Museum Hopper

A couple of weekends ago, I dashed into the Cincinnati Art Museum to see the Treasures of the Spanish World exhibit.  The exhibit was created by the Hispanic Society and very c learly, the descriptions were written by the Hispanic Society.  The exhibit spanned the typical exhibit hall and then also one of the other halls sometimes used for exhibit too.   With my annual membership, I had free admission to the exhibit. The exhibits starts much further back than expected, which if I had read the description closely, I would have known.  It focuses on the holistic Iberian peninsula.  The exhibit is set up chronologically and has a mixture of art mediums.  The exhibit had descriptions of the art in both English and Spanish.  As i mentioned earlier, the descriptions were definitely written by the Hispanic Society as a few of them were quite complimentary about their collection and its possessions.   So I did end up taking a bunch of pho...

A few weeks ago Jason and I attended a Night at the Museum at the Cincinnati Museum Center with the University of Michigan Alumni Association.   We had not been to the museum since it had been finished, so we were very excited about this invite.   The museum had been under construction since we moved to Cincinnati, but did finish about a year ago.   It was an extensive renovation – from what we understand costing significant dollars and was over two years.   They restored fundamentals in the building and also revamped also the exhibits.    They even uncovered additional space that could be utilized for additional exhibit capacity. U of M had brought in three different sets of faculty to provide short lectures in three of the key areas within the museum.    To start, we headed to the Dinosaur Hall to learn about fossils that had been found near the Licking River in the early 1700s.  The professor brought up a set of bones t...

While my sister was here, we also headed to the Cincinnati Art Museum . She had never been and heard my mom talk about how much she liked the Art Museum here. We started our visit out by getting brunch at the Terrace Cafe .  I had made a reservation.  I like heading there first and then going into the exhibit; I find that you miss more of the "right as it opens" crowds. We had two missions this Saturday -- review the Burning Man and Kimono exhibits! I was so excited to see the No Spectators: the Art of Burning Man .  As my sister pointed out, this is probably the closest either of us will ever get to it, so it was time to soak it all in.  The exhibit was spread throughout the museum, so the crowds were not too concentrated.  I had some idea what an "ethos" Burning Man was, but whoa.  It has its own rules, patches and clubs. Some of the engineering items were very cool.  I liked the lighting elements.  This room was really cool; how they...

My sister came and visited over the Fourth of July holiday.  The day after, we headed to the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center .  We parked at work and walked over.   The museum is free to get into.  We headed all the way up to check the children's room first.  It seemed like it would be a good stop with kids -- they had different stations set up.   We then headed downstairs to the exhibit, Creatures: When Species Meet .  What an interesting exhibit.  So, it definitely did not seem to be vegan friendly.  Animals were involved in the creation of art.  (Also it seemed like it was a lot of glitter in this exhibit -- a surprising amount).  Some of it was really cool -- some of it was definitely on the odder end of the spectrum.  I really liked the "art nests."  The artist left interesting materials around for the birds to make into nests.  This was an aquarium with fish -- the water is tested daily and t...

After lunch, we headed to the American Sign Museum .  I had never been and I had heard good things.  The museum is over on the west side in the industrial area of town.  We have not been over there much.   We used our ArtsWave pass to get a "buy one, get one" tickets.  The museum is rather expensive.  It was $15 per ticket, which is more expensive than the Art Museum and just about as expensive as the Zoo.  It doesn't necessarily have the legacy of either of those institutions. We arrived around 2:30 and caught the last 30 minutes of the tour.  I do recommend trying to catch a tour.  Ironically the museum does not have great signage -- or at least, it has a lot of it.  That being said, it has a lot of individually labeling, but I liked the tour highlighted the key elements of the museum and tied it together.  The tour highlighted the macro trends in signage (who knew such a thing existed).  And given my reaction of "w...

Over Easter weekend, we spent a rainy Saturday visiting museums with my parents.  First, we headed to the Taft Museum of Art .  I figured we would start there while my husband was wrapping up his workout and he could meet up with us later. We started with the special exhibit, Winslow Homer to Georgia O'Keeffe: American Paintings from the Phillips Collection .  It had a beautiful set of paintings.  My mother was drawn to the Edward Hopper like a moth to a flame.  One of my favorites was this spring painting of Washington Park. This was one of our favorites as well.  The dramatic sea and storms are drawn with the broad brush strokes. On the trip, we had enough time to go through museum.  The rest of the museum is the house of the Taft family.  Like the Frick , the Taft family planned on converting the house into a museum.  The art is very livable.  It even has a Goya -- although they may not have known it was a Goya at the ti...

