Museum of Visual Materials

Inconsistent event schedule information on the MOVM and google. There was free open play for kids for years. Arrived today kiddos in tow to be rudely ungreeted by an employee to say that they have not had open play since 2020. Posted hours are staffed only for wedding tours and payed art classes. Inaccessible and unaccommodating waste of space.

This place is kinda small, but that's really its only drawback (some of the paintings are also a little...post-representational for my tastes, but I still enjoyed looking at them). Its a beautiful building, surrounded by a beautiful garden, in which there are an array of displays on various interesting topics, as well as numerous paintings for sale, and permanent artistic displays. The staff was very friendly and accomodating, and they permitted me to wander throughout the facilities (including some rear areas that I wasn't entirely certain were ordinarily open to the public), despite the fact that the place was all set up for a wedding reception (presumably taking place right about now).

Its a very eclectic and downright cool place, with all sort of objects d'art & assorted knick-knacks either for sale, or just on display, atop shelves & shelves & shelves of books on all manner of artistic, scientific & cultural topics (I was especially pleased to come across a copy of Roy A. Gallant's "National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our Universe," which my grandfather gave me for Christmas way back in 1980, and which I hadn't seen for a good many years).

Like I said, the place is small, so don't plan on making a day of it, but its definitely more than worth checking out. Its nice that there's no admission fee, but despite being unemployed, I still threw a dollar in their donation box...so if you have a full-time job, please see if you can't do just a little better than that.