ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT
it’s wednesday, you guys know the deal!
so i’ve been taking this class about art museum education, and naturally it has led me to think about what kind of museums i like and which ones make me all zzzz.
today, while having class in the blanton (the art museum on campus), i found myself daydreaming about my fantasy museum… which would, of course, be the Museum of Baked Goods.
here’s an architectural rendering:
this museum would basically be the BEST MUSEUM in the entire world. like, even better than the tate modern.
first of all, the whole place would smell like baking bread, not cos we’d be burning yankee candles but cos there would be ACTUAL BREAD BAKING. basically, i’d like to take the mrs. baird’s factory (road trip ‘01 holla!) and find a way to fit it into one of the galleries. then you could learn about how bread is made and get to eat a slice (with butter!). v. v. educational AND tasty!
there would also be a gallery of pies– pies from around the world, cos culture is V. important. i would probably hire a consultant from house of pies just to make sure i had good representation. and yes the pie would be fresh and edible! i’d probably include some pie-making demonstrations on a daily basis.
but there wouldn’t just be food, there would also be art! paintings and drawings and sculptures of baked goods! it would be so beautiful! i think that shall be called the Thiebaud Wing of the museum.
i, of course, would give tours, which would include such activities as “decorate yr own cupcake” and “name that bread!” in order to reach out to the community, there would also be a monthly lectures series, including topics like “careers in baking in the twenty-first century” and “yeast: it sounds gross, but it’s awesome!” my dad would even be a guest speaker on “beer biscuits: safe for children.”
so, that’s my museum, and i hope you all become VIP members so you can get yr name inscribed on a stone cupcake.
now, tell me what YR fantasy museum would be…
my only request is that yr museum be open on mondays, cos is that annoying or what?
LINKS
pennsylvania primary fallout (with waffles).
i’m probably late on the train here, but have you guys seen the evil face baby? LOVE. (thanks, selina)
so matt sent me this cadbury creme egg commercial about eggs committing some kind of mass suicide. to be honest, it’s kiiiinda creepy.
how have i never seen the CUTE SHOW before? the opening credits include my favorite things: a rainbow, cucpakes, and a kitten with sunglasses!! i think i made this show in my dreams! anyway, check out the (short) episode about squishy face cats. PRECIOUS!
strange lights over phoenix? calling scully and mulder…
gah i love street art.
I loooove closed Mondays here at the MFAH. Suck it, school children! I’ve got the sculpture garden all to myself for lunch!
My museum would be a sort of Planet Hollywood, except not bankrupt, crappy, or sponsored by Bruce Willis, of only horror movies. We’d get to see Ash’s boom stick, and the detached nipple from Castle Freak, and the Night of the Living Dead tire iron, and Carrie’s pig blood bucket, and the claymation Katakuris. Also, there’d be foreign and underground versions of movie posters and original scripts w/ directors’ notes on them, and screening rooms, and a Universal Studio type set-up where you can act out your own gruesome death. And a hall of action figures, as I am geekily preoccupied with action figures. Man, that would be awesome.
Seriously Sarah, you’re missing out since you don’t have the food network. I kid you not when I say that they have a special where it is like the bread competition and the chefs from around the world make bread and then like make sculptures out of bread…
My museum would be designed by my architect friends, and would feature a retrospective of all of my work from Kindergarten on as well as artwork of my personal friends and anything else cool that I came across. I would totally have the lite brite installation portrait piece that was in the BU Pictorial Comp show in 2002, Alyson’s ceramic sculptures that inspired me to give her a copy of The Vagina Monologues at our opening show, and the painting that my junior year professor referred to as a “Big Blue Blob” (although that used to be at my parent’s house and now can not be located). The best thing about this museum? I would no longer have masses and masses of drawings and paintings that I would have to store in my own home, parent’s home, or give to friends because I have no room, but they would all be stored in the museum in a climate controlled environment.
And I second the closed Mondays. I’ve been in the museum for workshops on Mondays, and it is quite lovely.
Oh man, I’m too excited about this one. I couldn’t stop thinking about it on the train ride home and I realized I forgot some vital aspects. For instance, this museum would totally need a Giallo Hall, dedicated entirely to Argento and Fulci, with, like, the creepy doll from Deep Red or the face-eating tarantulas from The Beyond. Also, I DEMAND that we showcase the golden scarab from Cronos, because that shit is cool. And obviously we’d need original blood-spattered costumes! Like the scrubs from 28 Days Later or Kroenen’s AMAZING nazi/gas-mask/knife-weilding ensemb from Hellboy. Guys, I think I’m on to something. If anyone wants to fund my museum, I can personally guarantee it will be a better investment than Planet Hollywood.
But will we get to eat overpriced, dry burgers at your museum, Meredith? I think that is the true question.
My dream museum would be all about human evolution! Much like Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death,” it’d be laid out so that the patrons had to progress through a series of rooms. They could learn all about evolution! A whole room devoted to the noble Lung Fish! An entire interactive experience about why Cartmill’s Visual Predation Theory is wrong, and maybe some literature about why Cartmill himself is sort of a douchenozzle. People could be blindfolded and play Pin the Missing Link on the Tree of Life! And an attached clubroom for dance parties called Clovis II: Electric Boogaloo, because I believe the opportunity for dance party should exist everywhere.
