Tag Archives: Museum

Stand Up History Live

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Historian Greg Hand and mixologist Molly Wellman dreamed up Stand-Up History a few years back but, due to a combination of ignorance and conflicts, it took me until January 2023 to actually make it to a performance. I liked the concept the instant that I heard of it, and the reality did not disappoint in the slightest. That January event was at the Muse Cafe on Harrison Avenue. The subject of this post, my second Stand-Up History experience, took place at the Mercantile Library in Cincinnati’s downtown. Not only would Molly be one of the evening’s presenters, she had made and was serving a big bowl of her Ginger Punch.

Stand-Up History is a wonderful learn-while-you-laugh program. As you no doubt guessed, the name came from “stand-up comedy”. In fact, searching for “stand-up history” will result in a bunch of links to the history of stand-up comedy pushing hits for this operation well down the list. The name isn’t all that’s borrowed, of course. A program consists of individuals standing up and talking. The subjects are all historical and the presenters are all experts but the presentations have a decidedly humorous focus and the subjects are chosen to assist in generating smiles, grins, chuckles, and guffaws. 

First up tonight was astronomer Dean Regas. Regas was also a presenter at that January show I attended. I’ve heard him on radio many times but that was my first time seeing him in person. Tonight’s topic was “How to Teach Grown-Ups About Pluto” which happens to be the name of Regas’ latest book.  It was a good use of his wonderful wit and his knowledge of both science and history.

Author and blogger Dann Woellert was up next with “Our Badass Sister of Charity and the Creation of Cincinnati Pizza Pie”. Sister Blandina Segale’s long life included serving her church in Colorado and New Mexico, dealings with a lynch mob and Billy the Kid, and establishing institutions such as Saint Rita’s School for the Deaf and San Antonio Parish in Cincinnati. One of the first places in America where pizza was served was at San Antonio festivals. It’s pretty amazing where the history of food will lead you if you let it.

As Cincinnati’s favorite mixologist, Molly Wellmann is an expert on the history of Cincinnati’s adult beverages and the places that served them. She sort of ventured out of her comfort zone tonight by telling the story of “How Hyde Park Became a Village Without Having a Tavern”. It was long ago annexed by the city of Cincinnati and now has taverns aplenty.

Greg Hand, of Cincinnati Curiosities, finished things up by poking holes in “Myths Cincinnatians Dearly Want to Believe”. There were myths about hills, chili, ketchup, and more. The final myth addressed was that Mark Twain quote about Cincinnati and the end of the world. “When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati. It is always ten years behind the times,” has often been attributed to Twain but, as Hand pointed out, there is absolutely no evidence that he actually said it. I’ve always thought the quote presented Cincinnatians with a dilemma. On one hand, it’s kind of nice to have someone as famous as Twain notice your city but, on the other, very few people really want to live in a place that is ten (or, in some versions, twenty) years out of date. I don’t believe that Hand mentioned it but I’ve turned up a claim that the first reference to the quote in print was in 1978. A similar quote about the end of the world and Bavaria being fifty years behind appeared in print in 1886 and probably existed earlier. By 1978, Twain had been dead for 68 years and the Bavarian comment was 94 years old. That makes being one or two decades “behind the times” appear not so bad.

So here’s the whole crew including MC Mike Perrino in the middle of all the presenters. Having been founded in 1835, the Mercantile Library has lots of history. Perrino reminded us of that by noting that this was the 165th anniversary of an appearance by Herman Melville that local papers reported as “Earnest, though not sufficiently animated.” Tonight’s presenters seemed to be well aware of the importance of being animated. Some of them will be doing this somewhere on the third Thursday of every month for the foreseeable future. Next month, Molly, Greg, and Mike will be joined by Ann Senefeld at Muse Cafe. Details here.

Sideshow Signage

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Those who read through the comments on my The Signmaker’s Circus post already know that old circus banners were an important part of that American Sign Museum event earlier this year. Others will have just learned that. Some thirty hand-painted banners from the 1940s and ’50s hung from the walls of the area set up for the celebration and added considerably to the event’s authentic circus feel. An event devoted entirely to those banners took place at the museum on a recent Tuesday.

