My Richmond adventures were not planned in advance. After the morning camp drop-off, I took a look at the map from the visitor’s center and did a gut check to see what I wanted to go do at that moment. On day two, another scorcher of a day, I wanted to spend some time indoors and was drawn to what I think of as Richmond’s Smithsonians.

The Virginia Historical Society and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts are located right next to each other. Both museums have free admission and incredible permanent collections. For some reason, most people have yet to realize the value of these places. When you ask someone for a short list of things to visit in Richmond, they don’t usually come up . . . but they should.

The only problem with my plan was that the museums did not open until 10:00 a.m. I had an hour to kill so I first cleaned out the car. When you undertake an adventure such as this, your car will get trashed on a daily basis. Taking time each day to declutter and find and throw out garbage and food, makes a big difference.

We still had time to wait so we went for a walk in the gardens. There was lots of great landscape design to appreciate.

When the museums finally opened, we headed first to the Virginia Historical Society.

We toured two special exhibits. The first was devoted to two paintings of Virginia landscapes done by Edward Beyer in the 1850’s. The exhibit compared the paintings to the modern day landscape. On computer screens near the paintings, you could touch elements in the painting and see photographs of the structures as they appear today.

In general, I don’t like to mix too much technology with my museum experience. If I have gone to all the trouble to be there in person, it seems strange to pull out my smart phone to view details of the exhibition online. However, this was a wonderful use of technology in the museum context. My son really enjoyed pressing the touch screen and the computer helped to organize a lot of information in a very simple and straightforward way. Even though the exhibit was relatively small, it made an impact and proved that you don’t have to have a lot of material so long as you use it well.

The next exhibit was called “Revolutions: Songs of Social Change.” It compared music from the Civil War era with music from the Vietnam era. It was interesting to see how many songs about war had been written during both periods.

Most of the Civil War era tunes were pretty obscure and unknown to me. Many were penned by women. The exhibit also referenced songs about slavery and music created by slaves. One part of the exhibit mentioned an effort by a musical historian to document popular songs slaves sung in the fields. It never occurred to me that while doing such harsh and backbreaking labor, someone would think to compose music or create a choir of voices.

The war music chosen to represent the 1960’s included more folk tunes and not a huge amount of rock. It was interesting to note how much music about war was created during that time.

When I tried to recall music written about the current War on Terror, all that was immediately coming to mind were several Toby Keith songs: like “Beer for my Horses” and “American Soldier” and the video for 3 Doors Down “When I’m Gone.” It was kind of surprising given the length of the conflict that there weren’t more.

It was an interesting challenge for the museum to present an exhibit on musical history. Since the museum wanted to preserve its silent atmosphere, you had to listen to the music by standing in front of a computer display while wearing headphones. It would have been nice to have something more portable so you could stroll about the exhibit as you listened or sit down and relax.

We had a little time left so we went through the “Made in Virginia” exhibit, profiling Virginia’s economic history and the major companies that have impacted the state. There were interesting merchandise samples, advertising and machinery to see. We then went through the “Story of Virginia” tracing the history of the state from its Native American roots to the modern day. This quote about Virginia women deserves to be printed on T-shirts or embroidered on pillows, don’t you think?

My son’s favorite part of the museum was pushing more buttons on the Lil’ Virginian’s history quiz.

We left the museum and went to pick up my daughter for lunch. We returned to the museum grounds as the Virginia Historical Society has a wonderful space outside the museum with picnic tables. Although it was hot, we managed to stay reasonably cool underneath the shade of some large magnolia trees.

For our afternoon adventure, we headed to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. There was a big “Pop Art” sign outside the museum and my daughter was intrigued by the large images of lips and fruit. When we went in to tour the exhibit, we learned that while the permanent collections are free, the special exhibitions are not. When I went to purchase tickets for the Pop Art show, I saw a warning about mature content. I asked a guard if he had seen the show and asked him how graphic the objectionable material was. His answer would tell me a lot about how the museum viewed children. “The worst thing in the exhibit is probably some nudes,” the guard told me. “I don’t find it that objectionable,” he said.

Nudes did not scare us off. Because of the economics of the ticket pricing, we ended up purchasing a family membership to the museum, which allows us to see the special exhibitions free of charge for the next year.
Finally, we were all set and ready to view the exhibit.

The exhibit was about artist Tom Wesselmann. When most people think of Pop Art, they think of Andy Warhol and his soup cans. I learned that six artists form the core of the American Pop Art movement: Warhol, Wesselmann, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Claes Oldenberg and Jim Dine.

The first section of the exhibit was called “The Great American Nude.” In this section, Wesselmann updated classic pictures of reclining nudes by Matisse, Titian, Goya and Manet (I learned the technical art term for a reclining nude is an “odalisque”). He referenced these classic works but put a modern day spin on them with brighter colors and a more overtly sexual tone. My son decided to dramatically lay on the floor in an odalisque-like way during this part of our tour, causing two women touring the exhibit to comment, “That’s art right there!”

The next section of the exhibit showed how Wesselmann incorporated elements like working clocks and televisions into his paintings, creating a combination painting/sculpture/machine. After that, Wesselman explored the still life in a very curious way. Again, inspired by famous still life works, he reinvented the still life by essentially making the viewer the size of an ant and having the viewer look up at enormous items. In one, we were looking up at a collection of items on a woman’s dresser, like a lipstick case, sunglasses, etc. The items were probably 10 feet tall. It certainly gave you a new perspective. Toward the end of his life, Wesselman began experimenting with using metal as a sort of sketching material. He made large images from bent and cut colored metal. The images were like rough sketches of landscapes and still lifes. He wanted the viewer to see them as taking the rough idea of a sketch and putting it right up on the wall. It was a wonderful effect.

There was so much to think about in the exhibit. Wesselman was profoundly original. It was definitely worth the price of admission.

After the Wesselman exhibit, we tried to tour some of the permanent collection but my son was a bit too loud for this.

We ended up at the museum café on the outdoor patio where my daughter indulged in a peanut butter chocolate mousse.

We took this self-timed shot and a kind museum employee who spotted us through the glass rushed out to offer to take a formal picture for us.

A refreshing light rain began to fall. It was nice to cool off and watch the rain spatter the surface of the fountains and the Chilhuly glass reeds.

We relaxed on the patio for a bit and then packed up to pick up my daughter from camp. Overall, it was definitely a “feed your head” kind of day. I left feeling exhilarated to know so many new things.