Okay, so like with most everything I love, I realize no one but me would enjoy my museum. But that just means I’d get to haunt it creepily, shuffling down the dark hallways at night and muttering about the Pithdown man. So, like every other day of my life.
Sarah, I would totally be a Gold Member of The Museum of Baked Goods. Mere, I would appreciate your museum for its cultural importance but come away slightly abashed that it didn’t touch me deeply. So, you know, sort of exactly how I feel about your current museum.
My museum would be a museum of imaginary creatures. Like they would make sculptures and fake footprints and stuff of dragons and trolls and aliens and stuff like that. It would either be the most awesome thing ever or the most cheesy/awesome thing ever. I would live there, in the attic, and haunt the place at night.
I would say a Superman museum but I believe they already have one in Metropolis Illinois. Maybe have a museum for famous(my favorite) TV stage sets. At this museum Cheers is an actual bar that works with animated Norm sitting at the end of the bar and periodically saying something about Vera. They could put the restaurant from Seinfeld as a real restaurant within the museum. Have a whole Sci Fi section where we would see the bridges of all Star Trek shows, the Main room on Battlestar Galactica, The basement room of the J Edgar Hoover building from the X-Files. The Loft from Smallville. The fake house from Arrested Development. Hell even the Brady Bunch living room be cool to walk on.
I would want my museum to be like a Mulian Kundera novel as far as the combination of multiple media forms to create the end product. Here is a list of possible rooms:
1. Space
2. A wax museum adventure (horror story style)
3. The Rothko Chapel
4. some historical artifacts from the druids
5. a PietÃ
6. Copak’s exhibition of the humblest artist
7. Kierkegaard’s grave
8. Some music room with dumb songs playing
9. Loads of whiskey to drink in that room
10. a really smart scientist explaining quantum physics with a great power point
11. a light show
12. the rothko chapel again
13. some ethical situations for the viewers to discuss and buttons to push that shows possible outcomes based on their discussion, which makes ethics into a game so that it doesn’t really matter
14. Me curating a room of all the amazing talented friends work I have: some Rob Pepper, some poshdeluxe blogging, some sing-a-longs, some music, some writings, it would be fantastic
I would force people to go through it in order, it might even have a ride aspect like those awful haunted house rides. Yeah, I think there will be a train track with carts, if anything people can just make out with the people around them if they get bored.
A. I really, really want to go to Matt’s museum.
B. Sarah, my 4th graders will be at the Blanton on May 7th!
C. I’m waiting for Jessica to chime in and say ‘Kitty Museum.’ Wait for it, wait for it,…
D. My museum would be a sociological work of art- The museum patrons would have opportunities throughout the museum to leave their own artifacts, be it video-recorded stories, personal trinkets or other things that represent them. These things would all be meticulously curated so that, over time, the museum would be entirely about the people who came to the museum.
Sarah - I think you’ve found your dream job. Now, all you need is a sponsor…I’d choose Paula Deen, but make sure you tell her you use lots and lots of butter. Maybe Betty Crocker could pitch in a few million and you could host bake-a-thon contests using their products! Hey, I say, if there is a museum dedicated entirely to SPAM, for goodness sake there can be one for baking! Taste testing would be so much better…
I have to be lame and say my fantasy museum would be a real history museum.
The History of Propaganda Museum!! It’d be awesome. There’d be loads of cool old Soviet stuff, and Cultural Revolution China stuff, and more or less everything in the media in the US for the two years after the September 11th attacks, and loads more!
And we’d all walk around loving it because it would be REALLY INTERESTING but we’d still get to feel superior because of course, none of us are foolish enough to fall for propaganda…..
I would go to each and all these musuems over and over again. An evolution one? Hells yes! A museum with BSG, complete with Starbuck and Adama? Hells yes!
My museum would have to be about wine. Yes, wine. From the beginning, when wine was really gross and vinegary, to the invention of champagne to a yeast room (Sarah! We could overlap our museums!), to modern day equipment. There would be a chemistry room with easy to read and understand visuals describing about the chemistry of wine. And of course, a section about the cultural/sociological/religious importance of wine throughout history.
And there would be tastings, from wines around the world. For the kiddos, they can taste the wine that has had the alcohol removed (it can be done, it is being done, don’t ask me why) and it is more and different than grape juice because of the way it’s made.
I love this post! Go Posh!
OMG THAT’S IT ERIN!!! KITTY MUSEUM!!!
i have been trying to figure out mine… but it would definitely have the flair of a petting zoo. with VERY CUDDLY ANIMALS LIKE KOALAS AND FLUFFY KITTENS.
I think they already made the museum I would want to make: The City Museum, in St. Louis.
Take one abandoned 10 story 100 year old warehouse, take a squadron of conceptual artists with almost unlimited budgets, and let them go to town on the building. Results: a 5-story outdoor vertical maze/jungle gym/playground, 10 story metal slides from the top floor to the basement, a multi level indoor maze that has secret passageways that you have to crawl through everywhere, a wacky vaudeville-themed bar, an exhibit on doorknobs, a big indoor fish and turtle tank, and an underground cave maze.
what if we put all of these museums into one HUGE MONOLITHIC MUSEUM CITY?!!!!
p.s. jessica, the petting zoo idea is brillz.