Museum Selfie Day

What’s so great about the museum selfie?

Everything! While the question may be rhetorical, the answer is certainly not. What I love about museum selfies is that these photographs celebrate one’s museum visit and champion the idea of play and discovery across our institution. The act of taking selfies encourages all visitors to become explorers inside our galleries and museum spaces, as they search out the artworks that appeal to them and inspire their best photographs. This creative investigation of our galleries breathes new life and imagination into the museum experience.

Visiting a museum is a chance to dream and reflect, to learn and explore our past and present, and to connect with family and friends. No two museums are alike and no two museum visits are the same. Some museum visitors come to talk and socialize, others come to sketch. Some visitors read all the labels, while others swear by the audio tours. There is no one right or wrong way to visit a museum. Taking photographs inside galleries appeals to many visitors, but it’s not for everyone. And that’s OK, too.

Please join us in celebrating the experience of the museum selfie, and visit on Wednesday, January 20 to celebrate Museum Selfie Day. Share your pictures, and remember to include #MuseumSelfie and @worcesterart with your photos.

To help you with this experience, we’ve prepared some tips for smart and helpful strategies for taking photographs inside the museum. Check out those tips here.

- Adam Rozan, Director of Audience Engagement

p.s. Special thanks to the Royal Ontario Museum for help in creating our selfie guidelines, and to Mar Dixon for championing Museum Selfie Day.

Art Carts: Family Fun

Curious about art?

There are many centuries of art to discover here at WAM. Our new Art Carts: Family Fun activities take art, as well as the cultures and history of that art, and offer a new way of seeing and experiencing it. From discovering how the Hunt Mosaic was made and how it got to WAM to looking at shards of pottery and discovering the puzzle that real world archaeologists face every day, there’s so much to explore. Look at Early America portraits, try on the clothes they wore, and discover how they lived. Study Roman faces to discover gods and emperors and how, sometimes, they were the same. Or, learn to write like an Egyptian. There are many more opportunities to interact with art and the past – or even the present. Led by our knowledgeable—and fun—educators, these lively gallery get-togethers are for all ages!

Art Carts are located around the Museum. Ask at our Information Desks for more on times and locations or see our website.

Art Cart: Family Fun Hours

Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays: 1-2pm and 2:30-3:30pm

Saturdays and Sundays: 2:30-3:30pm

Learn more about Art Carts

- Neal Bourbeau, Knights Education Programming Coordinator

Lifetime Achievement Award - Dr. Jeffrey L. Forgeng

I was surprised and honored this week to learn that I have been selected for a Lifetime Achievement Award as part of the 2015 HEMA Scholar Awards. I’ve been researching Historical European Martial Arts since about 1990, before the field truly came into being. My work on Royal Armouries Manuscript I.33, the oldest surviving swordfighting treatise, played a big part in my appointment as Paul S. Morgan Curator at the Higgins Armory in 1999. Since then I’ve seen HEMA burgeon into a major international phenomenon—I can recognize at least four different countries on the panel responsible for the awards. Our world-class historical combat program at the Armory was among my proudest achievements during my time there, and I’m happy to say that we are continuing to build on that legacy in the Higgins Collection’s new home here at the Worcester Art Museum. Swordplay classes are currently offered here every weekend, and this summer we will offer a rare opportunity for visitors to see both an original copy of Joachim Meyer’s combat treatise of 1570, and a fencing longsword of the type illustrated in Meyer’s book.

Learn more about Jeppson Idea Lab: The Art of Combat
Browse The John Woodman Higgins Collection online
Learn more about the 2015 HEMA Scholar Awards

- Jeffrey L. Forgeng, Curator of Arms & Armor and Medieval Art