A History of Human Oddity

To get us geared up for Halloween, let's head to the The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on an exploration of the mysteries of human existence, and the history of medical diagnosis and treatment.


The medical museum contains a collection of medical oddities, anatomical and pathological specimens, wax models, and antique medical equipment, including 139 skulls, a 19th century amputation kit, a 74 pound cyst, a murderer's brain and a collection of swallowed objects.

The bulk of the collection was donated by Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter in 1858. He had collected the specimens for biomedical research and education. America's finest museum of medical history, it displays its collections in a nineteenth-century "cabinet museum" setting.

A Russian newspaper recently listed the Mütter Museum #1 on the 10 Most Horrible Places — Chernobyl was listed at #8.

Take a video tour of the Mütter via Martha Stewart here, or explore some of the artifacts in their 360° online collection.

Update and Repost: Dimensional Fashion on Display in Grand Rapids

So I went back to the GRAM for another look at Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion

(yes it is interesting enough to warrant a second look!)

And I took the time this time to watch the footage of her runway shows. On mannequins, the dresses have a beautiful fascination, but when you watch someone try to move in them, you get a grasp of their absolute absurd ridiculousness. 

Honestly, these women look so uncomfortable and miserable. Mostly it's the shoes. The insane heelless shoes. I simply cannot get over them. I can't stop watching these 9-foot-tall toothpicks wobbling down the runway. And when someone is concentrating that hard on simply walking forward, it becomes less sexy and more degrading. 

So please, go see the show and enjoy it as art and sculpture, be awed by the materials, but I'm going to stop referring to the pieces as clothes now!

---

Original post published December 22nd, 2016  

If you find yourself in Grand Rapids during the next few weeks, I must urge you to check out the Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion exhibit at the Grand Rapids Art Museum.

On display, are about 100 innovative pieces from Iris van Herpen, a cutting-edge fashion designer from the Netherlands. The stunning craftsmanship of Van Herpen's work is not overshadowed by her use of unorthodox materials, such as umbrellas and metal screens. But she is perhaps best known for creating the world's first 3-D-printed couture fashions.

The 3-D printed clothes, don't look particularly comfortable and I don't anticipate seeing them hanging in our closets anytime soon, but they don't fail to enrapture. The futuristic styles compliment the human form in an organic manner, yet create designs that function more like sculpture than apparel. 

Van Herpen revealed her first collection in 2007, after graduating from the ArtEZ Institute of the Arts in the Netherlands. Since then, her work has appeared on international runways and she has designed couture pieces for fashion powerhouses such as Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, and Bjork.

Van Herpen believes "Wearing clothing creates an exciting and imperative form of self-expression." This exhibition features outfits, while outrageously "different", are undeniable beautiful. 

The GRAM exhibition continues until January 15th. I cannot recommend a visit strongly enough. For a listing of hours of operation, visit artmuseumgr.org.

UICA Visit: 2016 Color of the Year

2016 is the first year that Pantone® has released TWO colors for it's annual Color of the Year.

PMS 13-1520 Rose Quartz and PMS 15-3915 Serenity are a soft combination of warm and cool. 

When choosing a Color of the Year, Pantone chooses a color that will resonate around the world. Rose Quartz and Serenity are very contemporary, meant to inspire a soothing, peaceful feeling.

The 2016 colors are much calmer, more relaxed colors than the previous 12 years. This is in response to modern day stress and our hectic lifestyles. The colors are a calming antidote to everyday demands. 

The colors also blur traditional gender associations. This social trend toward gender fluidity has led to an increased comfort with using color as a form of expression.

The UICA in downtown Grand Rapids has a X-Rite Pantone Color of the Year exhibit on until Sunday, July 31, 2016. A row of gorgeous gowns line the main hallway, visible from the long windows along Fulton. These dresses drew me inside. All are made from light, flowing, soft materials. They create an airy feeling, a simple display of beauty and comfort. 

Several of the exhibition pieces incorporate a gentle, windy feeling or actual blown elements.There's a tranquil feeling throughout the entire exhibition— I was the only visitor in the gallery (this is not unusual at the UICA) and a quiet lull of indie music followed me throughout. 

Overall, they definitely achieved a peaceful space, and I feel like the 2016 color choices are very modern, quiet, and mature. They are a fresh step forward, away from the past palette which has tended to scream "Look at me!" 

Could that really be the direction society is heading?? 

Stop by and see for yourself, now thru July 31st.

Walking through Fire – Exploring Chicago's Architecture

Last week, I spent two days in Chicago doing an unofficial architectural tour. 

The trip was inspired by a desire to visit Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House near the University of Chicago in Hyde Park. Anyone who knows me, knows I have distinct interest in all of Wright's work—in the past I've visited, and blogged about, Taliesin, Taliesin West and Falling Water. 