We went to the Newport Aquarium on a Sunday rainy afternoon with my husband, his sister and her almost two year old son!   I had not been in a while and we went about two hours before close.  It was just the right amount of time.   The aquarium is not cheap -- it is worth making sure that you are in the mood and can spend as much time as you need to there.  I think they charge since they are fairly restricted in how many people can be in there.  That being said, it feels like it is always crowded.   We followed the path.  Our nephew loved splashing in the water at the different exhibits where you could touch the animals.  It did remind me of the Finding Dory scene where all the animals hide!  The turtles were great and he loved seeing those.  He kept pointing out all the fish and their colors.  He seemed more engaged at the aquarium than at the zoo.  Perhaps the zoo warmed him up?  Or getting closer to ...

A few weeks ago, I finally went to the Cincinnati Zoo !  It was one of the first nice, non-rainy Saturdays in Cincinnati, so the entire city showed up at the zoo.  My sister-in-law and almost two-year-old nephew were here, so it just seemed like destiny. Unclear if we parked in a zoo lot, but our car was there when we got back, so that's good! We got there about 2.5 hrs before it closed, but there was still a line to get in.   I feel like we did end up covering most of the zoo.  I was a little surprised at how tight the zoo really was.  I guess after the Detroit Zoo with its vast acreage, anything seems small.  Some of the areas though seemed so small for some of the animals.  A number of the animals also did not appear to be out yet...hard to tell if it was still too cold or what it was.  Most of the big cats were not for example.   That being said, we really liked the giraffe exhibit.  We really liked how they put th...

A few weeks ago, I did a girls afternoon at the Cincinnati Art Museum to see the Paris 1900: City of Entertainment .   We had a delicious brunch at the cafe.   The Paris exhibit does require tickets, but the tickets are just for the day.  They do not require a time.  I was able to use my annual pass for my ticket -- all included! I really liked the exhibit.  It was in the back two rooms on the second floor.  The artifacts were grouped by themes and it was across a variety of mediums (if you will).  I liked seeing the jewelry and paintings and sculpture and clothes.   Aren't these paintings beautiful?  It's really hard to believe that at the time they were considered so groundbreaking.  The use of light in these three paintings was really radiant, in particular the middle one.  I love the landscape, too.  The blue in that painting is very rich.   Basically this photo is for my husba...

A new museum in Cincinnati!  It's been a little while, but this one was definitely worth the wait!  Jason saw that the Taft Museum of Art was hosting an exhibit, Ansel Adams: A Photographer's Evolution .  I have never seen Ansel Adams in person before other than prints on people's walls.   We were able to get tickets through ArtsWave.   The exhibit was chronological arranged starting with some of Ansel Adams early prints.  These were probably the most rare prints of the whole exhibit.  They were smaller and had almost a dream effect to them.  Adams had stylized the prints in a technique that was popular during the time. The exhibit also had some of the same prints comparing how Adams had changed his approach around printing the pictures.  Some of the design choices around recoloring were particular obvious in his print of a New Mexico sunrise  (around the 3:11 mark). I had not realized how many of the prints that he s...

I am going to merge two different visits to the Cincinnati Art Museum into one blog post as they were distinct and well, I have been to this museum a LOT.   I went a few weeks ago to visit the new exhibit, Make Way for Ducklings: The Art of Robert McCloskey.   Robert McCloskey was a Cincinnati writer and artist for won multiple Caldecott medals and honors.  He often drew on experiences and local stories for the basis for his children's books.  Growing up, we used to read Make Way for Ducklings , which won the Caldecott based on the story of ducks in Boston Commons.  I love seeing how the sketches develop into the final illustration.  They evolve similarly to how a powerpoint deck evolves.  Tweaks here and there with sometimes a massive overhaul.  It was interesting to see how they changes the pictures to make them more engaging for the audience.  The versions comparing color vs. black and white also were interesting to see the emphasi...