As if wandering the golden streets of Izamal weren’t enough to make a visitor smile, this little town in the Mexican Yucatán has another treat hiding behind those yellow facades: a cultural center bursting with Read More …
With skyscrapers all around, it seems a bit superfluous for New York City to have a museum dedicated to skyscrapers. Why look at pictures and models of skyscrapers when some of the most famous ones Read More …
If you are anywhere near Minneapolis, Minnesota, you are fortunate to have a couple more weeks to see the truly wonderful show Re-Riding History: From the Southern Plains to the Matanzas Bay at All My Read More …
Wandering the streets below Manhattan’s gleaming towers, it’s easy to believe that the city George Washington knew – the city that served (briefly) as the capitol of a fledgling nation – no longer exists. However, Read More …
There is a lot to see and do in New York City and, while there are plenty of free options, most of the marque attractions carry hefty admission fees. As if the bewildering number of Read More …
My next door neighbors are artists – serious artists who show their work in art museums . . . except they don’t actually show their work in the MSP area very often. And they aren’t Read More …
I’ll be in Phoenix, Arizona, this spring, so it seems like a good time to do a quick round-up of what will be in the some of the art museums when I arrive. At the Read More …
Like many major museums, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts offers several dining options – the best (and most expensive) of which is Bravo, the museum’s fine-dining restaurant where a menu of interesting, elegant, and delicious Read More …
Intricately detailed bronzes from Benin allow visitors at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to peek into a very different time and place. Housed together in the intimate Benin Kingdom Gallery, these 15th and Read More …
The area around Old Town Scottsdale is overflowing with glitzy galleries. When you’ve had enough of that scene, the nearby Shemer Art Center and Museum provides a change of pace. Housed in a historic home, Read More …
The Shemer Art Center is a small arts education center and museum near the foot of Camelback Mountain in Phoenix. It is a welcoming place with a large, sculpture-filled yard. Part of that yard includes Read More …
You’ll never look at one of those cut-paper snowflakes the same way after seeing Papercut! The Incredible Psaligraphy of Karen Bit Vejle at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. Psaligraphy is the art of cutting Read More …
It’s hot and even a little humid today. We should have gotten up early and gone for a hike, but we didn’t. Instead we visit the micro dwellings on display at the Shemer Art Center. Read More …
This sweet show at the University of Minnesota’s Katherine Nash Gallery almost came and went without our noticing. Almost. As it happens, late in the week I came across a short notice on the show Read More …
The Hjemkomst Center is tucked into a leafy corner of Moorhead between an apartment complex and the Red River. If you miss it and find yourself crossing the First Avenue Bridge into Fargo, just take Read More …
I’m a gardener, so the number one site on my to-do list for Marrakech was not the Djemâa el Fna or the souks or the Saadian Tombs or any of the other truly Moroccan sites Read More …
When I was in college I worked with a woman named Deb. One summer, while the rest of us took classes or worked or just goofed off, she sailed to Norway on a 76-foot homemade Read More …
The Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota has been celebrating 20 years of collecting great art since moving into the shimmering Gehry building on the Mississippi River. While the building itself is entrancing, Read More …
Milwaukee seems a bit lacking in coffee shops. This isn’t all bad though, as my search for a good spicy chai brought us to City Hall (I was clever enough to go inside and check Read More …
A “stavkirke” or “stave church” is an architectural style used for churches in Scandinavia at the end of the age of the Vikings in the 1100 and 1200s. The technique uses vertical pine posts (staves) Read More …
Along with a couple of workshops, TBEX also had a large number of tours available prior to the conference, with options that included beer tasting, urban development, specialty foods, and graffiti. Because my spouse registered Read More …
The modernist Toronto-Dominion Bank complex houses what feels like a secret gallery.This is the Toronto-Dominion Gallery of Inuit Art, which includes 200 pieces of exceptionally fine Inuit art. Most of the pieces on display were Read More …
I’m not sure Toronto belongs on this list, as my one previous visit (in 1994) left me ambivalent about this city. I loved the museums, but recall the rest of the city as a bleak, Read More …
The Kirkland Museum: Denver Public Library (which we didn’t actually visit): Denver Art Museum: Denver Botanic Garden: Next post: Day 3 in Denver and Keystone Previous post: Day 1 in Denver Blogging Colorado
The Yves Saint Laurent Retrospective is the featured attraction on our visit to the Denver Art Museum. This show has also been exhibited in Paris and Madrid – Denver is its only US stop. Lucky Read More …
The Denver Art Museum is housed in a set of iconic buildings. It’s a museum I’ve long wanted to see – at least from the outside. The original 1971 fortress-like North Building is not my Read More …
We are big fans of 20th century decorative arts, so the Kirkland Museum, with its focus on his period was high on our must-see list even before I found out that I could visit for Read More …
Istanbul’s Archaeological Museum is actually three museums, the Ancient Orient Museum, the Archaeology Museum, and the Tiled Kiosk Museum (the Çinili Pavilion). There is also a lovely garden filled with artifacts (and cats), but it Read More …
Topkapı Palace served as the primary residence of the Ottoman sultans for about 400 years (between 1465 and 1856) until Domabahçe Palace became the official residence. Established as the seat of government for the Ottoman Read More …
I don’t know why I have to wait until a show is ready to close, but I do. I did it again. We finally got to the Antiquities from Ukraine show on Saturday and Read More …
The current special exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian is A Song for the Horse Nation. It is an intelligent and stunningly beautiful show (with some of the most amazing quillwork I Read More …
