Museums

Cool places & events to add to your ‘go’ list

Kentucky’s new GLASS National Art Museum

The Stuck at the Airport art team is based in Seattle, which is home to world-renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly, the Chihuly Garden and Glass attraction, the Refact Glass Festival, and a bubbling glass art community. Down the road, in Tacoma, WA, there’s an entire Museum of Glass.

But we’re putting the newly opened GLASS National Art Museum, in Danville, Kentucky on our ‘go’ list. The just-opened museum is built around the collection of Stephen Rolfe Powell, an artist known as a hot glass master of color who died in 2019. He was highly regarded in the international glass world and his glass sculptures are in the collections of major art museums. He was also a professor at Danville, Kentucky’s Centre College for more than 35 years, where he founded a glass program.

The Art Center of the Bluegrass, a multipurpose space in Danville, acquired Powell’s collection and is displaying it along with works by other prominent glass artists. 

Find the Glass National National Art Museum at 408 West Main Street, Danville, KY. Hours: Tuesday – Friday 10:30 am – 6:30 pm. Admission: free.

(Photos courtesy GLASS National Art Museum).

Circus dinner theater: Teatro Zinzanni at Lotte Hotel Seattle

(Elena Gatilova in Teatro ZinZanni Residency at Lotte Hotel Seattle. Photo by Nate Watters)

Love, Chaos & Dinner. And maybe an overnight stay.

If you live in or near Seattle or are looking for a reason to head that way this holiday season or sometime before the end of March 2024, the rollicking theatrical cirque experience that is Teatro Zinzanni is a must-do.

The sumptuous dinner show is wacky and, at times, a wee bit racy. And there’s a stellar cast that leans into some tried and true vaudeville traditions while offering a steady stream of impressive and often heart-stopping acrobatics and funny stuff performed on and above the stage and, sometimes, in the audience.

There’s a storyline to the evening, but with all the singing, the shtick, and the ‘how can they do that?! feats on the trapeze and elsewhere – that won’t matter.

This is Teatro Zinzanni’s 25 anniversary and over the years the company’s giant cabaret tent has been in residence in several locations in and around Seattle.

This season, Teatro Zinzanni is in residence in the Grand Ballroom of the Sanctuary at Lotte Hotel Seattle so there’s no room for the entire tent.

But the mirrored walls, the wooden booths, the in-the-round seating, and the elevated live orchestra Teatro Zinzanni fans have come to expect are all here. And it’s clear that the Sanctuary, formerly the oldest church in downtown Seattle, is a perfect venue thanks to lots of stained glass, a 58-foot-high domed ceiling, and plenty of history.

Sleepover after the show

Lotte Hotel Seattle is one of the newer, high-end hotels in Seattle and an overnight here is a great pairing with an evening at Teatro Zinzanni.

Designed by industrial French designer Phillipe Starck, the hotel has 189 rooms, a spa, plenty of meeting space, great views over the city, the waterfront, and Elliott Bay, plus a cocktail lounge and restaurant on the top floor with a very reasonably priced Happy Hour.

The guestrooms have floor-to-ceiling windows, large mirrors, fun art, spacious bathrooms clad in travertine stone, and a cozy decor that takes inspiration from Pacific Northwest forests.

We spotted a lot of fun wood (real and referenced) throughout the hotel, from the front desk made out of a log from a 3,000-year-old Sequoia tree to the ‘wood’ carpeting in the hallways and in the rooms.

They’ve even got a discount package for anyone attending a Teatro Zinzanni show.

Museum Monday at LAX and SFO airports

Say “Hi, Barbie!” at Flight Path Museum at LAX

A visit to the Flight Path Museum and Learning Center at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is an avgeek delight anytime.

Located on LAX property, a short drive or taxi ride from the terminals, the museum includes one of the largest airline uniform collections, as well as space exploration memorabilia, a great research library, and a wide range of commercial aviation artifacts.

Right now is an especially good time to visit because the museum has Barbiemania. In honor of the new Barbie movie, the museum is showing an exhibit of aviation-themed Barbies and Barbie accessories, including Barbie dolls inspired by famous aviators, including Bessie Coleman and Amelia Earhart.

Unconventional enamels at SFO Airport

The SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) oversees twenty-five sites throughout the airport terminals. So if you’ve got a long walk to your gate or a long layover at SFO, it’s a good bet something will catch your eye.

One of the newest exhibitions at SFO features the unconventional enameled art of June Schwarcz (1918–2015) on view in the Harvey Milk Terminal 1, Departures Level 2, Galley 1 E now through early May 2024.