I arrived at the November 1 event a few minutes early and, knowing where the banners were hanging, headed directly there. Along with a few others, I happily snapped photos of the eye-catching wall hangings until I heard applause coming from elsewhere in the museum. I can only assume that the applause was triggered by the introduction of museum founder Tod Swormstedt because when I reached the real event Tod was telling the story of the banners and The Signmaker’s Circus. The banners were hanging in an empty warehouse that also belonged to their owner. They weren’t really on display but had been hung “just because”. Tod saw them, immediately envisioned them at his museum’s upcoming anniversary party, and asked. Told that, yes, he could borrow them, Tod drove to the Boston area with a helper, rolled up the banners on an upper floor of the warehouse, carried them down a fire escape, and hauled them to Cincinnati. He had been fielding questions about them ever since but not tonight. Tonight he introduced the banners’ owner, David Waller.

David began by telling us that there was almost always some deception in the banners. He made his point with a photo of a woman who was certainly quite small but not nearly as small as depicted on the canvas that identified her as the “world’s smallest mother“. He then claimed that similar deception had occurred tonight. Most of us had been drawn to the event, he said, expecting to hear an expert on circus banners. Instead, we would hear from a mere collector of such banners. Maybe that was an attempt at real deception but few were fooled as David proceeded to prove himself an expert on the banners as well as their creators and subjects.

I guess the title of tonight’s event was a little deceptive but I’ve no doubt it was unintentional. Although promoted as “Under the Big Top: Circus Banners of the 1940s and 1950s”, the event concerned banners advertising sideshow attractions that rarely, if ever, appeared in a ring in the Big Top. Many were people with deformities that attracted the curious. Today that naturally leads to thoughts of exploitation, and no one doubts that was sometimes the case, but sideshows provided income to many who would have had a tough time otherwise. When exploitation was mentioned, Otis the Frog Boy, who owned a car modified so he could drive it, wondered if people would prefer he was on welfare. Sylvia, the Big Footed Girl, made a good living for many years although, unable to wear shoes, she balked at appearing in the cold north. Many sideshow performers padded their paychecks by selling postcards and other items. Part of the spiel about Johann Petursson, the Viking Giant, was that he wore rings the size of napkin rings. He sold copies of his rings as souvenirs. Sometime after one of these rings came into Waller’s possession, he met a buddy’s new girlfriend from Iceland. When the conversation turned to circuses, she told of having a giant for an uncle and produced a childhood picture of her sitting on Johann’s lap. Waller gave her the ring.

Clearly, many of these banners made preposterous claims and stretched truth to the max. Many of the attractions were complete fakes that used mirrors, trick lighting, and other gimmicks. It might be a little hard for some of us to believe that people were that gullible just a few decades ago but what may be even harder to believe concerns an attraction that was 100% real and involved no trickery whatsoever. Once upon a time, tattooed women were so rare that people paid money to see them. Betty Broadbent retired in 1967.

Three in a Row

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Life seems to always get busier as autumn approaches. That’s no doubt partly pure perception as we try to pack as much as possible into the last days of summer but it’s also partially real. Maybe event schedulers once avoided some conflicts by delaying things but there is a limit to how late in the year outdoor activities can be moved without a high risk of cold weather. This week found me participating in blog-worthy outings on three consecutive days. On Thursday, it was the Open Doors: Camp Washington- The Home of Makers walking tour. On Friday, I made it to the first day of Oktoberfest Zinzinnati and on Saturday, a friend and I attended the WACO Fly-In where the photo at right was taken.

The first stop on the Camp Washington tour was at the Crosley factory. An effort is underway to convert the place where radios and appliances were once manufactured into apartments but it has a long way to go. Camp Washington was once filled with factories, meat processing plants, and some oil storage. The 1937 flood damaged many buildings and most of those on Spring Grove Avenue were destroyed by a fire fed by oil floating on the flood waters. The middle picture is of the tallest building in the area to survive. The third picture is of the surviving office building of one of the meatpacking firms.

