Museum Hopper

I was recently in Ann Arbor for a week attending Executive Education at Michigan Ross, which was a wonderful experience.   As part of the training, they took us to the Kelsey Museum in Ann arbor for dinner.   But of course, we had to work/spent time contemplating to earn our keep (aka our dinner).   We were let loose in the museum with the charge of finding an artifact that reflected our leadership style.   I really enjoyed our visit to the museum and re-iterate a number of my earlier comments about the museum.   The museum chair has done a really nice job at making the museum approachable, edited and relevant.   I had not realized what a large collection it is.   The curator has been part of an amazing number of digs.   The woman introducing him a number of pretty great statistics about the size and importance of the collection.      I ended up using a carving of an archer to represent my leadership.   The archer...

this is a little late!  whoops!  i participated in the women's football academy at the university of michigan a few weeks ago.  i went with my future mother-in-law and sister-in-law!  we had so much fun!  part of the day was time to visit the schembechler hall football museum.  it is located in schembechler hall , but seems to have very limited hours.   if you have ever wondered where all the trophies and cups that the football team wins, schembechler hall is the answer.  they are all in there! 2012 sugar bowl trophy! yep, they have a placeholder for the trophy! i saw a heisman, the brown jug and numerous capital bowl trophies!   i really enjoyed it!  they had details as well about some of our more memorable players including president ford ! if it is open and you have a chance to go, i would definitely recommend it! time in museum: 30 minutes times visited: 2 overall: A-

i visited the university of michigan museum of art last thursday night for a reception for the 65th anniversary of the monroe street journal .  the msj had a beautiful reception in the old main hall with appetizers and wine.  the museum of art had some of the galleries open for us to walk through and visit.  the art looked wonderful with the spotlights and the mood lighting.  they kept the galleries protected with guards making sure that no food or beverages entered the galleries.  i was surprised at how spacious the front reception was.  it easily held about 250 people in it and could have had another 100 people.  the food, overall, was delicious as well.   it was just beautiful.  i was very impressed with the reception and how nicely the museum switched to a venue for a celebratory reception.   times visited: 3 time in museum: 3 hrs  overall: B+

at the end of finals, i went to the exhibit museum of natural history with my friend, daphne!  i remember going to this museum as a 2nd grader after we learned about the dinosaurs.    we had lots of fun.  it is a very "old school" museum although i do think bits and pieces are being updated.  daphne noticed that it had a lot of words/descriptions, much more than you see in the newer museums.  we saw dinosaurs, wolly mammoths and lots of different rocks and crystals. we thought it would be great for any families that had young children.  while we were there, they had a tour for children and the tour leader was great.  we felt like it could use a little face lift, but it was lots of fun for a quick (free) excursion! times visited: 1 time spent in museum: a little under 2 hours overall: B

this past friday, my boyfriend and i went to the ann arbor hands-on museum for a little outing!  we walked over there about an hour and some odd minutes before it closed.   i had been to the museum once before when i was in undergrad (why...i can't tell you).   it was smaller than jason thought it would be.  jason really liked the optics floor and i liked the " world around you " exhibit.  we played with lights, some digital media.  it was very hands-on (obviously).  they had some really interesting noise exhibits as well.  the gift shop seemed fantastic. i think we wished we had gotten there about 15 minutes sooner.  we were a little rushed near the end.  also, some of the exhibits were slightly broken or not working properly, which was disappointing.  overall though, we had more fun than we expected.  times visited: 2 time in museum: 1 1/4 hrs overall: B+

i went to the ford presidential library last week after having gone for some reason when i went to michigan for undergrad. as a little background, president ford went to the university of michigan for undergrad majoring in economics.  he played center on the michigan football team and was also named to the all-american team in 1935.  the library is quite lovely up north.  it is not very large, but what exists is quite well done.  there is a section covering the first lady ford, president ford's university of michigan involvement and his career in michigan politics leading up to his presidential career.  the library also has a few of the presents president ford received during his presidency.  the negative: it was tiny.  also, i was literally the only person in museum besides the museum employees.  while i was there, i was obviously looking at the exhibits and they were standing around one of the cases.  i definitely was not going to ...

