Crystal Bridges

Today I went with the fourth graders to our new art museum in Northwest Arkansas, Crystal Bridges. The museum itself is a very pretty place. It is set back from the street so you are completely surrounded by nature when you are on the grounds. The kids were going to go hiking on the trails there after lunch but I only stayed for the museum part. I was needed for kid/adult ratios. They kids did a great job. No one even looked like they were thinking about touching anything. Whew!

This is a picture of part of the museum as you walk up to the entrance. What a great view.

This is probably one of the most talked about pieces at the museum...and one of my favorites. This sculpture is a self-portrait/sculpture of how the artist might look as he ages. The detail on this piece is amazing. Everything about it is so life-like. Even the hairs on his face look so real. You can't tell it here, but this sculpture is fairly large. His head is probably about 3 to 5 times the size of a regular head. (It kind of creepy too.)

This piece is my favorite piece at the museum. This picture doesn't do it justice since I couldn't use my flash in the museum and I was using my camera phone. This piece is a mannequin with lace as the outfit and then is covered with antique music boxes. So cool!

This is another picture of this piece that was taken on our first trip to Crystal Bridges in December of 2011. As you can probably tell they move the sculptures around to different rooms. 

This is Alea and I in December with the old man sculpture.

Here is what we came to the museum to find on our first trip...Rosie the Riveter. Alea's first American Girl doll is from the WWII era so Alea had been learning a lot about Rosie the Riveter from her Molly books. 

If you have never been to Crystal Bridges I highly recommend it! Plus it is FREE! How awesome is that? Today for the field trip the museum even provided the sack lunches for the teachers and kids! Amazing! The Wal*Mart foundation and Alice Walton have done amazing things for this area and Crystal Bridges is a great example of that.