The only building we entered on the tour was the former hotel and bank that most recently housed US (Uncle Steve’s) Chili. It is now owned by the Cincinnati Preservation Association and slated for renovation. I’ve eaten breakfast and 4-ways here but had never been beyond the first floor. The tile (Rookwood?) fronted fireplace is on the third floor and I also got a shot of a neighbor from that floor. One of the things I remember about US Chili was a large petition calling for removal of the disrespectful (to George) mural seen in that overhead shot and from ground level here.

The tour had started at the American Sign Museum and would technically end there but it more or less disbanded at Valley Park where a farmer’s market was wrapping up for the day. I have driven by the park quite often and have noted its WW I monument but this was the first time I’d actually approached it.

Besides being the host and an interesting Camp Washington building in its own right, the American Sign Museum pulled signs from a pair of former Camp Washington businesses from the attic and offered up some musical entertainment. As marked by a reproduction sign on a parking lot wall, the museum building was once home to Fashion Frocks. I was well aware of that but had never seen any of their products. Tonight the museum had a frock and some advertisements (“Value Priced $7.98”) on display.

My guess that things might not be too crowded on Friday afternoon proved more or less correct. I grabbed a sausage sampler at Mecklenburg’s, a smoked mettwurst at Mick Knoll’s Covington Haus, and a Festbier from the “World’s Oldest Brewery”.

I caught lots of good German music but I didn’t catch any of the performers’ names.

I didn’t catch this guy’s name either but if it’s not Cincinnato Batman I’m going to be really disappointed.

 
 

My completely unqualified impression is that the WACO Fly-In had fewer total planes than usual and that a higher percentage of them were non-WACO but that a higher percentage of the WACOs were the real thing rather than modern reproductions. I also had the more reliable impression that the weather was perfect for the event.

The fly-in is a wonderful place to get up close and fairly personal — no touching — with some beautiful aircraft.

We had semi-intentionally timed our visit to include the Parade of WACOs which meant we got to see quite a few airplanes take off and land and sometimes pause for directions.

And cruise by at fairly low levels, too.
 
 
The WACO story is definitely an interesting one.  An onsite marker tells an extremely brief version with a whole lot more available at the museum website. Or you could probably learn a bunch chatting with this fellow at his color-coordinated airfield campsite. 

Trip Peek #118
Trip #151
Only Rock and Roll

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This picture is from my 2018 Only Rock and Roll trip. The picture is from part two of the three-part outing. It started with a day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH, continued with a Tubes concert in Akron, OH, and concluded with a Little Steven concert in Wabash, IN. I had been to the Hall of Fame a couple of times, had seen the Tubes once, and had seen Little Steven Van Zandt several times. In the past, he had been backing Bruce Springsteen as a member of the E Street Band. This time he was fronting his own fifteen-piece Disciples of Soul and it was glorious.

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.

The Signmaker’s Circus

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The Signmaker’s Circus took place last night at the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio. The picture of Zoltar was not taken there which I realize might not seem quite proper to some. It was taken last week at Uranus, Missouri, but not used in the journal entry for the stop. I liked it and jumped at the chance to use it here when I realized it was a pretty good match for the event’s Save the Date card. The event is subtitled “A Decade of Camp” since its reason for being is to celebrate the museum’s first ten years in Camp Washington. The permanent full-time opening was on June 23, 2012, but two preview days occurred three weeks earlier. This blog was still fairly new then, and I had not yet stopped creating oddments. I did post a blog entry here that includes a link to the oddment and the oddment can be reached directly here.

All the rest of the pictures are from the circus, and there’s a bunch. I arrived about ten minutes before the scheduled start time and found a fairly close parking spot on the street. The museum’s parking lot was being used for valet drop-off and fire juggling. A line that had formed in the lot moved quickly to — and almost as quickly through — the doors when they opened.

The museum looked extra festive and drinks were available at multiple bars. A young lady (blurrily seen here) circulated through the crowd in a dress bearing cones of popcorn. The Burning Caravan provided music to party by from in front of the Rock City sign.

