How To Visit the MoMA With Your Grown-Up

1) Indulge your grown-up by visiting the “Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917” exhibition (through October 11^th), but then make sure to drag them to the photography exhibit around the corner featuring people grasping pickles with their toes in Erwin Wurm’s series of One Minute Sculptures and artist Hannah Wilke’s body art showing her with pieces of chewing gum stuck all over her body. Try to convince your grown-up to let you try all of this at home…all in the name of art, of course.

2) Strongly advise your grown-up to buy tickets in advance. Warn them that not doing so may result in loud and persistent whining while you wait in the long line that wraps around the building. While your grown-up is online getting tickets, show them how to get to Destination Modern Art, a website designed especially for kids about the MoMA: http://moma.org/interactives/destination/#.

3) If your grown-up is all about eating like ours is, take your pick from the MoMA’s three restaurants: Café 2, Terrace 5, or The Modern. We opted for the least fancy-pants of the three, Café 2. With its extensive menu of paninis, soups, salads, salumi, and cheeses, it is definitely in the running for best cafeteria food ever. It also nabs an honorable mention for the most Stokke high chairs we’ve ever seen in one place at one time.

4) Come up with a wish of your very own to add to Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden.

Yoko Ono's Wish Tree

We don't really know how to read or write yet, but we're making up something to put on The Wish Tree

5) Ignore the helicopter mom who tries to body block you from infecting her pristine and undoubtedly excessively gifted and talented child in the Shape Lab, an area designed especially for young children to imagine and create and build and design with all sorts of blocks and geometric and organic shapes and 3D forms.

Beware the helicopter parents flocking to this one

Not nearly as cool as putting chewing gum all over ourselves...

...Or putting pickles between our toes, but we're still working up to that

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), 11 West 53^rd Street, New York, New York 10019-5497, (212) 708-9400, www.moma.org; Hours: Closed on Tuesdays; Sun/Mon/Wed/Thu/Sat: 10:30 AM to 5:30 PM; Open Thursdays in July and August until 8:45 PM; Admission: Adults: $20; Children 16 and under: free.

Better Than Expected: The Museum of Arts and Design

Taking pictures was strictly prohibited anywhere in the museum, so we were reduced to photographing outside and in the restaurant

The Museum of Arts and Design (aka MAD) is actually, happily, one of those places that shows better in person than on its website. Located on Columbus Circle in a space originally commissioned in the 1960s by Huntington Hartford (an A&P heir and a sort of anti-Midas who managed to lose most of his family’s immense fortune before his death in 2008. But that’s a whole other blog post.) and completely refurbished two years ago, MAD’s mission is to explore how art and design, through a variety of media, focus on contemporary craft.

There are lots of cool exhibits to pique a child’s interest and curiosity here. In “Dead or Alive: Nature Becomes Art” (through October 24, 2010), artists from around the world used organic materials to create art. In “Mad Cow Motorcycle,” sculptor Billie Grace Lynn attached a cow skeleton to a motorbike (apparently, when her wheels are not being showcased at MAD, she pedals around Miami encouraging discourse about meat consumption). In this same exhibition, English artist Damien Hirst created “Prophecy” from jewel-toned, iridescent butterfly wings arranged radially and bilaterally.

About to close on August 15, 2010 was “Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle” which highlighted the work of six renowned bicycle craftsmen. Vivi, my little bling-meister, was especially dazzled by the museum’s permanent collection of modern and contemporary jewelry, most of which was housed in easy-to-access drawers that she could pull out and ogle to her heart’s content.

Something that I think bears noting about the museum—perhaps because it is only a couple of years new and is still working out the kinks—is some confusion and inconsistencies in its policies. We had timed our trip to the museum to arrive shortly after it opened at 11:00 AM on Sunday (per the hours noted on its website). Stenciled on the glass doors in the lobby, however, the opening time is shown as 10:00 AM. I’m still not sure which time is the correct one.

