The Anchorage Museum of History and Art
The Anchorage Museum of History and Art just hosted a big public bash to celebrate their expansion project. From humble beginnings, they have grown so much. The current museum is already fantastic. The expansion is sure to make Anchorage shine a little brighter as a destination for art and history lovers.
The Museum was formed in 1968 to commemorate the 100 anniversary of the purchase of Alaska. They opened with 60 exhibits and a collection of 2,500 artifacts loaned (then donated) by the local historical society. They expanded in 1975 and again in 1986. Now, thanks to the Rasmuson Foundation's 50 million dollar endowment and growing public funds, the museum is undergoing another huge expansion that will increase it a third again in size by 2010.
The Museum is a public friendly place, offering artist-in-residence weekends like last week's, "Masters of Mud." The Masters of Mud is held once a year with potters coming from all over to display their work and do live demonstrations of working with clay. The museum holds other artist events throughout the year as well, inviting residents and visitors to join them for free during these events. If you can't get there for one of these events, however, the Museum is well worth the $8 entance fee.
The current space is open and inviting with a charming café, a permanent collection of paintings by Alaskan artists (including the famous Sydney Laurence), a children's museum (this exhibit changes a few times a year), and two galleries that house guest exhibits. Upstairs is the permanent Alaska collection. It is more cultural in nature than the downstairs exhibits with artifacts from many different era's of our Alaskan history including displays of Alaska Native artifacts, displays from Russian-America, the gold rush era, and still others that detail Alaska's role in WWII, and how oil and the pipeline changed Alaska.
The new portion of the museum will not open until April of 2010, but I know that it will be an exciting event. There are plans to bring more than 600 items home that have been on a long term loan to the Smithsonian. The Imaginarium, an interactive children's science center, will be moving into the museum. I will be eagerly waiting to see what else they will include in their new space. In the meantime, everyone who comes to Anchorage should plan to stop in at our incredible museum!