I knew from a Friday Facebook post that something would be revealed from behind a red curtain but I had no idea what. By the luckiest of coincidences, I was walking by the curtain when the ringmaster began his countdown. A proclamation from Mayor Pureval was read making today “American Sign Museum Day” in Cincinnati then the curtains parted. Others had paid better attention to the clues and some had been involved in the preparations. I was gobsmacked when I saw the great neon-illuminated space on the other side and we were invited to pass through the balloon arch.

I recall going to exactly one circus as a child. At ten or so years of age, I was naturally in awe of the exotic animals, people, and costumes as I watched the entrance parade from my bleacher seat. There were no elephants or tigers present last night and I’m over six decades more worldly and jaded than I was then, but I wasn’t watching a distant parade from bleachers last night. With carnival music accompaniment, I was doing the marching past exotic people and costumes. And there was neon everywhere. I did not magically feel ten years old but I was at least as awe-struck when I walked into that room as when those elephants entered the big top all those years ago.

The Burning Caravan played throughout the evening inside the museum while DJ Mowgli provided music for the circus. I’m pretty sure this is as close to a rave as I’ll ever get. People with turbans and tails chatted casually as people with neither lined up to confer with a real live Zoltar.

The ringmaster continued working and introducing acts both on and over the stage. Photos from later points in that on-stage performance can be seen here, here, here, and here.

A sign museum can always be counted on to have just the right marker for everything and that includes pointing to the two food trucks parked right outside the building.

I didn’t get my fortune told but I did get a tee shirt airbrushed. This was free with the purchase of an event shirt. The shirt was dropped off at the painting booth then picked up later when it was completed. The artist and the fellow who took down the instructions had a disagreement over whether it was “DEnny” or “DAnny” so the name was left blank until I returned. This gave me an opportunity to get a snapshot of the shirt getting its final touches.

What a wonderful way to celebrate the museum’s first decade in Camp Washington. I certainly enjoyed myself though I expect someone will ask, “Who was that bearded lady I saw you with last night?”

Our Shared Story at CMC

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Joseph Jonas is thought to be the first Jew to actually settle in Cincinnati. That was in 1817. In 1821, he was one of a handful of men who purchased land for a cemetery so Benjamin Leib’s deathbed request that he be buried as a Jew could be met. The creation of that cemetery, the Chestnut Street Cemetery, is recognized as the event that formally established the Jewish community in Cincinnati. It was renovated last year and its rededication on September 26, 2021, marked the official beginning of the Jewish Cincinnati Bicentennial.

But it wasn’t a visit to the cemetery that led to this post. It was the “Our Shared Story” exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center that led to a visit to the cemetery. In 1821 Cincinnati really was a frontier town and the Chestnut Street Cemetery was not just the first Jewish cemetery in the state but the first west of the Alleghenies. In 1824, K.K. Bene Israel was established. Now known as Rockdale Temple, it is the oldest Jewish congregation west of the Alleghenies. Cincinnati’s Jewish community experienced great growth and had significant impact on the religion in the U.S. with things like major support for Reform Judaism and the founding of Hebrew Union College. The exhibit tells of this influence but has even more examples of the impact Cincinnati Jews had on the world at large.

Quite a number of community and business leaders are recognized. This picture is of a wall where several of those business leaders are identified. Some of the businesses are Manischewitz, Frank’s, Fleischmann’s, and Frisch’s. I got a kick out of seeing a “Jewish Cowboy” promotional record put out by Manischewitz. I got an even bigger kick out of listening to it on YouTube.

As befitting a place that started professional baseball, one Jewish business found success in sporting goods. The Cincinnati Red Stockings began play in 1869, the P. Goldsmith Sons Company was founded in 1875, and a Jewish player named Lipman Pike joined the Reds in 1877. Of course, there are now Jewish players in every professional sport and Jewish fans too as this Bengals yarmulke shows.

Chestnut Street Cemetery is less than a mile from the museum. A double-sided plaque contains information about the cemetery and the two centuries of Jewish history. The information panel visible in the opening photo says that Benjamin Leib’s grave is unmarked but believed to be “in the back left corner”. I’m guessing that means it’s in the left rear of this picture.

