Museum of Art

Jason and I went to the NC Museum of Art this afternoon with a few other families from our new Tapestry of Grace Yr.1 Co-op. When we start school in August, we will be studying Ancient Egypt for the first 3 weeks, so the special exhibit, "Temples and Tombs; Treasures of Egyptian Art from the British Musuem" seemed like the perfect thing to lead into that study. I have to say I was disappointed. The exhibit was rather drab and bland, with little to capture the imagination of a group of 6-13 yr olds - a few stone busts, some wall carvings, a sarcophagus lid, a couple of pieces of uninteresting jewelry, two headrests, a few small household items .... I tried to keep Jason and his friends engaged, sending them on a search for scarab beetles and pharaoh's crowns and cartouches. They were bored rather quickly though. The gift shop provided some interesting items, and we bought a make-your-own-papyrus kit, and some stickers and postcards to use to decorate their notebook pages on Egypt. It wouldn't have been so bad except for the rather pricey tickets at $10/adult and $8/student to get into the exhibit area.
My kids really do enjoy art museums though, and we spent a little bit of time wandering through some of the other areas of the museum - which are all free! Jason was fascinated by an upside down portrait of the Mona Lisa created from spools of thread! Another favorite is the hanging airplane made of silk flowers and butterflies ~ many of the butterflies move their wings mechanically, and if you look really closely, you can see that a few of the butterfly wings have human faces on them!

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