Keeping It 100!

Thanks to inspiration from my friends Kizz and Cindy, I decided many years back to set a goal of visiting 100 museums. At the time, I believe I had already visited about 45.

When you live in one suburban spot, visiting 100 museums is difficult because you have to travel every time you want to see a new one. When you travel all the time, it becomes considerably easier. On my trip around the US, I visited museums large and small as often as I could. A lot of this depended on location and parking.

Then I came home and Covid hit. My museum count over the past year: zero. The last museum I visited was the Cesar Chavez National Monument & Museum last March, number 98 on my list. When I visited, I was already worrying about the virus and the lady at the front desk told me she thought they would be closing down any minute.

Fast forward 14 months. Fully vaccinated and feeling fine, my sister agreed to visit the Tacoma Museum of Glass with me last weekend. It’s worth a visit. First, there is the famed Chihuly Glass Bridge (see above), which is thankfully above, not below you (I ain’t walking on any glass bridges). And then the museum is full of glass, both modern and historic. The Rene Lalique exhibit was a treat.

My favorite part, though, was the hallway to the bathroom, which is lined with kid drawings turned into works of glass by the masters in the museum’s hot shop as part of an educational program. Kids have unlimited imaginations and the glass workers did their drawings justice.

While on the tram back from the museum, I saw another museum I wanted to check out, Tacoma Art Museum, which I visited this Sunday. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that made 100 museums! TAM also has a big glass collection as well as paintings and sculpture.

The exhibit that caught my fancy was a big gallery filled with works chosen by small groups comprised of museum employees, volunteers and community members, including youth. They got to choose 3 works each from the permanent collection for display. The show was diverse, interesting and bridged styles and time periods. I think more museums should do this.

It took me 60 years to visit 100 museums. My next goal is 200! I wonder when and where that will be.

Highly recommended museums:

Corning Museum of Glass, Corning NY

Taos Museum of Art at Fechin House, Taos, NM

Old Slave Mart Museum, Charleston, SC

Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Rosicrucians Egyptian Museum, San Jose, CA

Exploratorium, San Francisco, CA

The whole list of museums I visited is on the “Life Lists” tab – keep scrolling down.