Day in Riverside

For my final assignment and an extra credit assignment for my Art Class, I had to attend two art museums over the weekend. Bryan and I made a trip to Downtown Riverside to visit the Riverside Art Museum & UCR California Museum of Photography. I had never been to an art museum before this weekend, and it was definitely a fun and interesting experience.

When we arrived at the Riverside Art Museum, I was instinitly drawn in by the detail and architecture of the building itself. However, when I entered the museum, I was a bit disappointed. There were MAYBE 4 paintings, and only one room with some sculpted furniture pieces reated by a local artist named Sam Maloof, who recently passed away. The furniture was definitely my favorite part, but I wish there would have been a little more art within the museum. We left after about 10 minutes.

After our visit to the Riverside Art Museum, we drove down the street to the UCR California Museum of Photography - Auntie & Grandpa Dennis would definitely appreciate this museum. When you first walk in to the museum there is a very old and very large, working camera right in front of you. This camera was built in 1943 and weighs 700 lbs! Wow, imagine carrying that sucker around? HAHA. There are four floors in this museum. The bottom floor, which is the basement, was my least favorite floor - it was old photos of vacation spots back in the 1920's and 1930's. The main floor was dedicated to all photos taken by blind artists - this was my favorite floor! There were so many amazing photos taken by blind people - photographs that I could never imagine being able to take! In the back room, there were about 30 glass cases that held all different types of cameras and film, all very old, which was totally cool to see! The third floor was dedicated to photos taken of different cement objects - the ground, buildings, sculptures, etc., this was another one that I wasn't very fond of. Then we got to the top floor. There was a small, fenced in room that contained every Mac computer that you could ever imagine - this was showing that most of the digital stuff was done with a Mac. After looking at this room, we headed around the corner. . . . .

Before I went to this museum, I had never heard of the chemical war-fare in Vietnam called Agent Orange, let alone heard about the affects that it had on people. When we turned the corner we entered into a room with photographs of the most horrific and disturbing images I have ever seen in my life. There were children who had faces that were so contorted and deformed that you would not be able to tell it was a person, children who were born with no limbs, and over 10 cases of Siamese Twins were born within just a few months. There was a picture of a 22 year old man who was born with deformities and disabilities that have made it absolutely impossible for him to move an inch. He has been in the same exact position in his bedroom for 22 years. After Bryan and I looked at all of these devestating pictures, we prayed together for these children and their families. There was also a comment book, where we left a comment for them. It was a very heart wrenching room, and really made us think about things a lot for the rest of the day.

After our visits to the museums we decided to head to the Tyler Mall for a little bit and just walk around and enjoy being out of the town for the day. We visited a few stores and did lots of window shopping. I picked out a bunch of really cute Ed Hardy car seats, steering wheel cover, and floor mats for my car - I told Bryan I want him to get them for me for my birthday! HAHA. 

We had dinner at the Yardhouse in Riverside, which was delicious. Bryan had the Turkey Burger which comes with a really yummy marinera sauce with chunks of tomato. I had the turkey club, which was HUGE and delish! After our day in Riverside, we headed back home to spend the rest of the evening at home with our puppies :) 

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I sure did! P.S - Tuesday is my last day of school! YAY!!!