Secondly, as I am all too aware that some museums are less child-friendly than others (the Frick, for example, does not allow children under 10), I always double-check to make sure that my little people and I are not going to be denied entrance (so incredibly FUN when that happens). The MAD gave umbrella strollers the green light, so I had Vivi in our trusty-dusty Maclaren Volo when a guard approached to tell me that strollers were, in fact, not allowed. I smiled brightly, said “Yes, they are!”, and continued on my merry way (I love being right). Fortunately, the guard didn’t challenge us or throw us out on our keisters or anything. But still. It would be less annoying if the museum could get its website and security guards in sync.

We ended our visit with lunch on the 9^th floor at Robert, all groovy black and champagne banquettes and circular glass tables. They offered respectable and reasonably priced salads, pastas, sandwiches, and contemporary American entrees for lunch, but the real reason to go is for the spectacular views of Central Park.

No paparazzi, please

Okay, so I couldn't take a picture of "Mad Cow Motorcycle" or the sparkly jewelry collection, but no one stopped me from snapping away in the bathroom of Robert. Aren't those beaded window shades a work of art?

Museum of Arts and Design, 2 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10019, (212) 299-7777, www.madmuseum.org; Hours (per their website, anyway): Closed on Mondays; Tuesday to Sunday: 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM; Thursdays: 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM; Admission: Adults: $15; Children 12 and under: free; Thursdays from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM is pay-what-you-wish.

Robert, Museum of Arts and Design, 9^th Floor, 2 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10019, (212) 299-7730; www.robertnyc.com.

You Can Smell It, Touch It, Play With It--Just Don't Eat It: The Children's Museum of the Arts

If the thought of listening to the maniacal jingle from “Elmo’s World” one more time makes you weep or if Dora the Explorer’s big, vacant, brown eyes have started seeming, well, just a bit off, turn off your television and get yourself down to the Children’s Museum of the Arts in SoHo.

Housed in an airy, loft-like building on a block straddling SoHo and Chinatown, the CMA was founded in 1988 as the only hands-on art museum for children in New York City. There is nary a popular cartoon character in sight. There isn’t even a gift shop peddling character-emblazoned tchotchke to your I’m-gonna-hold-my-breath-until-you-buy-that-for-me toddler.

On a recent Friday morning, Vivi and I met up with some friends at the CMA for their Wee-Arts Drop In program for children aged ten months to three-and-a-half years. In the open studio space on the first floor, there were stations set up for toddlers to create water-color self-portraits, glue together collages out of fake flower and moss, pieces of yarn, lace, ribbons, feathers, and other media, sculpt green Play-Doh into all sorts of shapes, paint their own tempera masterpieces, and plunge elbow-deep into a tub of irresistibly slimy “flubber.” Aside from a warning posted near the thick, oozy polymer that it might stick to clothing and hair, just about anything goes at the CMA, which seems less a museum than an indoor playground with an arts emphasis and whose unofficial credo is “You can smell it, touch it, play with it—just don’t eat it.”

Flying solo without a supporting cast of cheesy kid’s television characters, the CMA has created an original, laidback, and low-tech space for children to create, exhibit, and celebrate their own artwork. And a bonus? You won’t be frantically trying to scrub hardened Play-Doh out of your living room carpet at home.

Children’s Museum of the Arts, 182 Lafayette Street (between Broome and Grand Streets), New York, NY 10013, (212) 274-0986, www.cmany.org; Hours: Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays; Wednesday to Sunday: 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM; Thursdays: 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM; Admission: $10 (1 to 65 years old); Thursdays from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM is pay as you wish; Wee-Arts Drop In Program: Wednesdays/Thursdays/Fridays from 10:45 PM to 12:00 PM: $22 per family.

Where to Eat:

Delicatessen, 54 Prince Street, New York, NY, (212) 226-0211; www.delicatessennyc.com; serves all sorts of yummy comfort food, but my favorite is their buttermilk-battered fried chicken in a bucket served with ranch dressing and melt-in-your-mouth cornbread.

