FROM CLASSICS TO KID’S STUFF – PASADENA MUSEUMS HAVE IT ALL
by Scott Aronowitz

(Published: The Pasadena Weekly, July 8, 1994)

“Museums?! I didn’t come all the way to Pasadena to see museums! I came to party! I came to drink and eat and dance and go to Disneyland and go wild every night and sleep late every morning and get up and do it all over again! I didn’t come here to look at ‘Oversized Nude Woman on Bicycle with Both Eyes on One Side of Head Finding Spirit of Nature in 4th Dimensional Space! Who cares how Pablo Leonardo Henri Georges Jean-Paul Whatsizname was trying to express his inner pain? I want to have fun!”

All right, do you feel better? Is it all out of your system? Good. Because believe it or not, museums in Pasadena really are fun! There’s a lot more to look at than paintings and a lot more to do than look.

For starters, you can smell. And thanks to the 130 acres of beautiful, exotic flowers and other plant life from all over the world at the Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Gardens, you can smell a lot. With over 14,000 varieties of greenery in 15 garden areas, you can travel the World Cup world through offerings from Japan, England, Australia, the South Seas, even the nearby California deserts and San Gabriel Mountains. Or you can simply stop and smell the roses.

Then, when you’re through smelling, you can sip. That’s right, sip, thanks to the English tea served Tuesday through Sunday in the Rose Garden Tea Room. Sit in a palatial paradise surrounded by lush beauty as you are served chamomile and scones. The Queen herself should have it so good.

Smelling and sipping not enough? What if we said the museums can get you psyched? (Sufferin’ succotash!) If a good psyching is what you need, catch the exhibits at the Pacific Asia Museum and the Pasadena Historical Museum. Both will get the adrenaline pumping in any sports fan.

Pacific Asia plans to show fans of the world’s most popular sport what other games have been hot in the Pacific Rim through the ages at their “Games of the Asian World” exhibit from June 25 through August 7. Paintings, drawings, wood carvings, even actual uniforms and equipment will be on display to depict Eastern Asia’s favorite athletic pastimes from the past fifteen centuries or so.

But you still say you came here to play? Well it’s time we introduced you to the ultimate laboratory for the kid in all of us.

Welcome to Kidspace.

You can probably ask any ten local adults to name their favorite museum in Pasadena, and at least five will say Kidspace (not scientifically determined). The city’s educational playground for the kid in all of us, Kidspace offers unique exhibits where not learning is impossible and not touching is unthinkable.

This summer’s offerings, beginning June 18, include Eco-Beach, an enclosed sandbox containing four tons of sand a variety of natural objects usually found only at the beach, a wave maker and surround sounds of the surf; Critter Caverns, displaying animal habitats on, above and below ground, where little human critters can actually crawl and explore; Toddler Territory, with a play environment for those under 5; the International Mask Gallery, where visitors can make their own masks and write stories about them; a simulated television station, for writing news stories and broadcasting them on closed-circuit TV; a mini planetarium and a costume gallery.

Kidspace also offers touch tables featuring natural objects and artifacts related to each exhibit, special workshops and educational programs to learn more about the themes of the exhibits, and even a one-on-one audience with Dylan, the Friendly Boa Constrictor.

Finally, this summer brings a whole variety of international exhibits and presentations, including International World Cup Day June 26, just in time for the tournament.

The museum’s summer hours are Tuesday through Friday 1-5 p.m. and weekends 12:30-5 p.m. And remember, aboutn the only thing you can’t do at Kidspace is get bored.

By the time you’re through playing, at Kidspace and elsewhere, you’ll want to relax and perhaps simply look for awhile. That’s just fine, because the world-renowned Norton Simon Museum has plenty to look at.

Of course, the museum offers the great works of the European legends for which it is famous: Goya, Renoir, Monet, Rodin and the ever-reliable Picasso and Rembrandt. But if you’re looking for something a little more cutting-edge, you’ll want to check out the exhibit of Bauhaus painter Wassily Kandinsky. How hot is this man? Well, the Russian lawyer famous for painting both sides of the canvas died in 1944, and number-one rapper Will Smith raved about him in his most recent movie, nearly 50 years later. If the “Fresh Prince” thinks he’s def, what more do you need?

Finally, the Armory Center for the Arts puts a clever spin on the World Cup with their “World of Cups” exhibit, offering an international collection of different varieties of cups, everything from sports trophies to china teacups, many of them by artists commissioned especially for the event. The exhibit coincides directly with the tournament, running from June 17 through July 15. (Just for the record, the World Cup trophy itself is not a cup, but a ball supported by vines, done up in gold.)

The Armory Center will also offer children’s art workshops during the tournament period for all the artistic prodigies wanting to discover their own talents.

There! You see? You don’t have to spend every waking moment at Disneyland to have a good time here! In fact, you don’t even have to leave Pasadena.

Don’t worry. You can still go back home, cop a superior attitude and say you soaked up a lot of culture on your vacation. We won’t tell anyone you actually had fun.