ICE!

While visiting home to celebrate the new year my family took my nephew Tyler to see ICE! at the Gaylord Resort and Convention Center. ICE was an ice sculpture attraction for families to interactively discover the story of how Santa Claus became Santa. Honestly the story part was not so interesting to me but the colored and sculptured ice was fascinating enough. The attraction was entirely chilled at 9 degrees to keep everything solidly cold. We were loaned blue coats to walk around in. After meandering through various sections of the Santa story, which included an elaborate town square, there was a culminating ice palace with slides for people to go down on. (I won my race!) The very last scene of the attraction was a large nativity display in clear ice as opposed to the colored ice that was predominantly featured throughout the exhibit. Tyler told me he liked the entire display and not just a particular point. We all had a lot of fun and really enjoyed such an unusual (and cold) activity and such creative uses of ice.

 

National Gallery

Have you ever wondered what it's like to go inside a museum to understand how it works? Have you considered the meetings, the conversations, and sometimes mundane specifics of such environments, including the installation and preservation of paintings, and the conservation and education efforts in presenting art? Frederick Wiseman's film National Gallery tours one of Britain's top museums and accesses a professional community that displays common industry obligations--budgets, programming, exhibition display, etc.

In the theater, I felt like I was returning to safe place of paintings, docents, and art history. I was the first person sitting in my seat, several people joined me, and unfortunately, I was the last person to remain. The three hour film put me in a museum ecstasy, but it also unintentionally confronted the fundamental problem that all museums face--it's hard to capture the attention of modern audiences. Where I see contemplative refuge, others see stagnant images with echoes of footsteps. The film had no narration, no plot, no explanation. It's one thing to 'lift the veil' of such institutions, but it's completely different and more interesting to analyze how and why museums continue to be captivating.  

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