Here’s an intro to Schwarcz’s work from the SFO Museum;

Inspired by nature and fashion, as well as abstract, African, and Asian art, Schwarcz developed unique metalworking techniques, always experimenting and embracing complex technical challenges. She initially worked with copper panels and spun-copper bowls, infusing them with her own interpretation of traditional enameling. During the 1960s, Schwarcz pioneered electroforming, an innovative method that involved electroplating pieces made from thin copper foil. Schwarcz focused on sculptural vessels and when asked about her abstract forms, she explained, “They simply don’t hold water.” 

(Images of June Schwarcz’s artwork courtesy of SFO Museum and the collection of Forrest L. Merrill)

Astronaut Barbie at the National Air & Space Museum

The upcoming release of the ‘Barbie’ movie directed by Greta Gerwig is prompting nostalgia for everything Barbie.

The Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum is riding that wave, and celebrating Barbie’s long career as an astronaut.

1965 Astronaut Barbie

This Miss Astronaut outfit for Barbie was released in 1965 and included a silvery spacesuit with brown boots.

1985 Astronaut Barbie

This 1985 Astronaut Barbie has two outfits, including this pink miniskirt with silver leggings and knee-high pink boots.

1994 Astronaut Barbie

The 1994 Barbie (above) was issued to mark the 25th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing.

The Air & Space Museum doesn’t have a complete set of space-themed Barbies (yet), but a recent museum blog entry notes that between 2000 and 2020, seven space-themed Barbie dolls were released including a 2013 Barbie that went to Mars in a white spacesuit with pink details.

(Courtesy Mattel)

Sally Ride, the first American woman, and the youngest American to fly in space, was honored with an Inspiring Women Series Barbie in 2019. (Nothing pink here…)

These Barbies Went to Space

 In 2022, these two Barbies had the honor of being the first Barbies to actually go to space.

They spent several months on the International Space Station but had to leave their accessories on the ground.

Those two Barbies are the newest addition to the Smithsonian’s collection and are currently on display at the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, along with the 1965 Miss Astronaut, the 1985 Astronaut Barbie, and the 1994 Moon Landing Barbie.

(All images courtesy Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, except as noted from Mattel)

Visiting: Indy’s Teeny Statue of Liberty Museum

Indy’s Teeny Statue of Liberty Museum, on East Tenth Street in Indianapolis, IND, is home to Tim Harmon’s collection of about 1000 items portraying or bearing the image of the Statue of Liberty.

The museum is about 10 feet by 16 feet (hence, “teeny”, says Harmon) and resides in the front room of a building created by enclosing an alley.

Harmon says his collection started innocently with a handful of Statues of Liberties arranged on the back of his toilet tank. “Then there was no reason to stop,” he said. “And when you collect you get a shelf, then you get a couple of shelves, then people start giving you things. And in my case, it was Statues of Liberties.”

And then it was Indy’s Teeny Statue of Liberty Museum.

“The museum’s not patriotic,” says Harmon. “The museum just is what it is. It’s a museum filled with Statues of Liberty.”

Here are some snaps from our tour of Indy’s Teeny Statue of Liberty Museum.

Statue of Liberty tape measure
Statue of Liberty door knob
Teeny Lego Statue of Liberty

Visiting: the World’s Biggest Children’s Museum

Courtesy The Children’s Museum

The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis dates back to 1925 and now, with more than 130,00 artifacts and more than 4,00 programs, is the world’s largest children’s museum.

Highlights include the Dinsophere, the historic carousel, a 55-ton steam engine, cultural exhibits, a 43-foot tall tower of Chihuly glass, an international space station exhibit, and a plethora of sports-themed, interactive outdoor exhibits.

If you visit, be sure to set a good part of your day, because it’s the kind of attraction that offers something surprising and engaging at every turn for both kids and adults.

Behind The Scenes At The Children’s Museum

Like most museums, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis can only display a very small part of its collection. And with such a large collection, that means that a lot of really great stuff is kept in storage.

Lucky for us, Chris Carron, the museum’s Director of Collections, offers occasional behind-the-scenes tours of the treasures.

Here are just a few of our favorites.

The Children’s Museum has the world’s largest collection of Mr. Potato Head memorabilia

Inside this matchbox is a diorama of a village populated with dress fleas. It is one of the smallest objects in the collection.

This Steiff bear was once used as a store display. It’s big, but the museum’s dinosaurs are far bigger.