The Bowers Museum - a golden kernel of cultural wheat among the Disney chaff
Written: May 27 '01 (Updated May 30 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A lovely small museum
Cons: None!
The Bottom Line: Small museum with focused permanent collections, excellent temporary exhibits, very nice restaurant, gorgeous gift shop, easy to reach - we'll be back!
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| Penguinlady's Full Review: Anaheim |
We decided to go to Turkey, my dearly beloved husband and I. I'm fascinated by ancient history, particularly social and cultural history, and when I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to go to Greece because it's dripping with history, he tartly informed me that 95% of Greek history is in Turkey.
I've traveled in Europe many times, and DB has been there a few times. As Americans of German extraction, we are familiar with the history, culture, and languages of Europe. So when we go, we just hop a plane and do it. (Well, that's what I used to do, but DB loves the planning, poring over maps, plotting routes, and pre-trip reading, so I no longer take off on two weeks notice as I've done in the past.)
But Turkey is different. It's not familiar to us. We know nothing about the culture, traditions, language, or much history. That's part of the fascination, but we weren't sure we wanted to go it alone; I mean, I could just see our heads on a platter, lopped off by a scimitar-wielding and fiercely mustachioed Young Turk. Besides, knowing as relatively little as we did, we were afraid we'd miss something really vital.
So, with some trepidation, we decided to try to find a small tour of like-minded travelers. I had nightmares of 75 people jammed onto a bus with a tour guide brandishing a clipboard and whistle - "OK, half an hour for the Topkapi!" So I started by checking the Smithsonian tours, UCLA, the American Archaeological Society, and National Geographic. They all had wonderful-sounding trips, but none at the right time - we can only go in June.
We were about to abandon our Turkey plans when a friend happened to mention in a casual conversation that the Bowers Museum of Cultural Arts was organizing a tour to Turkey. So I checked it out, and sure enough, they were - for June. Small - 20 people max. Leisurely - a 2-week itinerary covered in a little more than three weeks. Informative - guided by a Turkish archaeologist from Ankara University. Fun - includes three days on a Turkish sailboat ("gulet") from Marmaris to Rhodes, and a hot-air balloon trip in Cappadoccia. We signed on and leave in a few days.
BUT... In order to go on the tour, we had to join not only the Bowers Museum but also its Collector's Council. That done, we received, first, our membership cards, and second, a flyer about Trilogy of Glass, a 3-part exhibit of glass art: Roman Glass - Reflections on Cultural Change, Foremost But Not Without Form by Taiwanese glass artist Loretta Yang, and Seaforms, by Seattle-based (I think) American artist Darryl Chihuly. The whole thing looked very appealing, especially the Chihuly works. So late this morning, with my visiting mother-in-law in tow, we took off in search of some culture.
Where it is
The Bowers is two blocks off the I-5 freeway on Main Street in Santa Ana. You can't miss it. (I know, I know - this category is about Anaheim, but there's nowhere else to put this, and the museum is a few blocks from the Anaheim city limits. So NR me if my placement of this review in Anaheim offends you...)
What it's about
The Bowers Museum specializes in cultural and ethnic art and artifacts. The permanent exhibits deal with early California and the Missions and Native Americans, among others. The traveling exhibitions, of which the glass show was one, feature a wide variety of culturally based subjects. The Museum also has an extensive lecture series - while we were there, a large group convened in the lecture hall for a talk on the history and development of glass technology. The shows change about four times a year. Free guided tours are available, conducted by knowledgeable docents - we played tag with one that began a few minutes after we got there, and while we weren't interested in joining it, we did notice that the docent seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of knowledge of not only glass but also ancient and Roman history, and glassmaking techniques.
The exhibit was well organized; the ancient and Roman segment was spread through three rooms, with strategically placed and highly informative posters along the walls and the displays scattered in the rooms. They had an impressive number of objects, mostly small but excellent examples of ancient glass-making arts. The lighting was good, with medium-level ambient light interspersed with pin-point beams for the objects. The temperature was pretty low, though, and I was glad to have my sweater.
We wandered through the Loretta Yang exhibit next, on our way to the Chihuly show. Great was my disappointment when we couldn't find it. DB asked the guard where it was, and was told that Chihuly's "people" had come and packed it up a week earlier than planned, to show it elsewhere. So we had driven 40 miles primarily to see something that wasn't there.
The rest of it
The restaurant in the museum is run by Patina, or rather, "The Patina Group." Patina is a posh restaurant in Beverly Hills begun by Joachim Splichal, and is consistently rated as one of the top in the area. Splichal has now become a corporation and runs a number of restaurants all over the place, so I can't speak to the quality of the original Patina, but the restaurant at the Bowers, Tangata, is excellent. We had a choice of Sunday brunch dishes, soups, starters, salads, sandwiches, and entrees. The prices ranged from about $6.50 for some of the brunch items to about $17.95 for the most expensive entree. There's an outdoor seating area, which would be lovely on a nice day, which today wasn't. The service could be better, but the food was wonderful.
The gift shop is one of the best I've seen. It's small, with rather a smaller - but well-organized - book collection than I would prefer, but otherwise filled with wonderful ethnic jewelry, fabrics, apparel, furniture, and general artifacts. I resisted the urge to splurge - saving my money for the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul.
The building itself is very charming and attractive. Vaguely Spanish Mission - Hacienda in style, it's build around a nicely landscaped lawn with some terraces, one of which belongs to the restaurant.
The Bowers also features a Kidspace Children's Museum,. We didn’t get to it, but friends who have been there say it’s terrific.
The Museum also has an active travel program, via which we are going to Turkey next week. They have been to a number of fairly exotic places, and are planning trips to Southwestern China and Papua New Guinea in 2002. Participation is open to anyone who is willing to join the Museum and the Collector's Council, an expense of $165 for the two of us.
The nitty-gritty
The Museum is located at 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana. The phone number is 714/567-3600.
It's open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.
Admission is $10 adult, $8 seniors and students, $6 kids ages five to 12, and free for members and kids under five.
Will we go back? You bet. This is a little gem of a museum and now that we're on the mailing list, we'll receive mailings about future shows. It's not a bad drive on a relatively traffic-free Sunday, so we'll look forward to more opportunities to get a little cultchah.
Oh - and Turkey? Stay tuned - we get back on June 26 and I'll probably begin writing on June 27!
Recommended:
Yes
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