Art Outpost: February 2012

2011 Happened III

It appears that showing up at the end of the day on a Sunday is the

way to go. Imagine people winding up and down. They weren't there

when we were there! No pictures allowed in the exhibit, so what

follows are the non-exhibit pictures.

I do like it when there is art everywhere. This is the entry booth.

And this is the Mississippi River Visitor Center, just inside the doors of

the museum. And that's Melanie, standing on a map of the Mississippi

River Basin, printed right on the floor. Love that.

We didn't see a lot of the rest of the museum, as we were there pretty close

to closing time. A lot of the museum is geared towards small-ish children.

But this exhibit was tailor-made for me. Little automatons . . . many, many

of them. This tiger has a fish swimming around and around in his head

as he's typing.

Cat and cat puppet!

Right outside the museum, the other direction from the charming little square,

is the Mississippi River, complete with steam-powered showboats.

This is the view to the right of the museum on the way out.

Not picturesque in the same way as the charming square or the Mississippi

River, but after seeing this picture I love the lines and colors in it.

2011 Happened II

Yeah, the Mall of America.

It's good if you can get there when other people are not.

Good luck.

Checking in with the Lego Store from above is always fun.

Nickelodeon Universe. We didn't do rides this time.
The first time we (as in the two older daughters) were here was
when it was called Camp Snoopy and Peanuts characters ruled the day.

Just outside Cirque du Soleil's Ovo

A restaurant inside the Mall of America that serves this outrageously

fabulous dessert called a S'more Brownie.

The restaurant is appropriately named Crave.

Headed for the Science Museum of Minnesota to see the King Tutankhamen exhibit.

We found ourselves in this little square just a block away from the museum.

The street was all brick cobblestones, and right next to the St. Paul Library and just

as charming and cute as all get out. And the parking was free that day to top it off.

This was the view across the square from our parking space.

And there was a purple car. When youngest was small, we paid her a dime for
every purple car we spotted. She made a good bit of money that way. (But not a lot!)

2011 Happened

I was telling a friend yesterday that 2011 was kind of a bust for me, which it

kind of was in certain ways,

but it turns out as I look back at pictures . . .

there were some good things that happened that year.

I cleaned out Studio I. Here is one of the "before" pictures.

(There are more, but I won't subject you to that. And the "after"

pictures will come later.)

It's actually a work still in progress, but much progress has been made.

I went to Minneapolis/St. Paul twice.
Once with my mom, and once with two of my daughters.
And both times I got to see my daughter and son-in-law who live in MN.
So that's a big 2011 bonus.

The most exciting thing I saw in Minneapolis was this statue of
Mary Tyler Moore flinging her hat into the air.

"Who can turn the world on with her smile.
Who can take a nothing day,
and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile . . . "

"You're gonna make it after all . . . "

Minneapolis has cool manhole covers. I once had 4th and 5th grades design
and paint manhole covers on pizza cardboard circles, and then underneath
the cover they drew whatever imaginary scene they wanted. I put them on the
floor of the hallway on "Back to School" night and people could lift the cover
on a kind of hinge I made to see the "world" underneath.