, but the other (larger) part of the second floor was filled with random things like car parts & engines, movie posters (Wes has seen all the car & racing themed movies, I had seen none. LOL) and retro lunchboxes. The entire third floor was a display of vintage pedal cars for children and model & toy cars.  

My favorite "car" was the above pictured solar racecar. It looked crazy and tiny. The driver must have been bone-thin to be able to fit in that slender machine. I've never seen anything like it, nor did I know that solar racing across deserts was a thing so that's why I thought it was so cool. Wes said he didn't have a favorite car but the museum had all of the cars and models that he wanted to see, so he enjoyed it overall.

Another thing that I really liked (and was surprised by the fact that I enjoyed walking through the exhibit) were the pedal cars for children. I usually think model cars are boring but these ones weren't. They looked like exact replicas of what the actual cars were. I'm not sure if kids ride around in pedal cars nowadays but I'm pretty sure they don't do it in cars that looked as neat as these ones. I was very jealous. 

The International Quilt Museum looked huge from the outside but there weren't that many quilts in it. There were several galleries, but we were in & out in less than an hour. There probably could have been more quilts if the ones on display weren't GINORMOUS. I have never seen quilts so large in my entire life (and I see roughly 5-10 beautiful king-sized quilts per month at my sewing club's "sew & share" sessions)!! Only one or two quilts could fit on each gallery wall at the museum. As we were walking through the museum, the main thought running through my mind was, "How did the artists make these without losing any pieces???" People who quilt are so talented and have my utmost admiration. Each quilt on display had won some sort of award. There were all different styles of quilts represented. I only recognized the traditional ones with quilt block patterns. 

The featured gallery was a selection "modern" quilts. They were all really cool and innovative, but my favorite gallery was the first one we walked into. I don't remember the entire story, but the artist's son got really sick and was in the hospital; she started making these fabric collages depicting fireworks and she made them throughout the time he was ill. They were made from both fabric and other mixed media. They were stunning. The gallery had wooden lawn chairs for people to sit in to look at the quilts and it really did give the feeling of staring up at a fireworks show. 

Tied for my favorite gallery was the last gallery we saw. A mixed media artist made a children's book titled My Bed. Each page showed a child's bedroom from a different part of the world. The author did a lot of research to ensure the dioramas were as accurate as possible. Yes, they were adorable, but what made me really enjoy looking at them were the materials she used. Along with researching sleeping conditions around the world, she also researched fabric and art materials used in each country. She incorporated the appropriate materials into each collage. She used so many interesting things: feathers, jewelry, hair, beads and other textiles. 

Sorry the pictures are bad. The dioramas were behind glass and there was a glare.

So that concludes our road trip to Nebraska. Next on the list is a spring craft show (Alpaca Farm Days on April 2nd; I'll be posting updates on my social media). We hope to travel more this year but have nothing planned, yet.