art museum

Today we visited the Phoenix Art Museum. It was planned as an outing for my mom's group - but we were the only family that went. Thursdays are always free - so it's a great, inexpensive outing. While it would have been nice to visit with other moms, we still had a nice morning! They are currently remodeling, and I am excited to see what they have in store for the kids area now. It used to be a neat area with chalkboard walls, big building blocks and lots of books. Next month, they open a new kid area - and have added a special kid area on their website.

N's favorite exhibits were from the Western Gallery. He enjoyed looking at the sculptures, especially - and really liked one that was a bigger-than-life-size sculpture of an Indian Chief and Remington's Mountain Man. C preferred the prettier pictures - mostly floral - Monet's Flowering Gardens, Giverny, and Joseph Stella's Flowers stand out as 2 of his favorites.

They also enjoyed a number of the Renaissance period Madonnas that the museum has. N kept saying "Hey, there's another Mary! They must know how important she is since they have so many of her!"

My favorite piece this visit was one called "Amid the fireflies" (or something like that). You walked through a curtain into a darkened room that had hundreds of hanging tiny lights that changed colors and the walls were covered in mirrors. It was really neat to stand in there - but it freaked N out. He was afraid he was going to fall. It wasn't a very big room - but with all the mirrors, and N so worried that I had a hard time finding the exit (you exited the opposite side you entered from). Thankfully, one of the guards peeked in and flashed his light towards the exit for me. It was neat, too, because they only let one group in at a time.

A visit to the gift shop (where I purchased a couple books - they had a kids book about Degas clearanced! - and the boys got magnetic rocks) and then home again! Definitely a nice outing!