A Day at the Museum

For Art's 70th summer birthday, he received a Honolulu Museum of Art gift card from a dear friend.  We had a free day so we decided to go.

We'd gone there a little over a year ago when Marianna (Hattie's Web) and Terry treated Cloudia (Comfort Spiral), Hank, and us to lunch but we didn't get a chance to see the exhibits.

The first Wednesdays of each month is a great time to go because there's free admission.

At other times, there's a required "donation."

The horse sculptures made of driftwood outside the museum are pretty awesome.

A docent greeted us saying that there was an "Ummmm...hmmmm.... old and more modern Japanese erotic art exhibit". 

She told us we could skip it.

Ummmmm...

OK... after we left that exhibit.... which was....ummmm... interesting we decided to purify ourselves with some religious art.

This is a Northern Song Dynasty wood carving of Guanyin, c. 1025.  It's supposed to be a male bodhisattva with a Amitabha Buddha crown.

It really is an amazing religious piece and radiates serenity and peace.

I did ask a docent if it was OK to take photos.  He said I could so long as I didn't use a flash.  I didn't bring my camera, so I used my iPhone to take all these photos.

Art took this photo of me looking at some netsuke.

There was a small collection of African, South American and Polynesian art pieces.
















This Hawaiian figurine display is obviously modern.

This Mayan terracotta piece was really exceptional.

There were also a Chinese and Mediterranean courtyard.

This one led to the Mediterranean.

We stopped in the gift shop and bought this calendar for mom to put in the kitchen.  Since her father was a zen priest, we thought it would be perfect.

And yes, she liked it.

It was a lovely way to spend the day.