Robie House was built in 1910, and is the pinnacle of Wright's prairie style homes. Long lines and low ceilings allow the structure to fit into it's natural landscape. Yet, in response to a desire for privacy and protection (the owner had young children), the home has almost a fortress like feel from the outside. 

Touring it, I didn't feel the floorplan flowed as smoothly as some of Wrights other homes. I'm wondering if that was because certain portions of the home weren't open to the public, or if this winding path was part of the home's original design. 

Nevertheless, it is an undeniably Wright space, and when renovations are complete, it will be a masterful piece of architecture history. 

Just down the road, I saw another Wright masterpiece — at the Museum of Science and Industry. This one was much smaller... 

The Fallingwater model at the Brick by Brick Lego architecture exhibit was built by Adam Reed Tucker and contains some 21,000+ bricks. 

The Brick by Brick exhibit is a special feature at the museum running through February 2017. Other highlights include a 60 foot long Golden Gate Bridge (64,500 bricks) and a replica of the Palace of Fine Arts (18,500 bricks) — the building the museum is actually in!

Coincidentally, at the recommendation of a friend, I had started listening to Devil in the White City by Erik Larson on my drive to Chicago. The book is about the murders that took place during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago; with a second, parallel storyline about the architects behind the expo, Burnham and Root. While reading about the process of building this Expo, it was amazing to be standing in the only building remaining from the event. It was an unplanned and absolutely kismet scenario.*

Burnham and Root were to come up again on day two of my architectural adventures. The pair of architects achieved great success after the 1871 Chicago Fire. Otis's invention of the safety elevator and the strength of new steel construction, made it possible to design taller buildings. Burnham and Root are credited with the first "skyscraper" — built in 1882 (demolished in 1902), the Montauk was 10 stories tall.

Just down the street from where the Montauk once stood, is the Rookery building. Also designed by Burnham and Root (their office was on the top floor), the Rookery is an 11 story tall steel building on LaSalle, in the "Loop" of downtown Chicago. 

Built in 1888, the main entry to the building opens up to the Light Court, a glass covered courtyard. In 1905, the building's owners hired Frank Lloyd Wright to update and modernize the Light Court. 

To brighten the space, Wright covered the original dark cast iron ornamentation with white marble with gold Persian style inlays, which was more in unison with the other materials within the building. The original design still hides under the marble casing today. 

The Rookery's Light Court is Wright's only work within the downtown landscape of Chicago. You can tour the light court as part of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

From the Rookery, I headed north to the Chicago River and got aboard my Wendella boat** for a 75 minute architectural tour. It was a beautiful 90+ degree afternoon, and we had a lovely ride down the river, which has seen much improvement over the last few year's as part of Chicago's Riverwalk project. 

The tour was full of factoids about the buildings along the river, as well as Chicago history in general. In retrospect, I should have trusted my gut and gone with the Chicago Architecture Foundation's 90 minute boat tour. It was a little more expensive, but I think the tour information would have been more geared towards specific architectural details, and construction facts, vs. which building Lady Gaga has a penthouse in. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful ride. 

As an amateur architecture buff, I had a fantastic 2 days exploring (and reading about!) this historic city. If your interested in seeing some of what I saw, here's all the details:

• Robie House Tour – 5757 S. Woodlawn Ave.
  $17 dollar tour
• Brick by Brick – Science and Industry Museum – 5700 S. Lake Shore Dr.
  $18 museum entry + $9 for special exhibit
  Exhibit showing until September 2017
  Parking - $22 (Robie house is .7 miles away, I parked in the residential neighborhood for free and walked to the museum).
  (Don’t miss Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle!!)
• Rookery Tour – 201 S. LaSalle St.
  $7 for a 30 minute tour
  If you go on a Wednesday, you can also tour Burnham's Library!
• Wendella's Original Architecture Tour –  401 N. Wabash Ave.
  5 minute boat ride for $35

*This book is amazing. Highly recommend. 

**At the Trump Dock. Which made me cringe. I hope they're not associated.
I did enjoy my fellow passengers taking selfies flipping-off the Trump sign. 

Wild Things Happening at the GRAM

When I used to baby-sit perpetually, Where the Wild Things Are was a book that I could recite by heart:

"The night Max wore his wolf suit, and made mischief of one kind and another, his mother called him 'Wild Thing' and Max said "I'll eat you up!", so he was sent to bed without eating anything."

A compilation of work by children's author and illustrator Maurice Sendak is currently on exhibition at the GRAM, and features dozens of original Wild Things sketches. 

