September 26th was the Smithsonian's free museum day. Being the museophile that I am (totally just made up that word), I insisted that we visit one of the participating museums in our area. I picked the High Museum of Art for several reasons. David and I had visited the museum pre-kids, but we had never taken the kids there and haven't really visited any art museums with them. We've tended to favor natural history/history museums that are a little more interesting for kids. The High is an excellent art museum but it also has a hefty admission price so I definitely wanted to take advantage of a free visit. Plus they currently have an exhibition of Mo Williem's artwork and I thought the girls would be interested in that since they love the Pigeon books.
Our first stop, of course, was the Mo Williems' exhibit. He's the author/illustrator of several children's books including "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" and "Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs." His pigeon series are some of the girls' favorites. Adelaide has been reading "The Pigeon Needs a Bath" to herself every night for the last two weeks.
They had several tables and chairs set up in the exhibit with lots of his books and David laughed to realize that we've pretty much read all of his works. His style is very fun and whimsical, much in the style of Dr. Seuss.
After the Mo Willems' exhibit, we stopped at the outdoor patio to eat some snacks and enjoyed a very large exhibit of apples and pears.
We then hit the Family Learning Center which had a cardboard bus (with a pigeon at the wheel!) which the girls loved dashing in and out of. They also had some puppets and blocks.
They also had an exhibit about the design of the Coke bottle being that this is Atlanta (home of Coke) and Coke's 100th anniversary. It was a fascinating exhibit. But I love anything that has to do with design and American culture.
We then toured the permanent collection of European and American art. The design of the museum is really interesting. The four floors are assessed through a series of ramps that line the interior of the museum space and culminate in a huge open sky light.
At the bottom floor of the main wing is an art installation called Utah Sky by Michael Lin. Adelaide thought it was wonderful to dance across the flowers....
...and then plopped herself right down to make flower angels or something. She was having a grand ole time.
It rained all weekend and was still drizzling pretty steadily as we left the museum but the girls wanted to play on the spinning tops, an interactive art installation in the museum's courtyard.
They are made from a variety of ropes and pipes of various designs and colors and spin like the Tea Cups at Disneyland.
The girls and I (with Benjamin strapped to my chest) got inside while David pushed us around and around. I used to love the Tea Cups but I may be getting too old. I felt quite sick getting off but the girls loved it. And although we emerged with wet butts, we all enjoyed our day at the museum.
