Art Center Fiasco and fun

Today I finally decided that we needed to go to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. It’s been on our list of things that I need to do in the time that we live here for the last two years. But it being an adult place to go, I’ve been nervous because I always have the kids.  But since we are always doing things that we really aren't supposed to do with children anyway, taking them on free upgraded flights in first class (we're frequent flyers), going out of the country, taking them to Judo class, and the like, I thought about why this has to be so different.  And anyway, I had a free pass.

I brought the free pass that I had checked out from the library (a great program that they have here) and our two kids and the double stroller to the hottest modern art museum in town. While I was explaining where we are going with Ariana and that it was a museum she tried to help me out, “yeah, with lots and lots of toys.” I responded quickly, “No, no toys. No touching.” We got through the admissions with our brochure and arrived to the first gallery alright when things went a bit haywire. The first “art” piece that we saw was a pool table with 3 strategically placed balls.

Balls! Those are the toys that I was talking about!—I could almost hear Ariana’s thought process working it out while racing toward the table. I quickly responded, “no touching, No Touching, NO TOUCHING!” as the museum worker started towards her to block the art piece. I got her hand in time to protect the museum and my dignity as she started out in her first tantrum. We raced for the elevator.

And after this first abrupt instance, our time there was very good. We spent about 1 hour there, including about 6 trips to the elevator (8 floors) and a potty break. We saw just about everything in that time, including just a few “artistic” naked bodies. The kids were really good considering that nothing was roped off to prevent touching and many things were just laid out on the floor. For instance, one art piece looked like a big mossy mattress that I’m sure Corban would have loved to jump on. Another interesting one looked like a big silvery emergency blanket laid on the floor, moving around like there was a small animal underneath. The kids were really dying to look underneath, and then of course, if they had a chance, to jump on it too.

While I do think that the kids liked some of the art center, namely the computer animated dolphin that was supposed to answer your questions, the binoculars, and the bubble movie, Ariana told me that she wanted to go to a kid place pretty soon after we got there.

So, afterwards we went to the famous Spoonbridge and Cherry and ran around the sculpture garden.  The whole activity wore the kids out pretty well and they both fell asleep on our way home.