In a completely unexpected twist, both my granddaughters have parents who work in museums. In terms of time spent, both kids are bonafide museum rats. In Oregon we volunteer at a small museum, and in Los Angeles we’re constantly exploring its impressive range of museum offerings (usually on free passes). I’m probably the rare school kid that was never taken on a field trip to a museum, so as an adult/museum volunteer I’m fascinated by how exhibits are put together, how to stage and build exhibits and present sometimes unwieldy cultural information. I can only surmise that as a volunteer I’m repurposing years of telling a garden story, considering the best placement, staring at light patterns, always struggling to make a garden more legible despite an inclination to include too much.
chandeliers and dinosaurs, where else but at the Natural History Museum, Los Angeles — kids see a lot of bones and taxidermy at any natural history museum
Since becoming volunteers, if we can fit it in, we now make it a point to visit every museum we come across, large or small. Quite a change from previous museum habits of mainly visiting the great ones in Europe, e.g. the Uffizi, Musee d’Orsay, V&A, etc. Museums with large endowments are a wonder of design and craft, staffed by professionals with credentials in museum studies, graphic design, art history and exhibit construction. Small-town museums obviously lack similar resources, but just as in visiting gardens, there’s lots to learn from museums of every budget and size. And kids take surprisingly well to adopting the “quiet” voice and manners necessary for everyone to enjoy these spaces.
taxidermy at the Natural History Museum, Los Angeles — kids fall easily under the spell of these hushed spaces
NHM Los Angeles
NHM Los Angeles
NHM Los Angeles
taxidermy room at Tillamook Pioneer Museum, Oregon. Often small-town museums give me a vibe of having been designed by Wes Anderson.
Tillamook Pioneer Museum — at the smaller museums, don’t be surprised to find you have the entire place to yourself
small-town museums are often housed in beautiful historilc buildings — we all admire this light fixture at the Tillamook Pioneer Museum
exhibit on clayworks industry and “beehive” kilns, Fairhope, Alabama, (population approx 23k) beautifully done with backdrop of photographic wallpaper — note details like the curved corner. Museum is housed in the former City Hall. Fairhope is one of two remaining “Single-Tax Colonies” in the U.S., a utopian-minded civic venture
Museum of History, Fairhope, Alabama, firehose nozzle display shows some “flat lay” skills (we were in Fairhope recently for my brother’s celebration of life)
Astoria’s Heritage Museum, formerly the City Hall, exhibit on the Coast Salish indigenous people of the PNW. And, yes, there is a Goonies exhibit here too
Los Angeles Maritime Museum in the old ferry building — years ago we ate at this restaurant right before it closed! If you live in a small town, your local history museum most likely could use your help.
“Corita Kent: The Sorcery of Images,” Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles, aka the “Pop Art Nun,” show includes this revolving triptych of over 1,000 photos as well as her work with serigraphs. Startling to find Sister Corita’s nun’s habit was exactly the same as the nuns who taught me, including my art teacher Sister Mary Paul — museums shake loose all kinds of dusty memories
Marciano Art Foundation — had to get a photo of the tree aloe
at LACMA Chris Burden’s Metropolis II takes up a whole room — last time we were there the cars and trains of this “kinetic sculpture” ran on Thursdays, so you might want to call ahead to double-check. Your kids will thank you!
the sublime Ruth Asawa at LACMA
“How to be a Guerrilla Girl,” Getty Research Institute, showcasing 40 years of the anonymous feminist art collective and new work for the exhibit, ends April 12, 2026, really fun show
Many of the original GG’s had backgrounds in advertising
Some founding members were confused by “guerrilla” and thought it referenced the great ape, so the collective leaned into the joke — how an iconography is born!
Since its founding, members’ identities have remained secret, and the GG’s are never seen without their gorilla masks in public, as shown in this blurry photo from the GRI show’s opening November 2025.
We recently visited the Monuments show at the MOCA Geffen, which is overwhelming for a lot of reasons, not least the physical scale. The logistics and funds necessary to transport these massive statues across the country could only be handled by a museum with an endowment like Los Angeles’ MOCA Geffen.
at MOCA Geffen thru spring
“The exhibition reflects on the histories and legacies of post-Civil War America as they continue to resonate today, bringing together a selection of decommissioned monuments, many of which are Confederate, with contemporary artworks borrowed and newly created for the occasion. Removed from their original outdoor public context, the monuments in the exhibition will be shown in their varying states of transformation, from unmarred to heavily vandalized.”
Marty grew up in the South and has always told me that American History was taught to him through the filter of the “Lost Cause,” which I found incredible, almost hard to believe. Visiting the Monuments show with him, watching his complete and quiet absorption in the exhibit, I knew his childhood memories of seeing them in parks as a young boy added another chilling layer to the experience.
“Orion’s Cabinet,” Abigail DeVille, MOCA
“Orion’s Cabinet” by Abigail Deville: “The work draws on photographs of Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, set ablaze by retreating Confederate forces at the end of the Civil War. Here, the cabinets become both a ruined political landscape and fragile vessels of domestic memory.”
“A museum is a place where one should lose one’s head,” says Renzo Piano, architect of the Resnick Pavilion at LACMA. And large or small, I always do.
What an interesting post, Denise! It looks to me that you and Marty are doing an excellent job of raising the next generation of “museum rats.” I enjoyed seeing the little ones in action in so many of your photos, which added to the wonder and joy of the exhibits. I had to look up the definition of the “Lost Cause” filter for viewing American history and was quite surprised by that. I’m also thinking it’s been all too long since I visited LA’s Natural History Museum.
What an interesting post, Denise! It looks to me that you and Marty are doing an excellent job of raising the next generation of “museum rats.” I enjoyed seeing the little ones in action in so many of your photos, which added to the wonder and joy of the exhibits. I had to look up the definition of the “Lost Cause” filter for viewing American history and was quite surprised by that. I’m also thinking it’s been all too long since I visited LA’s Natural History Museum.