The National Building Museum is one of my favorite stops in DC. More than anything, it is the museum of the built environment – so it has lots of information on architecture and urban planning, Read More …
We haven’t been to the Corcoran in many years. More than anything, this reflects our rather picky interest in art – there are a lot of things one or the other of us really likes Read More …
Lane isn’t with me and it is a stunningly gorgeous fall day outside and I am starting to feel stressed.It seems like a good time to go look at something beautiful, so I head over Read More …
Soweto – the South-Western Townships – is the largest black residential area in South Africa, but it is NOT just a teeming slum on the outskirts of Johannesburg. It has a full range of housing, Read More …
We start our exploration of the Gunflint Trail with lunch on the patio at the Gunflint Lodge. (We actually started at the Bearskin Lodge in hopes of having lunch in their lovely lake-view dining room. Read More …
My cousins aren’t big on museums, but we convince them to join us in sampling the collection at the National Museum of Denmark. Classical Rome (and the Near East) seems like a good bet (who Read More …
We visit the Danish Design Center mostly for their on-going exhibit of iconic items from the past. As we wander through, my cousin points out the dishes and telephones and other objects that she has Read More …
The Saint Croix pottery tour is this weekend – be sure to check it out!Sandra and Winthrop Byers are out at Richard Vincent‘s (along with George Lowe and others) and Win has an awesome new Read More …
Previous post: The View from Here I end up spending most of the morning working – an issue has come up – but do find time for a couple quick games of cribbage before Read More …
How can I not like a place that has greeters like those! The Burke Museum is the museum of natural history and culture for the state of Washington. While we are here mostly to check Read More …
Where better to spend a beautiful warm winter day than San Diego’s Balboa Park with its mix of architecture, gardens, culture, commerce, and kitsch? The Spanish Village Arts Center is all but deserted when we Read More …
Touring rural Sweden with my family We are spending the day touring with some of my cousins. After a leisurely breakfast we pile into a couple of cars and head out for a little local Read More …
Before I left home a colleague of mine (who would seem to greatly prefer hunting and fishing to visiting museums) told me that I really needed to go to the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. He Read More …
Not sure what the weather is going to be like this week, so perhaps a few more museums would be a good option. . . and, to keep to the architecture theme of the other Read More …
Michele and Norman are coming to visit!Norman is an architecture buff and Michele worked in downtown Minneapolis many years ago, so a tour of downtown might be a good place to start. We could start Read More …
Previous post: Hotel Modera I’m not actually expecting great things of the nearby Portland Art Museum, http://portlandartmuseum.org/ but Lane assures me I will be pleasantly surprised. Oh my, he is so right! The Native Read More …
I’m taking a photo class taught by Chris Welsch this weekend. Besides being a wonderful writer and photographer, Chris is a friend and I’ve been waiting for some time now to have the opportunity to Read More …
The Phoenix area was, of course, home to many other people before becoming a southern hot-spot for northern retirees. 2000 years ago, the Hohokam settled in this area, eventually building a large and complex community Read More …
It is horribly cold this morning, with an icy evil wind that cuts to the bone. It seems even to affect the sculpted lions trapped in the cold outside a major renovation project! Despite the Read More …
Museums are among our favorite places to spend time in DC anyway, so that seems like the perfect place to spend a cold and windy day.We start with the Renwick. This is a favorite of Read More …
Previous post:There are too many boxes of fish and too much luggage scheduled to go out with us and the other couple on our flight, but some judicious packing and an agreement to send the Read More …
Musée du quai Branly was designed to house major collections of art and artifacts from the Americas, Oceania, Asia, and Africa. Now we are here to see those collections.As I noted earlier, I love this Read More …
We start our day at the Musée National du Moyen Age (the National Museum of the Middle Ages – or simply, the Cluny), the fabulous Medieval museum housed in the 15th century residence of the Read More …
When planning this trip I came across a couple of references to the Museum Marmottan Monet. It seemed like a place we would really like. Knowing my friend Jeff is a big fan of Impressionism, Read More …
From the d’Orsay, we wander through a portion of elegant St Germain des Pres. It is a quiet afternoon in this lovely, upscale neighborhood. We are on our way to the garden at the Rodin Read More …
The Musée d’Orsay is housed in a former train station and retains some of its glorious detail from those days. It makes for a dramatic display space. But we aren’t interested in the sculpture collection Read More …
After spending the morning with aunt C, we are again off to see a bit more of the city. We start at the Library of Congress. For the past few days we have been debating Read More …
Perhaps we should be in church today, but it is easy to convince Ken and Hazel to take us out for another hike instead. But first, a scenic drive along quiet back roads. The surrounding Read More …
We are a little late getting going, mostly because I hadn’t even begun packing in advance. (It was a busy week.) I’m ok with that as we start off, but get increasingly frustrated as the Read More …
We pass vibrant markets and quiet back streets as we enter the heart of Coptic Cairo. Our first stop here is the recently reopened Coptic museum, which sits in an open courtyard behind the huge Read More …
I thought 9 am would feel like a late start, but I am exhausted. This is way too early after such long journey and too-late dinner! I’m still feeling groggy and a little ill when Read More …
After settling into our hotel, the itinerary for the day promises: This afternoon enjoy a tour of both colonial and modern Lima, founded in 1535. . . See the historical center and the San Francisco Read More …