Listing Through Life

While in Bentonville, we visited this art museum. Several modern-looking galleries and walkways surround a couple ponds with outside gardens and sculpture parks. Here’s an overview of it all in a display in the lobby.

We played a game as we walked around. Several paintings were displayed together on a wall. We picked the one we’d want in our home if we had to choose one. Much of the time, we picked the same one. My favorite artwork in the museum was this painting from a Wisconsin artist — I can’t remember his name. All those dots are birds — actual American species done in great detail. There are animals and other things scattered around too. I could spend an hour looking at it. I wanted to buy a print, but the gift shop only sold postcards on which the image was much to small to appreciate.

There was a special exhibit on birds and birding that had some cool pieces.

There was a lot of more modern art, much of which was nonsense. For example, this entire wall.

This guy sat in an alcove. Even knowing it was not real, it was creepy.

Another special exhibit featured Americana. This portrait of Washington was once owned by Alexander Hamilton. (In case you’re wondering why I took some of the photos at weird angles — it was to eliminate the glare on the glass.)

The museum grounds included the Bachman-Wilson House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was built in 1956 along a river in New Jersey. Due to repeated flooding, it was dismantled and rebuilt here to preserve it. I must admit I can’t figure out why they bothered.

The wall of windows was cool, as were the built-in bookcases, but the cement block walls, the square furniture, the tiny, dark rooms and ridiculously narrow passageways were all ugly and impracticle.

We were given tiny recorders that gave us a tour as we walked through what amounted to three rooms.

Near the house was the sculpture garden. We didn’t cover much of it because we’d been on our feet all morning.

This “art” consists of a bunch of silver balls floating in a pond.

This spider statue was titled “Maman.” It’s a great example of the ridiculous “meanings” of modern art. The sign reads, “Like an umbrella against a storm, Maman shelters this space, looming over us in a protective, yet mysterious way. “Maman” is the French word for “Mom.” The image of the spider refers to the artist’s mother, whom she has described as her closest friend. Though spiders can inspire fear for some people, Bourgeois thought of the spider as caring, helpful, and hard-working—the way she remembered her mother.” If you got that out of the sculpture before reading the sign, raise your hand.

Overall, we enjoyed the museum and would probably go again if we had the opportunity. I’d like to do more of the sculpture garden, and I’d definitely skip the Wright house.

We stopped at the nearby Culver’s — the only one in Arkansas — for lunch, then headed home.

We spent the evening in Fayetteville at a concert. We stayed overnight at a Hampton Inn with a lovely view overlooking a self-storage facility, then set out to see some sights.

We got to the Walmart Museum in Bentonville just as it opened.

The exhibits told the story of Sam Walton and his career in retail. Apparently his grand idea was to allow customers to wander about and pick their own items off the shelf instead of handing a list to a clerk who did it for them. He was involved with Ben Franklin stores somehow — I wasn’t paying a lot of attention — and then opened this place in Bentonville.

There were examples of old products and a history of how Walmart had changed over the years.

Sam’s actual office as he left it.

It even had Sam’s old pickup. I didn’t take a picture of that.

A theater had a hologram image of Sam that told his story.

There was a second floor, but that was pretty much just a commercial for Walmart and we zipped through in a couple minutes.

The best part was the display of items people had returned. It explained the complaints people had about each of them.

After several failed attempts to see this museum, I decided to check online and see when they were actually open. I headed over on a Tuesday morning and found the doors unlocked. There was nobody around when I walked in, although I could hear some people in a back room. I started looking around. After maybe five minutes a woman came out of an office and saw me. She looked shocked that anybody was actually visiting. She told me about the museum and all I was about to see, then left me to wander around. It was a typical city museum, filled with random stuff that people have donated. But it also gave me some interesting information on the city I’ve decided to live in.

The building was erected in 1896 to serve as the city jail. In 1938, it became the Conway Library. The library moved out in 1995, and the historical museum moved in.

The guy who founded Conway:

How it got its name:

Toad Suck Ferry, which operated until the bridge was built in 1970.

Like all these museums, they have rooms where all the random stuff is dumped in some sort of “themed” arrangement.

This doesn’t have anything to do with Faulkner County, but it was eye-catching.

I also learned about a movie that was filmed in Conway 9n 1977. It’s about a high school kid named Jimmy (Richard Thomas) who went a little crazy, caused some havoc, and dropped out of school when he heard that James Dean had died. We watched it at a family movie night a few months later — it’s not a particularly good or memorable movie, but we did recognize several of the locations.

The lady came out of her office as I was finishing up and tried to get me to become a member and participate in all the historical society stuff. She also gave me two quarters so I could get a penny smashed in a machine that embossed it with “Toad Suck Daze.”

We spent a night in Hot Springs to see the gardens lit up for Christmas. We weren’t the only ones. To control the amount of traffic, cars were routed down several side roads and held up until parking spaces were available. It took us at least a half hour to go the final mile or so, and our parking space was a long way from the entrance, tucked in a back corner by a maintenance shed. But once we got to the grounds, the crowd wasn’t unbearable. Of course, there were rude families who hogged the sidewalks or expected us to stop while they took photos of each other. But for the most part, it was relaxing. The weather was great — chilly but not cold. The decorations were impressive, although many of them had nothing to do with Christmas or any other holiday I’m aware of. Much of it had a Asian feel to it. There were several places where lights were synchronized with music. It all took us perhaps two hours to see, and we thought we might like to do it again sometime.