Buddy, Can You Lend Me a Sign?

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When the American Sign Museum announced its “first-ever traveling exhibit” at the National Museum of the Air Force, I felt pretty confident that I would see it someday. I was less certain that I would see the signs the museum had loaned to the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. Then, with almost no planning and a fair amount of luck, I saw both borrowed batches of brightness this week.

On Saturday, I learned that my previously made plans for the week had fallen through then almost immediately recalled an email about a museum member discount for the play featuring the loaned signs. I went to the CSC website looking for something later in the week but was surprised to find that a front-row seat was available for the next day (Easter Sunday) and that the performance was one followed by a Q&A with some of the performers. I snatched it up.

CSC’s production of The Comedy of Errors has a modern setting with the play’s Ephesus presented as a Las Vegas-like city. Wanting to add some Vegas-style glow to the stage and realizing that an outstanding repository of neon and such was just a few miles away, the CSC reached out to the ASM, and here (with permission and a phone camera) is the result. The play is hilarious and the cast is superb. In addition to the neon, modern touches include a number of songs to make it a sort of Shakespearean musical. All my roadie friends will be happy to learn that among those songs is a version of “Get Your Kicks on Route 66”. The production runs through April 30.

With some pictures of one set of borrowed signs in my pocket, it wasn’t long before I began thinking about a blog post on the subject, and almost immediately realized that any such post would benefit greatly by also including the other set of current loaners. On Tuesday, I headed to Dayton and, after breakfast at the nearby Hasty Tasty, the Air Force Museum.

Using the life of real sign maker William H. Hahn as inspiration, placards displayed with the signs tell the story of the fictional Joe Signman. On display are examples of the lightbulb, neon, and plastic signs Joe would have dealt with during his career.

My birthday has been the subject of a couple of recent blog posts so you might already be aware that the United States Air Force and I were established the very same year. I have about five months seniority on the Air Force and am all done celebrating. The museum, however, intends to talk up the big anniversary throughout the year. “The Signmaker’s Journey” will be there through October 10.

Leo da Vinci and the Forty Machines

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I’ve read that, once upon a time, ordinary people rarely needed to count past forty and that forty became another way of saying “a whole bunch”. That implies that Noah and family might not have watched it rain for precisely forty days and nights and that Ali Baba may not have encountered exactly forty bad guys. We have outgrown that, of course, and today use numbers like gazillion when we are tired of counting even though that probably occurs long before we reach forty. That is not, however, the case with this post. The Leonardo da Vinci: Machines in Motion exhibit currently at the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton contains exactly forty of Leo’s “machines”.

I took in the exhibit on Friday. It is set against the wall farthest from the entrance which means there is some walking involved. Not only does this provide an opportunity for a little exercise, but there are also plenty of opportunities for getting distracted on the way by the many other, mostly permanent, displays in this wonderful museum. I skipped my favorite gallery, Early Years, and focused on the da Vinci exhibit and still spent at least as much time getting to and from it as I did experiencing it. It’s simply impossible to ignore all those unusual planes and their engaging stories.

A fair number of the displayed machines have to do with flight. That is certainly appropriate for the Air Force Museum although the exhibit’s makeup was not tuned for the location. In fact, this appearance seems to be a recent addition that is not yet listed on the schedule at the Machines in Motion website.

The high ceiling at the museum allows some of da Vinci’s concepts to be suspended overhead as if in flight although they sometimes have to share space with flying things of more recent vintage. The overhead displays include the “parachute” in the opening photograph. The version here is not quite full size. A full-sized version and a description of a real-world use of the design were part of the Da Vinci the Genius exhibit I saw in Cincinnati in 2016.

Leonardo’s flying machines may not have been practical but many of his other ideas certainly were. I don’t believe it is a proven fact that he invented ball bearings but his design of a revolving stage using them might have been their first practical application. His designs for converting one form of motion to another (e.g., rotary to linear) were definitely practical. Check out the kid getting a real hands on education in the background of the second picture. The third picture shows a machine combining several devices to raise heavy pillars.

