Wichita Art Museum Archives - Stuck at the Airport

Free admission this weekend at more than 100 museums

On the first weekend of every month more than 100 museums, zoos and attractions around the country offer free admission to anyone with a Bank of America card as part of the Museums on Us program.

Visiting one of the participating venues is a great way to stretch a weekend entertainment budget and a good excuse to get acquainted with the work of a new artist or get reacquainted with a favorite animal at your local zoo.

One place on the list this month is the Wichita Art Museum in Kansas, which is hosting a traveling exhibition from the National Air and Space Museum through the end of September.

In Plane View: Abstractions of Flight features 56 large-format photographs by Carolyn Russo showcasing the elegance and beauty of airplane design. For example, this photo shows grooves in the exhaust cone of the North American X-15.

Can’t make it to Kansas? When the exhibit leaves the Wichita Art Museum, it will travel to the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia and then, in January 2011, to the Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences in Peoria, Illinois.

You might also take advantage of the Museums on Us program to get free admission to the Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan (Saturday only), where the 15 planes in the Heroes of the Sky exhibit includes this 1926 Fokker Trimotor used by Richard Byrd in his attempt to be the first to reach the North Pole by plane.

According to the museum notes:

Because Edsel Ford funded Byrd’s trip to the Arctic, the plane was named for his daughter, Josephine. Tony Fokker, the manufacturer, wanted to be sure no one mistook the plane for a Ford, so he painted the giant “FOKKER” on the wings and fuselage. There’s no heater in this plane, so temperatures inside the cabin could have easily reached -50° F while flying through the Arctic sky.

13 million cranberries, Dusseldorf Airport’s Ski jump, and Amelia Earhart

This weekend would be a good time to have as my superpower the ability to travel anywhere in the world and be in several places at once.

If I could, I’d stop first in Richmond, British Columbia, a short SkyTrain ride away from the Vancouver International Airport to watch 13 million (!!) locally-grown cranberries get dumped into the Fraser River in front of the Richmond Olympic Oval to form a giant floating version of the maple leaf, rings and flame that make up the Canadian Olympic Committee logo.

Then I’d head over to the Dusseldorf International Airport to see if they finished trucking in enough snow (and turned the temperature down low enough) to make the world’s first indoor ski jump in an airport. When they sent this photo, they were just waiting for the snow to arrive.

It would be fun, too, to stop at New York’s Albany International Airport (ALB), where the newest art show, Material Witness, is now underway.

And it might be interesting to touch down in Wichita, Kansas. The Wichita Art Museum is one of the 100 or so museums around the country where Bank of America account holders can get free admission this weekend as part of the Museums on Us program. And look what the Wichita Art Museum is using to promote an exhibition of works of paper.

(Robert Cottingham, Wichita (1985)

But, alas, the ability to be everywhere at once is not my super power.

So instead, I’ll stick close to home this weekend and pay a visit to the Museum of Flight, just up the road from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where there’s an exhibit titled In Search of Amelia Earhart.

This exhibit includes many of Earhart’s personal artifacts, including a suede jacket she wore on her 1932 solo transatlantic flight, two flight suits, a helmet, a scarf, newsreel footage and photos.

Amelia Earhart and her Lockheed L-10E Electra NR 16020 c. 1937. | The Museum of Flight