The Best Kept Secret in Dallas
On Saturday, we headed downtown around noon, not telling Bri where we were going since it was one of her birthday surprises. We arrived, parked at a meter for 40 cents and walked into the Trammell and Margaret Crow Asian Collection of Art for their family fun day. Brianna was still oohing and aahing over the fountains outside when the two women at the door greeted us with sincere warmth. They asked Brianna her name, and gave us a scavenger hunt for the new sculpture exhibit. Since there were no other guest near the entrance, even I had this surreal moment of thinking:"Did we rent out the place for Brianna's private birthday?" Brianna was clearly thrilled and feeling very special. Because we were rather limited on time (It was a Saturday after all, our busiest day.), we didn't do the whole activity booklet, just hit high points of the new exhibit. Our favorite part of it was this amazing wooden sculpture called Line Dance 2. We went upstairs to where the real fun was going on. There we did share the space with about 20 other people, about 8 of them kids. Just walking through the glass footbridge between galleries was a great joy for Bri. Thousands of beautiful origami cranes hang there. There were colorful styrofoam bits that you could wet and stick together to make art, but we went staight for the Model Magic. Bri started right to work on a cat (big surprise:)), so I made a tiny mouse for her cat to chase. Then we put them on some popsicle sticks that were provided. My goal was for us to be able to carry them around without messing them up, but we ended up turning them into puppets. We took our puppets and went into the other gallery. There was a young woman working on her wood sculpture in the jade gallery, so we watched her work a bit and asked some questions. Then she asked Brianna how much she would sell her cat sculpture for. Brianna giggled and said it wasn't for sale. "Oh, yeah, the old NFS." Brianna decided she needed a kitten to go with the cat, so we went back to the ModelMagic and made a kitten and a ball. All the time, volunteers were expressing interest inthe kids' projects and encouraging them. Someone took photos of Bri's cat and mouse. Overall, loads of fun. And, oh yeah, free. In Dallas, free.
We went back yesterday with Heather and Micah and Kiara for the noon storytime and a little more browsing. We were the only ones there, but the docent was so gracious and generous. Such a treat.