A Kaleidoscopic Journey

Every time Naomi saw the ad in the Charlotte Magazine for the Niki de St Phalle art exhibit at the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art in downtown Charlotte, she would ask when we could go. This went on for months until we finally scheduled a day to head downtown to check it out. I am glad that we did. The title of the exhibit was "Creation of a New Mythology". It was billed as "a kaledoscopic journey where things don't always appear as they seem." That is exactly what we found waiting for us. It was fantastic!

"La Cabeza"

The picture in the magazine did not show the scale of this exhibit and Naomi was blown away by the size. She would have loved it as a smaller piece of art, but the fact that a person could sit in the nose and you could walk inside made this better than she ever imagined.

While we were appreciating this exhibit we met a family from Australia. They took this picture for us. They had been in the U.S. for over a month and were just going where the mood took them. They decided to make Charlotte their last stop before returning home because they had repeatedly heard what a great city it was. So far, they agreed with everything everyone had said. Charlotte was worth the stop on their tour. We told them that we really enjoyed living in Charlotte and they told us how lucky we were to have so many interesting and fun things to do so close to home. I realized, at that moment, just how little we had seen of what Charlotte has to offer. The kids are now old enough to start more exploration and they are excited to get started. It only took a family from across the world to make our "home" look more exciting to us. Isn't that ironic!!?

We don't know the name of this exhibit, but it was all covered with shiney siler and gold mosaic pieces and Noami loved it.

The kids were excited to find "Utah" on one of the street signs. All the signs in the plaza are authors names that are also cities.

Jeremy is conducting a session with Nicholas as Naomi looks on.

This was just another example of the fun things to be found in downtown Charlotte.

"The Cat"

Niki de St Phalle's art is so much fun because the colors are bright and shiney, the size is fun and the theme caught the kids attention immediately. The icing on the cake was that they not only got to touch it, but they were encouraged to fully explore it as well.

Jeremy demonstrating how art realistically depicts life. This is exactly how the boys feel on golf days. WAHOO!!!

Nicholas on the stack-of-books sculpture. This is just a part of the authors theme that was all over the plaza.

Anything he can do she can do better. A little bit of sibling rivalry or simply imitating a much-loved brother? It all depends on who you ask.

Running to the next sculpture.

This makes you want to play the trumpet while wearing a bright-colored jacket and gold pants.

"The Firebird"

This sculpture was even better in person.

Although we were exhausted after such a fun-filled day, we didn't want the day to end. The kids and I loved this outing and are planning more in the future. Stay tuned to see what we will do next.