American Folk Art Museum: Outsider Art or Just Weird?

For some reason, I have been dragging my feet on writing this post, which makes me think that either A) Conducting Camp Mom in this heat has completely fried my brain. Or at least what’s left of my brain after birthing three children (Remember the egg? This is your brain. This is three kids. This is your brain after having three kids. Any questions?) or B) American folk art just kind of eludes me. There’s also a third, likely possibility and that is that I picked up The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot yesterday and don’t want to put it down for anything. Who knew that cell culture research could be so riveting? So let’s just get it done already, so that I can get back to my very important reading while a feverish Jack takes a long summer’s nap and the laundry magically folds itself.

The American Folk Art Museum is a hodgepodge of some weird and wonderful things created by outsider artists with no formal training. A sliver of a building tucked next to its splashier and more glamorous neighbor, the Museum of Modern Art, the Folk Art Museum is all vertical space and gray concrete. Here are some things that Vivi and I were taken with when we were there:

• A 1964 painting of Columbus Circle by Vestie Davis
• A round rag rug made not out of scraps of cloth as one would expect, but out of bits and pieces of Wonder Bread bags (yes, Wonder Bread bags)
• A menagerie of tiny sculptures cut, twisted, and reconstructed from tin cans and encrusted with beads, baubles, and curios that had been unearthed at a Chelsea thrift shop
• All sorts of nifty weather vanes: a unicorn, a grasshopper, a donkey, a pig, a train, and an assortment of angels
• A model of the Empire State Building made out of interlocking wooden pieces without the benefit of glue or nails
• The Button Tree, an old tree limb covered entirely by colorful buttons

Columbus Circle by Vestie Davis (1964)

Fame Weathervane, attributed to E.G. Washbourne & Company (c. 1890)

Button Tree by Gregory "Mr. Imagination" Warmack (1990-1992)

We were less impressed with Henry Darger, whom the museum boasts is one of the most prominent artists of the 20^th century. The American Folk Art Museum houses the largest public collection of works by Darger and touts itself as the most important institution for scholars interested in the work of this self-taught artist. While I don’t doubt the veracity of that claim, I do question its merits. It’s kind of like someone bragging that they have the world’s largest collection of twist-ties or airplane sick bags (Nick Vermeulen of the Netherlands has already laid claim to this latter title, but the former is still wide open for all of you still looking to make your mark in the world).

Darger—janitor by day, outsider artist by night-- and his watercolors meant to illustrate his bizarro 15,000+-page manuscript about little girls being enslaved by evil forces and a series of his cardboard collages framed by Christmas Seal Stamps just gave me the creeps. Not to get all Jesse Helms or anything, but I think I’d like to stick to Grandma Moses and her folksy, quilt-making sisters.[*]

Vivi and one of the wholesome quilts: Sarah Ann Garges Applique Bedcover (1853)

Taking the wholesomeness up another notch: Pieties Quilt by Maria Cadman Hubbard (1948)

Books:

• Grandma Moses by Alexandra Wallner
• The Year With Grandma Moses by W. Nikola-Lisa with writings and paintings by Grandma Moses

American Folk Art Museum, 45 West 53^rd Street (between 5^th and 6^th Avenues, New York, New York 10019, (212) 265-1040, wwwfolkartmuseum.org; Tuesday to Sunday 10:30 AM to 5:30 PM, Friday 11:00 AM to 7:30 PM; Closed Mondays; Admission: Adults: $12; Children under 12 are free.

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[*] It should be noted for the record that even though I would put Henry Darger squarely in the "weird" category, his artwork was actually completely innocuous and I didn’t feel in any way that it was inappropriate for children.

Please, Bring Your Kids to the Brooklyn Museum!

The Brooklyn Museum

Last winter, on a trip to the Getty in Los Angeles with Charlie and Vivi, then aged four and two, I asked the docent at the information desk what exhibits she could recommend for young children.

“We don’t really have any art for children,” she replied stiffly.

