Sunday, April 24, 2011

Open Days at the Museum - First 2 weekends in May!

The Zymoglyphic Museum will be open for TWO weekends this year, May 7-8 and  May 14-15 as part of Silicon Valley Open Studios from 11 AM to 5 PM each day.  This year the studio of noted metal and book artist Judith Hoffman will also welcome visitors at the same location.  Details here.

Obscura Day
The museum's overwinter accumulation of dust and cobwebs were stirred earlier this year when the museum was open for Obscura Day 2011.  Visitors were encouraged, as usual, to take photographs, with the following results:
      Flickr user Microecos found some interesting hidden details in and around the museum
      Stephanie Theune led an expedition into wildest suburbia

Open Studio Enticements
The museum shop will be in full swing, offering:
    The official guide to the museum
    A book of engraving collages purporting to be views of the Zymoglyphic region
    Prints of said engraving collages
    A book of quick sketches also claiming to be views of the region
The museum has also acquired an intriguing bit of conceptual art from PreNeo Press which may (or may not) assist  befuddled visitors in finding meaning in the museum.
A special exhibit will showcase the dreamy pinhole photographs of the museum made by Judith Hoffman during her tenure as artist-in-residence at the museum, as well as the homemade camera used to take the photographs.

Making Your Own Museum
In Kurt Vonnegut's novel The Sirens of Titan, one of the main characters had a childhood museum,  described as "a museum of mortal remains — of endoskeletons and exoskeletons — of shells, coral, bone, cartilage, and chitin — of dottles and orts and residua of souls long gone."  Zymoglyphic Museum visitors often mention their own accumulations of detritus and effluvia, perhaps bones, rusty objects, memorabilia, or flea market finds.  A new museum publication, Creating and Curating Your Own Museum guides budding curators in the process of turning these raw materials into a personal museum.  Copies will be available in the museum shop or may be downloaded in PDF format here