Crystal Bridges...

Carved Redwood sculpture by Robyn Horn

My wife and I attended a preview opening of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art yesterday. The official opening will be 11/11/2011, or this Friday. Please don't think you can just show up, even though attendance will be free. For the first month or so the attendance is expected to be huge and you should reserve your tickets on-line through the museum website. A friend of ours got a 5:30 AM time slot, and found it worthwhile, even getting up at 3:30 AM to arrive on time. My wife and I had a lovely day, and will go back again and again.

The work is sublime. The building is exquisite, and will no doubt become regarded as an architectural tour de force. Curving glass walls and glue laminated curved ceiling joists form bridges spanning two lakes and a small watercourse through a natural hollow on land that had been a personal nature preserve owned by Neil Compton, father of the Buffalo National River.
My own small boxes are featured in the museum gift store along with works by other Arkansas artists, including basketry by Leon Niehues.
One of the first pieces we saw as we entered the museum was work by my good friend Robyn Horn. It is carved redwood and shown in the photo at upper left. At above you see curved glass forming the boundary between the interior and exterior space of the museum grounds. The grounds will become even more beautiful now that the major construction is complete.


And then of course within museums we find work of historic significance and emotional effect. At left is the famous Rosie the Riveter.

Readers of this blog will enjoy a piece written by Mike Rose, author of Mind at Work, Cognitive full throttle: When Education for work ignites the mind.

Also, I want to remind my readers that you can enter to win a signed copy of my new book, Building Small Cabinets on theFine Woodworking Website.

Make, fix and create...