Member-only story
My Favorite Museum In The World
Only one museum?
The first memory that popped into my mind was the in St. Louis, Missouri. It is a supersized McDonald’s Playland made out of recycled stuff. Back in the early 2000s, school groups would go in the summer, and it was packed with kids running around. Slides were made out of recycled auditorium chairs. Walls were made from aluminum containers. On the third floor, artists worked while children watched. There was a weaver who weaved cat hair, dog hair, and any hair she could weave. There was an animal trainer who trained dogs to do tricks they were already inclined to do. Small dogs jumped through hoops. Big dogs kept watch or jumped through bigger hoops.
We took our kids there when they were young. It opened in 1997, and I was there in 1998. My kids were nine and seven years old.
The museum was the vision of two St. Louis artists, Bob Cassilly, and his wife at that time, Gail Cassilly. As I explore the museum website now, I can see it has expanded by leaps and bounds. My kids are grown. It’s almost time to collect the grandkids to go!
stated in his piece on Museums that seeing a copy of a Masterwork instead of the original is not the same. There is something mind-boggling and unforgettable about seeing the real deal.
