Nelson Musuem of Art

Location: 4525 Oak Street, KC MO

Website: http://www.nelson-atkins.org/

Hours: Wed, 10 a.m.—4 p.m.
Thurs, Fri, 10 a.m.—9 p.m.
Sat, 10 a.m.—5 p.m.
Sun, Noon—5 p.m.

Cost: Free. However, it does cost 5 bucks to park. Keep that in mind.

Age Appropriate: How brave are you, that is really the question you should be asking yourself.


The Nitty Gritty:
I'm not going to come on here and actually review any art. The reason being is that I have about as much knowledge of art as I do of jet engines, which is none. But I do like working comparisons of jet engines into my blogs so mission accomplished. But I will talk about the space and the experience for us. You can make a decision yourself about the art. But if someone reads this and actually understands contemporary art, please post a comment because I really don't get that shit.

As for the museum, we loved it. It's a good space and was a good time for the dads group and kids. You would think that a bunch of toddlers would get bored here but I don't think that was the case at all. They seemed a lot more engaged than I thought they would be. Visit the website to see the different collections that the museum has and also anything about the audio tours also offered. Although I would have loved to take the audio tour, I found it in our best interest to be on defcon Delta with 3 year olds running around 1000 year old priceless antiquities. But on the whole, they were really well behaved and again I think it is actually because they had some interest in what we were seeing.

We only had 2 instances of a "Oh My God" moment. The first was when one of little ones started banging his head against the glass enclosure. No biggie but it made a large sound. The next moment was when another of our 2 year olds attempted to climb up on a table that could honestly be described as priceless. Each time we were able to get things under control but you do have to be diligent. There are a lot of antique chairs on display and every kid loves chairs so we had to watch out for these.

The kids seemed to have the best time in the European and Greek art sections, which I can't really blame them. Who doesn't like suits of armor and giant horses. There is a carved lion and numerous other things of this nature that held our interest. However, our general rule was to never stop moving. To stop moving would invite little fingers to touch a Monet and that is not going to be good. If someone asks what color is on that Picasso, just say Grape Jelly and keep on walking. We kept prying fingers off the paintings (which I really did think were amazing) by telling the kids that they were "hot". This seemed to work and I'm proud to say that none of the art work was destroyed by our children, ages 2 to 4. KCDADS rock.

So in conclusion, this was a nice time that took about 2 hours as we never stopped in any one place longer than five minutes. The downside here is that we, and I mean the adults, didn't get to really appreciate alot of the art. This is normal when we go to museums but this is one that I would like to go back to without the kids to fully understand it all.

I also want to put a note in about the bathrooms. Although very clean and well kept, contained no changing table stations for dad. I know that I shouldn't expect it, but it does make our lives easier.

I do want to talk about the outside in this blog as well although we were not able to go there today. I have been to the front lawn in the past and have found that this is truly wonderful for the kids. There are sculpture gardens all along the gigantic lawn and plenty of area for the kids to run off some steam. And who can forget the giant shuttlecocks? In the spring and summer, this is a must see in Kansas City.

The final recommendation is to get off your kiester and go get some art, it's worth it.