At the time, I was seven and a half months pregnant and admittedly, perhaps, a little touchy, but… really? No art for children? Really? It’s not like this was a porn museum (which, yes, if you are wondering, does exist as “The Erotic Heritage Museum” in—where else?—Las Vegas).

Call me naïve, but I thought that most art can be for anyone, including children.

Some museums have no interest in actively courting families or cultivating the next generation of art lovers and patrons. Happily, the Brooklyn Museum is not one of them.

The Brooklyn Museum was actually the institution where museum education for children began at the end of the nineteenth century. Their programs for children have always been, and continue to be, one of their highest priorities, as evidenced by their family-friendly website chockfull of all sorts of fun on-line activities and their free, printed family guides at the front desk.

Brooklyn Museum: 1; Getty: 0.

"The Secret Happy End" by Jean-Michel Othomel (2008): A 19th century wooden covered wagon with panels of colored glass and oversize glass beads

"The Burghers of Calais" by Auguste Rodin (1889)--and Charlie

No lines to see this 30-foot replica of the Statute of Liberty

In the outdoor sculpture garden, which houses the museum's collection of architectural salvage pieces rescued from demolished New York City buildings

An Ionic capital and column base saved from Penn Station (R.I.P. 1910-1963)

An Art Nouveau plaque from the Mulcaster Building, formerly at 1297 Third Avenue (at 68th Street)

Stopping for a scoop before heading back to Manhattan

Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238-6052; 2/3 Train to Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum (the station is right in front of the museum); (718) 638-5000, www.brooklynmuseum.org; Open Wednesday to Friday 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Saturdays and Sundays 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM; Closed Mondays and Tuesdays; Admission: the suggested donation for adults is $10; Children under 12 are free.

Blue Marble Ice Cream, 186 Underhill Avenue, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn; (718) 399-6926; www.bluemarbleicecream.com.

Storm King: Storms Not Necessarily Included

How sad is it that it's only Day 3 of Camp Mom and I am already bone-tired?! You know, the kind of tired where you wake up and you feel bruised and woozy and hung-over even though you haven't been drinking (although you wish you had been). I suspect that my exhaustion is probably more of a result of a certain one-year-old's proclivity to rise with the roosters (okay, so there aren't actually any roosters in NYC--at least that I know about--so let's just say his ability to get up for the day when many revelers are still straggling home from the bars) rather than my three days' worth of activities. We all know that moms never really get a day off, but I did get a respite from all the enforced fun and the blog today because Steve took two of the three off my hands and Jack and I stayed home and cuddled and ate and did laundry and returned overdue books to the library.

Here is Steve's guest blog:

Today I took Charlie and Vivi up to Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, NY--about ten minutes north of West Point and one hour outside the city. Storm King is 500 grassy acres dotted with oversized modern art sculptures of steel, concrete, and stone and wide-open fields, rolling hills, and woodlands overlooking the Catskill Mountains.

We started our day at the picnic area near the South Parking Lot which had well-maintained, modern tables and clean port-o-johns. The kids delighted in chasing butterflies, picking flowers, and collecting pine cones. Their favorite spot was Moodna Creek on the eastern edge of the property and they puttered around its edge catching earthworms, mayflies, and dragonflies and trying to skip stones. Quintessential Huck Finn...

Pros: Gorgeous drive up 9W (don't miss the overlook just past West Point); kids 4 and under are free; clean and well-maintained; children's story hour at 2:00 PM (which we missed)

Cons: Long distances on the property not ideal for three-year-old Vivi; a little buggy; most of the artwork is off-limits for little (and big) hands; food only sold in the northern building.

Storm King Art Center, Old Pleasant Hill Road, Mountainville, NY 10953, (854) 534-3115 www.stormking.org; Open April 1 to October 31, 2010, Wednesday thru Saturday 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM (open until 8:00 PM on Saturdays during the summer); Admission: $12 for Adults, $8 for students (K-12); Children under 5 are free