Once you get past the amazingly commerical front end of the Strong Museum in Rochester New York they have some extremely delightful exhibits. Fun interactive exhibits about the toys and commerce of fifties for example. Surprisingly nice uses of computers.

But keep going! The museum does something that all museums ought to do. The vast majority of it’s collection is on display in densely packed rooms of cases. The lady who collected this stuff had fantastic taste. A passon for beautiful objects. Objects that people actually use. An interest in how stuff is made. How it was used.

I love a mueseum that floods me with ideas, I’m peeved when mueseums think they must entertain me – like a TV show.

One thing that impressed me about the Strong was how many objects were collected or displayed together to illustrated a unique way to put an object together. For example the doll collection had lots of of dolls displayed where you could see how they were made.

I really hope they can get the whole collection on the web. With very high quality pictures. A tiny portion – maybe a thousand items – are on the web now. Consider, just this one object. A fruit bowl the picture is way too small but read the description and then click thru to the larger picture. See what I mean about her sense of humor?

I loved hundreds objects in this museum. Very few are on the web at this point. For example there was a collection of inkwells. It is fun
when an object used for a simple everyday job evolves into a new
art form. For example she had a small collection of ink wells. There were a
few that look like the head of a crying baby. You would draw the ink for your rants from the lower lip of the crying babe.