Michael's Museum

Tomorrow my dear friend Michael (see In the Table/ On the Wall) will be having an opening of his lifetime collection of miniatures, now on permanent display, at the Chicago Children’s Museum. All his life he has been accumulating small objects and has organized them into over a 100 different collections—Native American arts and crafts; bakelite baubles; a black and white horse carved with his dad to get a cub scout badge; little people collection; small pieces of pan-asian art; relics dug out of the earth while gardening including toys, clinkers, and melted bottles; miniature bowling pins, and much more. In his previous house he had an entire room devoted to his collections, a magical and inspiring space. I used to love to wander in it perusing all the objects, opening the drawers, discovering the “finds.”

Now, the public will be able to see and interact with his tzotchkes, including being able to curate some of their own from pieces available to the viewers. Click on Michael’s Museum Blog to check out “Today’s Tiny Treasure.”

Read this article in the Chicago Sun-Times about Michael and his collections at the Chicago Children’s Museum.

By the way, over the years JB and I have made and given Michael tiny art treasures for birthday and holiday gifts. He has a 5 foot shelf in the exhibit displaying a collection of some of these pieces. Most of them are maquettes for larger pieces we sculpted or painted.

Michael, an educator as well, will be on hand at the museum a few days a month to guide activities and give tours.

There are two openings tomorrow–a public one in the morning and a private one in the evening. I will post lots of pictures.

Here’s to what promises to be a new and most important addition to Chicago’s cultural heritage!

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