Following up on our recent blog posts with lists of top-10’s, summer movies, crushes and hotels, I thought I would follow suit. So let’s do this thing -

The good news is that the list of IMA bloggers will be expanding in the next couple of weeks. That means you won’t have to rely on my posts for your exciting look into the world of an art museum. Soon you’ll hear from a variety of perspectives, including conservation, curatorial, education and horticulture. I’ll still talk about technology, new media, art content and soccer, but I’m afraid you may have to wait a little longer. My apologies in advance.

Speaking of new bloggers, we are also working on the concept of Guest Bloggers. Yes, we are talking about people like Jay Z, Banksy, Jessica Alba, Jared the Subway Guy and other big names. I doubt we’ll get any of these celebs, but we are thinking creatively about who could be a guest blogger.

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Aside from the "zigazig ah" that everyone wants, I want IMA to be, “genre-defying.” Films, bands, authors, artists: they can all be genre-defying. So why can’t we?

In many ways museums have been required to wear many hats for a while now. They have found themselves in precarious places, needing to get a piece of that proverbial cash pie, necessitating competition with movies, sporting events, zoos and other, much flashier leisure time attractions. Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings to the readers of IMA Blog. As a member of the IMA Marketing department and a downtown Indy resident, I’ll be sharing my thoughts and insights on work and play – connecting the IMA to the heart of the city.

Made popular by the movie “Night at the Museum” starring Ben Stiller, a hot trend is sweeping the country in which museums are opening up their doors for visitors to spend the night among relics, robots and live animals. The IMA manages to stay open until 9:00 pm on Thursdays and Fridays, which doesn’t exactly allow for a gallery slumber party among the priceless works of art, but does give visitors the unique opportunity to stick around after most museums are closed to enjoy art, music and people.

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Some girls have crushes on rock stars or actors; I crush on art critics and museum directors. Yes, I know, I’m a huge geek…but since it is Valentine’s Day, I thought I would profess my undying love to my top 5 crushes in the art world. (In no particular order.)

Michael Kimmelman– Rocked my world in 2007! Last year I read his book The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa and it changed the way I think about art, my job and my life. I’m also pretty sure he may have one of the coolest gigs in the world, as the chief art critic for the New York Times.

Tyler Green – First of all, he’s all MAN. I’m in awe of Tyler’s authoritative and often humorous blog postings for Artjournal’s Modern Art Notes (MAN). He keeps me in the know and constantly brightens my days with his prolific musings on the art world. I’m also completely in love with him because he just added the IMA to his blog roll. Read the rest of this entry »

For a while now I’ve been interested in how we can do a better job of recording people’s thoughts and impressions about art online. Museums spend a lot of time caring for our collections and making sure that our information about art is “oh so perfect”, but when it comes right down to it, it’s really amazing the types and varieties of new insights you come across when you just ask people what they think!

That’s why I was pretty intrigued by a new tool called Moody that lets you “Mood Tag” your iTunes playlists with how these songs make you feel.

What a great idea! With this tool you simply click a colored square to assign a degree of “mood” to each song as you are listening to them. This morning I was air drumming along to “Lucretia MacEvil” on my way into work… Personally I’d tag that with Intense and Happy! However, chillin’ out with my Sunday morning paper and cup of coffee seems to be more in line with some Stan Getz bossa nova grooves (i.e. Calm, Happy).

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