Seeing this machine for grinding concave mirrors was a real learning experience for me. The sign next to it talks about burning mirrors and mentions that one of their uses was welding. Believing that welding was at best an eighteenth-century concept, I had to look into that and discovered that the welding of soft metals like gold and copper goes back much further and was rather common in da Vinci’s day.

The exhibit runs through May 8 and, like the museum itself, is free.

Voice of America Museum

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I attended Airwaves Kite Fest in 2006 and 2010. 2006 was the second of eight; 2010 was the sixth. It was a cool way to greet springtime and I wish it was still around. It was held at the Voice of America Bethany Station site where a huge array of antennas once broadcast news and more to Europe, Africa, and South America. I believe that parts of the building were open in 2006 and I took some photos inside but the entire month of April 2006 has gone missing from my photo archives. The building held the beginnings of a museum in 2006 and in 2010 it was being renovated to improve the museum operation. Since then, it has gone from being open sporadically to being open every Saturday and Sunday. I’ve driven by it countless times since 2010 but Saturday was the first time I actually did what I told myself I should do on most of those drive-bys. I made it inside where those 2006 beginnings have turned into the impressive VOA museum.

I arrived just as a volunteer was wrapping up his introduction to a sizable group which turned out to be all one family. I accompanied them past a beautifully restored Crosley Hot Shot to watch a short orientation movie.

Then it was a stop at the “Ham Shack” operated by the West Chester Amateur Radio Association. Several members were present (and behind me in the photos) and we were given an overview of the operation. We also got to listen in on a conversation with a fellow in Finland while we were there.

The claimed purpose of the Volksempfänger (people’s receiver) was to make radio reception affordable to the general public but its real purpose was to make the general public accessible to Nazi propaganda. Of course, it could also be used to listen to the BBC and VOA although that was quite illegal. Knowing that Hitler sometimes referred to the VOA broadcasts as “the Cincinnati liars” was and is a source of pride for the locals.

Hitler was completely wrong. For one thing, from its beginning, VOA realized that broadcasting reliable and truthful news would have more impact than broadcasting false propaganda. Secondly, although transmission was from near Cincinnati, the content was not. It came from New York and Washington on telephone lines which were routed to one of six 200-kilowatt transmitters. There were no liars involved and definitely none in Cincinnati. Before it was shut down in 1994, Bethany Relay Station saw several upgrades in transmitters and antennas. People living nearby often reported receiving the station on the plumbing in their bathrooms and the fillings in their teeth.

There were multiple reasons for locating the station here including it being a safe distance from the coasts. But a possibly bigger reason was the existence of Powell Crosley and Crosley Broadcasting. After starting elsewhere at 50 watts, Crosley’s WLW (World’s Largest Wireless) was broadcasting AM from just down the road at 50,000 watts. Between May of 1934 and February of 1939, it had transmitted at an incredible 500,000 watts. Here’s a closeup and description of that pictured metal ball. Across the road from the AM station, a Crosley shortwave station was retransmitting its programming. This became WLWO (Overseas), increased power to 75,000 watts, and, as told here, begat VOA.

Crosley begat a lot of other stuff too. There were cars like the previously pictured Hot Shot. Radios, though, were the money makers. Some products were invented in-house and some were purchased patents. The purchased category included the Icyball and Shelvador. Although refrigerators with door-mounted shelves are commonplace these days, hardly anyone makes a fridge with a good built-in radio anymore. The Reado could deliver and print the news overnight but was done in by the Great Depression.

Crosley was the pioneer and long-time leader but Cincinnati’s TV and radio story goes far beyond that. The museum includes lots of memorabilia from others who spent some time living on the air in Cincinnati.  

Went to Gogh

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I drove to Columbus on Wednesday to immerse myself in Vincent Van Gogh. You might be aware that Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience will be opening in Cincinnati in June. If so, I’d expect you to ask, “Why not wait? It’s the same thing isn’t it?” Well, no. No, it’s not.