The beloved children's classic was published in 1963 and transformed the genre of children's literature—portraying children as individuals, with real moods and emotions.

Sendak originally pitched the story idea as Where the Wild Horses Are—the editor loved the idea, but Sendak soon realized he couldn't draw horses. When he told his editor*, she asked: “Maurice, what can you draw?”

“Things,” he said.

The "Things" take on the personas of some of Sendak's aunts and uncles, who he remembers having crooked teeth and hairy noses. His child-like and literal understanding of things they often said frightened him, "How fat you got, you look so good we could eat you up," they'd say.

Since its release, Where the Wild Things Are has been animated, made into an opera (that Sendak designed the set for), and a feature length film. 

But that wasn't Sendak's entire legacy. He also wrote the book and lyrics for the children's musical, Really Rosie. I did not know this before visiting the museum today, but I remember seeing this play as a kid, and wearing the hot pink t-shirt for YEARS afterwards. So thanks, Maurice Sendak. 

Sendak was born the same year as Mickey Mouse, and the mouse was very influential in Sendak's childhood, inspiring him to draw and tell stories. Often sick as a child and confined to bed, Sendak's astounding imagination took over. He often showed tribute to the mouse via illustration. 

Self Portrait

This Sendak original is currently for sale online for $11,000. 

Google even honored Sendak on his 85th birthday with this impressive Google Doodle.

The exhibition at the GRAM continues now thru May 22nd and contains about 50 sketches. If you have fond memories of Max in his wolf suit, I suggest you check it out. 

*This editor was also responsible for a few other classics like The Giving Tree, Goodnight Moon, Harold and the Purple Crayon and Charlotte’s Web among others.

Roadtrip: Marshall M. Fredericks Museum

If you grew up going to Frederick Meijer Gardens, I'm sure you have memories of the Boy and the Bear, or as I fondly refer to him, Mowgli.

This sculpture along with numerous others at The Gardens are by Marshall Fredericks (1908-1998), an American sculptor who had a prolific career making public art.

Fredericks attended the Cleveland School of Art, and then Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield, Hills Michigan. While at Cranbrook, in 1936, Fredericks won a competition to create a fountain for Detroit's Belle Islae Park — the sculpture still stands on the island outside the conservancy. 

This launched other commissions and collaborations including schools, libraries, auditoriums/theaters, churches (Indian River Shrine) shopping malls (Northland Shopping Center, Eastern Center), public buildings (The Cleveland War Memorial Fountain, The United States Department of State Headquarters in Washington D.C., Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detriot)  and the 1939 and 1964 World's fairs in New York City. 

Over 200 works of bronze and plaster models, as well as an installation of the sculptor's studio, which outlines the process of casting, are at the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Musuem on the Saginaw Valley State University campus. Dorothy Arbury, an active board member of SVSU and a former student of Fredericks, was instrumental in opening this gallery devoted to Frederick''s work. Fredericks' estate donated the contents of his studio to the museum in 1998, following his death. 

It's a beautiful space with tall ceilings, and stone floors and walls. The pristine white of the plaster casts create dramatic silhouettes and shadows in the large room. It was very hard to resist running my hand across the smooth, clean surfaces of the plaster.

The museum is free to the public and about a 2 hour drive from Grand Rapids. You'll see a lot of familiar Frederick Meijer Garden faces in the lawn out front!

The Return of Prohibition in Grand Rapids

From 1920 to 1933, America experienced the colorful era of Prohibition—when the dry intentions of the Temperance movement led to the Roaring '20s. 

And while it took over 60 years for Prohibition to be ratified, it took only 13 years for it to fail. In a town with such a passion for beer, I am not surprised Michigan was the first state to sign for the repeal of the 18th Amendment.

The first amendment to ever come undone, the exhibit "American Spirits"—now showing at the Grand Rapids Public Museum—explores how Prohibition changed America. The exhibit was created by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and will be visiting Grand Rapids until January 17th.

Prohibition was clearly an overwhelming failure, but without this constitutional blip, we'd have missed a culturally significant era of American history. From the fashion of the flappers, to the big band sounds of the speakeasies, race and gender lines began to blur and interact.

But organized crime and corruption reigned, and as America entered the Great Depression, the economy demanded prohibition come to an end. 

The "American Spirits" exhibit is a stand-out museum production— informative, beautifully designed, and interactive in creative and appropriate ways. It includes drink recipes, dance tutorials, ipad quizzes and photo ops.  I'm impressed with how museums have evolved beyond trinkets in glass cases with boring small print signs—into exhibitions that involve all the senses.

And though I went to the museum specifically to see American Spirits, I just couldn't help myself—I just had to walk through old-timey Grand Rapids. The streets were all decorated for Christmas with a display of Santas from around the world. In our ever changing city, it's nice to look back on where we came from and imagine it as it was.

