Posts in the category "Museum Monday":

A new exhibition at the SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport shows off scale models of propeller-driven transport aircraft used in the design, manufacturing and marketing process of the aviation industry in the late 1940s and 1950s.

According to the museum, these propliner models helped the airlines imagine the new airliner operating within their fleet and were used promote their services in airline offices and travel agencies.

This exhibition includes twenty-three models from the Collection of Anthony J. Lawler. “They represent the age of postwar propliners, which lasted until the 1960s when faster, more fuel-efficient and propeller-less turbojet airliners superseded them.”

Look for the propliners in the front cases of the Aviation Museum and Library in SFO’s International Terminal through December 2011.

You can also get a preview here.

Photos courtesy of SFO Museum

Categories: Air Travel, Airlines, Airplanes, Exhibits, Museum Monday, Museums
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Thousands of museums in the United States document important events and valuable objects.

But if it’s the funny and offbeat you’re after, hightail it to the Plumbing Museum, the Pencil Sharpener Museum and these other offbeat and somewhat off-kilter places I profiled in a recent slide-show story titled Bizarre Museums for Bing Travel.

Here’s a sampling:

Established to celebrate “the labor of artists whose work would be displayed and appreciated in no other forum,” the three galleries operated by the Museum of Bad Art in the Boston area celebrate paintings that have “gone horribly awry in either concept or execution.” Rescued from trash heaps, yard sales, thrift stores and attics, the collection now includes more than 600 works of art, all of them bad — but in a good way.

Whether it’s a good hair day or a bad one, Leila Cohoon is happy to weave stories about the history of hair and take visitors through Leila’s Hair Museum in Independence, Mo. The carefully coiffed collection includes locks snipped from the manes of celebrities, 400 framed Victorian hair wreaths and more than 2,000 pieces of antique brooches, bracelets, necklaces and other jewelry made entirely with, or containing, human hair.

Located, appropriately enough, in Watertown, Mass., the Plumbing Museum’s collection snakes back to the 18th century and includes antique sinks, toilets, water closets and bathtubs as well as historic tools of the trade. If you’re curious about water mains, overflows and septic tanks, this museum devoted to piping technology through the ages will help flush out the answers.

When he’s not out removing unwanted critters from private homes, pest-control expert Michael Bohdan is tending to his Cockroach Hall of Fame and Museum in Plano, Texas. The museum features live insects, such as Madagascar hissing cockroaches, and more than two dozen costumed and preserved cockroaches, including the bejeweled, piano-playing Liberoachi and the sexy Marilyn Monroach.

Get the picture? There are 14 offbeat museums featured in the Bing Travel story, Bizarre Museums.
I’ll let you contemplate these a while and post a few more tomorrow.

Have I missed your favorite offbeat museum? Drop a note in the comment section below and perhaps your recommendation will be featured on a future edition of StuckatTheAirport.com’s Museum Monday.

Categories: Fun Stuff, Layover, Museum Monday, Museums
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When I leave the airport and have a day or two to spend in a city, I’m always armed with a list of special museum exhibitions and local offbeat collections open to the public.

That’s how I knew to leave a few hours free in Yakima, Washington recently to visit the Yakima Valley Museum, which has a display of 600 pairs of exquisite high-heeled shoes from the collection of David Childs, who told me that the museum-quality footwear from the 1800s to the present (much of it my size; but alas, securely behind alarmed glass) was just half of his collection.

“I don’t do flats, boots, practical shoes, matching handbags or sets,” said Childs, “This is a cultural history of the 20th century as told through pristine, displayable, high-heeled shoes.”

By that he means Art Deco shoes from the 1920 and 1930s, platform, ankle-strap shoes of the 1940’s, pointed stiletto heels from the 50s and other eras (“Wait around and the styles come back,” says Childs) and some unusual, experimental and one-of-a kind models from the 1950s and 60s.

Here’s a short video about the exhibit put together by the Yakima Herald Republic.

Categories: Exhibits, Fashion, Museum Monday, Museums
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Duck decoys, a hunting tool designed to lure wild birds into the open, are the subject of the latest exhibition at San Francisco International Airport.

According to the SFO Museum:

From coast-to-coast, various regions of North America developed distinctive types of decoys. Bodies of water, hunting methods, and predominant species differed in each area. Materials, styles of carving, and painting techniques also varied locally. Salty, rough waters typically required sturdy, solid-bodied decoys that required frequent repainting. Freshwater decoys, on the other hand, allowed for hollow bodies and detailed paint patterns, which lasted through many seasons. Master craftsmen developed local styles that were emulated by and passed onto generations of carvers. Artisans also brought their own individual creativity to the birds they crafted, making each one unique.

Today, decoys are not only functional, many carved decoys are prized pieces of folk art.

More than 70 examples of work by the best decoy craftsmen are on display in The Allure of the Decoy,  located pre-security in the International Terminal Main Hall at San Francisco International Airport from April 29 through November 6, 2011.

Can’t make it to San Francisco International Airport before then? The SFO Museum has put a slide show featuring 24 of the decoys online.

(Photos courtesy SFO Museum)

Categories: Airports, Art, Museum Monday, Museums
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It’s Museum Monday here at StuckatTheAirport.com and this week we’re taking another look at some of the photos and outfits in the Style in the Aisle exhibit at Seattle’s Museum of Flight.

Three Stewardess near Jet Engine; possibly PanAm (from the Archives of the Museum of Flight; Copyright The Museum of Flight Collection.)

A United Airlines Stewardess with food service in the Galley, circa late 1940′s early 1950′s. Copyright The Museum of Flight Collection

“Fashion designer, Oleg Cassini created a futuristic look for the flight attendants of Air West during the carrier’s brief existence prior to its purchase by Howard Hughes. The basic uniform consisted of a textured polyester dress and a jacket with an unconventional side-buttoning configuration. The pieces came in a selection of bright, solid colors inspired by the natural colors found at Air West’s destinations, including fern green, Pacific blue and canyon red.”  Copyright Delta Airlines.

Categories: Air Travel, Aviation history, Exhibits, Fashion, History, Museum Monday, Museums
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