There are currently five different digital Van Gogh exhibits touring the United States and triggering a flurry of bad puns. The one I saw in Columbus is Immersive Van Gogh. It is also currently in Cleveland. The one in Indianapolis at present is called Van Gogh Alive. Beyond Indianapolis, Beyond Van Gogh: An Immersive Experience is playing in St. Louis. All four of these have appeared or will appear in several cities other than the ones I’ve mentioned. The fifth exhibit, Imagine Van Gogh: The Immersive Exhibition just opened in Boston and will open in Seattle in March. Those two cities are the only stops currently planned for that exhibit. AFAR has a rundown on all five here.

So which is best? Having seen only one, I have no idea. I went to Columbus for a couple of reasons. One is that I didn’t want to wait. Another is that I’d read a very positive report from a friend I haven’t met. It’s here. She immediately followed her Immersive Van Gogh experience by taking in a related display at the Columbus Museum of Art. That’s described here. I decided I should do that too although, because of ticket availability, I visited the two exhibits in the opposite order.

The picture at the top of this article is of the big ART sculpture near the Columbus Museum of Art. The picture at left is at the entrance to the Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources exhibit inside the museum. The title comes from the more than 100 works from artists that Van Gogh admired and was influenced by. These include Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, and many others. For me, however, the real draw of the exhibit was the seventeen pieces by Van Gogh himself.

I am neither an art connoisseur nor an art historian. I don’t doubt that there are several pieces in the exhibit that are more significant, but these three caught my eye for one reason or another. Bridge across the Seine at Asnieres caught my eye at least partially because it was both different from images I’d previously associated with Van Gogh and similar to images I’ve frequently captured myself with a camera. The bright gold of Wheat Field seemed even more different from the admittedly limited set of Van Gogh images that set my expectations. Neither of these paintings contains people and I think I’d really come to expect people in Van Gogh’s work. Undergrowth with Two Figures, which obviously does contain people, caught my eye through its reproduction in a jigsaw puzzle that passing visitors worked on now and then.

From the museum, I headed a few miles north to the Immersive Van Gogh Experience at Lighthouse ArtSpace. The exhibit opened on October 28 and was originally scheduled to close on January 2. It was sufficiently popular, however, to trigger an extension to February 27.

The 60,000 frames of video appear primarily on the walls but sometimes spill onto the floor and other horizontal surfaces. The giant images are far from static. For example, the purple irises slowly pop onto the green grass background until it is nearly covered and they are almost always in motion.

Neither proof of COVID vaccination nor a negative test is required for admission but a mask must be worn at all times. Circles are projected onto the floor to aid in social distancing. I had expected all of these to be “unfurnished” and many were but more than half contained a simple bench. I had anticipated sitting on the floor but was happy to see the benches. For those of us of a certain age, rising from a bench is much much easier than rising from a floor. Cushions, with a Van Gogh sunflower, are included in VIP ticket packages, and I believe they can be rented. I made do with self cushioning.

The space is basically open but it is large and there are a few pillars. They are covered with a mirror-like surface that avoids blank spots while adding some interesting variations of its own. I doubt you would have guessed and may not find it even after being told it’s there, but one of these pictures contains a funhouse-mirror-style selfie.

I suppose these are the sorts of images my mind tended to associate with Van Gogh in the past. I enjoyed seeing them but probably benefited more from being reminded that he produced some bright and pleasant images too.

These photos were taken with an exposure that makes the exhibit area look quite a bit brighter than it ever really appeared in person. Hopefully, they provide an idea of just how big the area was and how it was laid out.

Wow! The immersive exhibit was wild and entertaining. The original music was splendid and added considerably to the experience. At the end of the day, however, I think I liked the Van Gogh and His Sources exhibit more. The sequence that I saw them in could have something to do with that but I don’t think so. At Lighthouse ArtSpace, it was the presentation and the machinery behind it that held my attention. At the museum, my attention was pulled in by Van Gogh’s actual product and, on occasion, the stories behind it. Both exhibits were well worthwhile, and they do complement each other. It even kind of makes sense, perhaps, to end the day’s doubleheader looking at the eyes that I started the day by trying to look through.