i went to the kelsey museum of archaeology today.  what a gem!  i was very pleasantly surprised and could not believe that i had never been there before!  it reminded me of a smaller scale british museum with perhaps a slightly lower caliber of items.  it also was purely focused on mediterranean items whereas the british museum does have asian and other areas as well.  when i was graduating undergrad, they were just starting a remodel on this museum, and it appears that the money was well spent!   i was impressed with the quality and variety of the items they had.  they had great descriptions of each item as well as nice overviews of each particular set of objects and their importance in the museum as a whole.  they had sections primarily on greece, egypt and rome.  i liked that they had a mixture of objects: bowls to funeral adornments to pieces of ancient columns.   i will definitely keep my eye on this museum to see if ...

i visited the william l. clements library before my last final on thursday.  i had stopped by the library a few times before it was finally open.   before you go, definitely check the hours.  i stopped in.  there were literally 6 of us in the library.  they had two glass tables with the manuscripts about for the sugar in the atlantic world: trade and taste exhibit.  one of the tables had all the books, letters and manuscripts regarding the "trade" aspect of the exhibit.  i thought it was an interesting comparison to the exhibit i visited at the new york historical society regarding the cotton trade covering roughly the same time period.  the other table discussed how sugar started to appear in more recipes in america around that time.  the library had a number of cookbooks, full of sweets, candy, and cakes.   the library also had a set of cases regarding previous controversial books at some point in history.  they h...

i headed back to university of michigan museum of art yesterday to finish up what i had started two weeks ago  (see blog post from earlier visit here ).  i visited the upstairs permanent exhibitions this time as well as spending about 15 minutes in the special exhibit.   as i headed upstairs, i was struck by the number of tiffany artifacts as well as the comfortable chairs to view exhibit materials. the special exhibit is currently on beauty and the everyday: the prints of james mcneill whistler .  it was quite interesting; i have never seen an exhibit so singularly devoted to the making of prints.  whistler did a number of etchings and dry points.  the exhibit clearly described the process, which i was not familiar with.  i thought it was really interesting that the prints change throughout the pressing process; therefore, the first print does not always look exactly like the third, which does not look like the sixth.  nearly all the w...

i recently started attending the university of michigan ross school of business for my mba degree.  ross just opened up a brand new building filled with beautiful art.  kathleen dolan is the curator and calls it " ross art ."  as she states, it is a collection of modern art mostly concentrating on art created since the 1960s.  it is a collection of photography, painting, and sculpture literally filling in the school.   Alexander Calder as you enter the new ross building, there is a pamphlet which contains a list of all the art.  at the top though (this surprised me), it lists a number you can call to get descriptions of about 10 pieces of art!  today, i called those and listened to the descriptions.   i enjoy her selections.  my personal favorites are right outside the zell lurie institute.  they are by frank stella and alexander calder; coincidentally they had created two out of the four bwm " art cars " on view last year....

i moved to ann arbor a few weeks and it was definitely time to visit a museum! i figured the first stop should be the university of michigan museum of art . they recently completed an addition on this museum which was started when i was wrapping undergrad at the university. this new wing, the maxine and stuart frankel and the frankel family wing, contains new modern and contemporary exhibits. the museum was not crowded, but definitely was not empty. it was a nice level of busyness. i only visited the first floor of the museum figuring i will go back and visit the second floor. the first floor of the "old" wing, alumni memorial hall, contains european (renaissance and 18th century) and american art. it was a refreshing mix of paintings, sculptures and artifacts. the art was quite beautiful although tended to be lesser known artists. i really enjoyed the renaissance sculptures on the main floor as well as the large american landscape paintings. i did not enjoy...