So sneak into the Grand Rapids Public Museum before the holidays and you'll get a bonus — Beautiful old Santas on the streets of old Grand Rapids as well as American Spirits: The Rise and fall of Prohibition.* 

And then head out in Grand Rapids to have a cocktail at one of your favorite bars. Just because... you can. 
  
*There may also be a King Tut exhibit on, but i didn't make it all the way upstairs. 

One Man's Museum in a Mega Mall

About a decade ago, 3 girls drove up to Interlochen in Northern Michigan to see their favorite band (Guster). Upon arriving, they asked, "Who are these kids that they've got opening up the show?" But by the end of the opener, they were enamored with the kids in their silly, matching colored ties.

The "kids" were actually Tally Hall, a band out of Ann Arbor. Well read college students with a vast vocabulary and a knack for witty lyrics. Their first album was called Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum, and it's based on a place that several of the band's founding members used to hang out at as teenagers.

Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum is in Farmington Hills, Michigan, and it is one of the World Almanac's 100 most unusual museums in the US. Owner Marvin Yagoda began collecting games and oddities in the 1960s and opened MMMM in 1990.

I'm sure you've realized (if you know me at all) that it became a personal mission to find this place. And ten years later, after a couple failed attempts, I made it there!

I was surprised to find that the place has a large mall built around it — If it wasn't for the Marvelous entrance, it would be completely eclipsed by California Pizza Kitchen and Buy Buy Baby.*

The place is small. And it is CRAMMED full of games, every inch, representing decades, and centuries — I actually got to use a view finder from the 1890s. It was loud, and I experienced sensory overload, but it was mesmerizing, and nostalgic, and fascinating.

It wasn't as I expected, it wasn't quiet like a museum. And there was no absent-minded man behind the counter distributing quarters and telling us about the games. The place was full of life and kids (of all ages)  playing and loving these old games. Everything from Pinball to Skeeball to Fortune Tellers and a Chicken that plays tic-tac-toe!

It was Sunday afternoon, and it was really crowded, but I liked seeing parents sharing these treasures with their kids.  I'd really like to go back when it's less crowded and I can  look around thoroughly. There's enough to see and do that it's worth a second trip.

I really hope, that when Marvin retires he has a passionate prodigy that can keep operating the museum as the beloved spectacle that it is!

*Back in the '90s I understand it was a simple stripmall, not the commercial mecca it is now. 

Going a-round with Frank Lloyd Wright

In continuation of my Frank Lloyd Wright tour... when last in New York, we went to the Guggenheim. The cylindrical building is an architectural landmark, and I was interested in seeing how it functioned as an art museum. Built in 1959, the building's main gallery is a unique ramp that extends from the ground flour up 6 levels toward the skylight. 

As we ascended the ramp, we stopped off at each annex side room, which made our experience of the Rotunda disjointed. In retrospect, I'd recommended viewing the rotunda exhibit seamlessly as you climb, and then visiting the side rooms on your way back down. 

Overall, the view from the top was mesmerizing—and the parallel lines captivating. From there, you are able to see an overview of the main exhibition—on our visit it was Christopher Wool. The monochromatic-ness of Wool's work was quite striking when paired with the lines of the Guggenheim's architecture. 

The museum as a whole seemed small, and without the added interest of the ramp and the spiraling gallery, it would be underwhelming. It had some structural elements that seemed to interrupt the building flow, bathrooms that intruded and you had to walk around instead of passing seamlessly by.

But for any Frank Lloyd Wright fan, it's an interesting and important piece of history.

Personal Data

This weekend we finally checked out Graphic Design: Now in Production. The collaborative exhibit with the Grand Rapids Art Museum and  Kendall College Art and Design explores the ways in which words and images are used together to produce the visual messages that surround us. Here are two of my stand-out favorites...

Christopher Doyle Identity Guidelines

This is such a delightful concept—Doyle writes up identity guidelines for himself, including approved wardrobe color combinations, appropriate space needed around himself, maximum/minim body size, etc. But along with the clever idea, the copyrighting is spot-on, and it's a smart, tight, well-designed and relavent piece. 

Feltron Annual Reports

Nichiolas Feltron is an influential infographic designer known for his Personal Annual Reports. Shown in the reports is data for the year such as books read, miles walked, and beers drank. His use of charts and statistics is admirable, and the data collected is quite original. Such a great idea, it may deserve to be stolen ;) 

The dual exhibition runs through April 21st and the $8 admission gets you into both locations. In addition to infographics, you'll see animated openings for movies and tv, modern poster designs, and the changing face of magazines.