Chazen Museum of Art, #3 - The Art, Contemporary/Modern, Madison, WI

Whenever I find myself in an art museum, I tend to gravitate toward modern and contemporary pieces, I think due in large part to the general use of bright colors, shapes, and concepts. That's what I take the most pics of and what you'll see below.

HUGE sculpture made out of carbon fiber and aluminum!
I hope my picture didn't disturb that group of people over there... wait, that's an exhibit too.

Isn't this stuff awe-inspiring and awesome?! I loved all the bright, interesting pieces, installations, and sculptures. It made the trip very worthwhile and I was very happy to have made this trip.

One more post on the Chazen coming up... stay tuned for #4.

Chazen Museum of Art, #2 - The Samurai, Madison, WI

I didn't know it going into the museum, or as I made my plans that week, but I stumbled into a very well-done exhibit on the Samuari. I would encourage anyone to go see this exhibit, it's not terribly big and wouldn't take much time to view. You could then go on to the rest of the museum, or save it for another day.

The exhibit sorted it out pretty well, with history, dress, weapons, and even the daily life. Here's some of the info and images below, but it's certainly not all.

Don't forget to come back soon for Parts #3 and #4, with much more of the normal art being exhibited in the museum.

Chazen Museum of Art, #1 - The Building, Madison, WI

After gorging myself on soggy sandwiches and premium ice cream, I had planned to take in another campus attraction, the Chazen Museum of Art, located a decent walk from Babcock Hall. It had begun to rain, which made the idea of a museum perfect for this outing. 

It's an impressive building both inside and out, and we'll spend a little bit of time in this first post (of four) looking at just that, the building.

It became clear that the building is actually two buildings connected on the 2nd floor with a walkway. In the walkway, you can get a great view of both "sides" of the museum, as well as the outside campus area, and even Lake Mendota off in the distance (probably easier if it's not raining).

I'm calling the portion below the "right wing", where you find the main entrances, lobby, special exhibit hall, and the gift shop.

This is the "left wing", which is chock-a-block full of art.

Below is a view into the main lobby from the steps above. It's truly a very nice museum space and I was a bit surprised at how nice everything was for being on a Big 10 college campus. It was a great surprise at that.

Here's a list of the types of art and a quick view of the entire museum from the map:

They indicate above that it's a four-story museum, however, I spent most of my time in the special exhibit on the main floor (which is a modest size gallery), and then on the 3rd floor walking around all of the different collections. I don't recall being on the 4th floor, or wanting to at that point, plus it will give me something to back and see at a later time.

They even had their own art on the walls and in this case, ceiling of the museum... here's a glimpse of something just painted on the walls near a large skylight...

Pretty frickin' awesome stuff.

That's it for this post. In posts #2, #3, and #4, we'll look at the special exhibit they had when I visited, and then some of the normal collection pieces.

Babcock Hall Dairy Plant & Store, #2 - The Eats, Madison, WI

If you had read Part 1, I'm sure you'll be as happy as I was to get into the foods on offer in the Dairy Store, so let's get to it.

They have ice cream available (of course!), but as this store is located in a university building, filled with people during the school year, and for that matter is located on a college campus filled with people during the school year, that's a lot of people. As such, they have done the smart thing offer a full menu of items, including sandwiches, soups, salads, etc.

I started my visit with lunch, and it seemed like one of their sandwiches was the way to go. I followed their directions and picked one of their Signature sandwiches... the Mendota Club. Let's do it!

It's pretty much like a simple Subway sandwich shop, but wasn't as good as I was hoping for. It's just a sandwich. I think that's what I get for eating lunch at a dairy store full of ice cream. If you go, my suggestion would be to eat lunch first someplace else, then come here for the ice cream.

They have all manner of lunch options (I even heard their taco salad ordered more than once), but I didn't think mine was that great and I didn't even take a pic of my final sandwich. They were very nice folks and patient & helpful, even for a newbie like me. The lady helping me loaded it up with mayo (blech!), toasted it off to melt the cheese and then wrapped it in sandwich paper. By the time I opened it to eat it, the bread sweat had steamed all the bread and other ingredients into a mushy mess. It wasn't "toasty" at all, no crisp. Ah well. I'm learning as I go.

So, back to the important part, their ice cream. I went right back up to the counter after wolfing down my lunch to make my pick and get some frozen deliciousness.

The pricing is very reasonable for a good-sized dish of 2-3 scoops, and you can mix flavors too. So, I did... Peanut Butter and Chocolate (an all-time go-to) and Union Utopia (which seemed like a good idea)...

I went outside to eat it on their patio, which also let it get a little more melty and smooth. They were both very good and I would certainly go back to try more ice cream. 

They also have other dairy items available for purchase and take-out in the store... fine meats and cheeses and the like. As I understand it, all made there in the hall or at the university.

I'll certainly go back to Babcock for the ice cream (I'll skip the sandwich), and will take the faster main entrance to the store next time too.