Museums / Theaters, Seattle

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Officially the mouthfull name of this establishment is The Wing Luke Museum of the Pacific Asian American Experience, which describes the museum and its offerings. It is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.

Some of the museum displays and exhibits rotate, while others are permanent. I highly recommend leaving time to take the guided tour, as it visits places behind doors that are marked "Staff Only", and behind those doors lie some of the treasures of this museum. The museum is located in one of the buildings that once first housed Asian immigrants upon their arrival in Seattle. The old Asian grocery store on the lower floor is another treasure that you can explore on this tour. There are art displays, history displays, and an auditorium for special speakers.

The standard ticket price is $12.95, which may seem somewhat high, and one of the reasons why I highly recommend allowing as much time as possible to see everything, especially the guided tour. As with most of the museums in Seattle, it is closed on Mondays. It is also a participant in the 1st Thursday museum open house event, in which the museum is open until 8 pm. It is also open until 8 at night on the third Saturday of the month. Certain holidays are an exception to these hours, however.

The photography policy is that it is generally acceptable to take photographs with handheld cameras, except in areas where there are art displays or otherwise exhibits are marked to not permit photography.

Wing Luke was born in 1925 in China, to a family that had earlier emigrated to the USA, and then returned to China. They came to the Seattle area when Wing Luke was very young. He became a political figure, military hero during World War II, and early civil rights leader, but died in a plane crash in 1965. Forming a museum like the Wing Luke Museum was a stated goal of his, and thus the naming of this museum in his honor.



I arrived visited the museum on December 11, 2010. There happened to be a tour leaving in a few minutes, and so I joined them. We immediately went next door, to the virtually intact Asian grocery store, though it was originally located about 1/2 a block away. The store had been in operation by a family for many decades, and little in it had changed over those years, complete with the mechanical cash register and many other relics (but still fully functional) of a much earlier store. When it closed in 2007, it was completely moved to the museum owned property, with virtually every single fixture and sale item, so that it is essentially an intact example of a functioning Seattle Asian grocery store, as it would have existed in the very early 1900s.

We then went up to the 3rd floor and behind closed doors, and into the essentially intact sections of the old hotel building. Here, except for decay of time and weather, the "hotel" is a relic of the primitive living conditions that once welcomed Asian immigrants to Seattle. Bare floorboards, primitive furniture, crowded rooms, and little privacy can still be imagined, though the rooms did not retain most of their furniture. One of the rooms was once used by one of the family associations, which were an important part of the system used to support new arrivals. This room, while very worn, still retains some of the decorations that mark it as a formal meeting hall.

Other rooms are dedicated to specific ethnic groups. For example one of the rooms is dedicated to immigrants from the Philippines.

A number of slideshows have been put together and play throughout the old hotel section of the museum. However, as it is only possible to visit this section of the building while on the guided tour, it isn't possible to really watch that much of any one show.

Elsewhere in the museum, there were art displays dedicated to immigrants and by immigrants, a touching display (closing December 12th of 2010) about the refugee experience, a temporary display about the experience about experiencing life as Asian adoptees, a small room dedicated to the victims of Pol Pot and the Killing Fields in Cambodia, and permanent more general displays about the experience of Asians in the USA.

It is a shame that some more space isn't available for some of the eccentric and wonderful and touching artwork done by Asian people that were part of the temporary displays.

Since I was already planning on visiting the Portland Art Museum, I decided to skip the Seattle Art Museum and visit the Frye Art Museum instead. This museum located in the First Hill area first opened in 1952 to present the private collection of Charles and Emma Frye. The Fryes owned 232 paintings, most of them by German artists, and they left money in their will to build a museum provided that admission would always be free. Over the years, the museum's collection has grown to include works by American artists that complemented the Fryes' collection, which is mostly made up of representative arts. The bulk of the collection is presented in one huge room covered with paintings from floor to ceiling, and visitors can pick up information sheets that describe the paintings as they enter the room.

Although admission remains free to this day, the Frye Art Museum has grown to include a cafe and temporary exhibitions. When we were there, we got to see a rather interesting one focusing on Albert von Keller and the Occult, reflecting the sudden rise in popularity of esoterism in Europe at the end of the 19th century. We also got to see a rather disturbing one featuring performances by a Seattle-based group of artists called "Implied Violence", which was strangely captivating.

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Charles and Emma Frye were early Seattle art collectors and business leaders. They loaned a number of works from their private collection to various Seattle events, and they hosted a number of art and charitable events in their home. The Frye museum opened in 1952, with the former Frye collection forming the basis of their exhibits.

However, as part of maintaining the collection, the museum has also tried to maintain the spirit of civic responsibility that Charles and Emma Frye had in hosting the various events at their home, as well as their charitable works.

The museum now features a mixture of contemporary works plus items from the collection of Founding Frye Collection. The museum has an extensive public outreach and education part of its work, and there are considerable efforts by the museum to use art work to reach out to marginalized parts of the local society. This may be seen by some of the works on display here.

There is a frequently unvisited part of the museum down the "education" wing. While some of what is in that wing is not open to the public, the corridor itself leading to the classrooms and offices does feature exhibits, and you may find some of the most interesting treasures of your visit here. For example, included in the exhibits that were there when I visited were works by Seattle school students, including a remarkable and haunting short film. To get to this wing from the main entrance to the museum, follow the signs to the Frye Art Museum Cafe, and keep following the corridor to the back of the museum towards the education wing.

The musuem is free of charge, in continuation of the Frye family tradition of civic responsibility and making art accessible to those who are on the margins of society.

The museum has free WiFi access, and a cafe that serves an assortment of snacks and beverages. There is also a museum store that features everything from toys to environmentally sensitive water bottles to art educational tools and memorabilia.

As with most art museums, photography is not allowed inside.

Hours: Closed Mondays. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 10 to 5. Thursdays 10 am to 8 pm. Sundays 12 to 5.

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Seattle Art Museum operates several facilities, including the main Art Museum in downtown Seattle, the Seattle Asian American Art Museum in Volunteer Park, the Olympic Sculpture Garden on the north end of the Seattle waterfront, and a gallery and art rental and sales facility one block from the main art museum. This tip is focused on the main Seattle Art Museum in downtown.

You will see the abbreviation SAM everywhere, and naturally SAM = Seattle Art Museum.

The museum is extremely close to the Pike Place Market. The museum is extremely easy to access via transit, and there is at least one fairly good sized parking garage near the museum. However, I severely suggest coming by public transit, as both driving and parking in downtown Seattle can be more of a hassle than getting around by transit. Almost all bus routes that go to downtown Seattle go near the museum, and access to the transit tunnel (longer distance bus routes and the LINK light rail line) are about 1 block away - about as close as any parking garage except the one built into the museum itself.

Please take time to carefully look at the museum hours for the day you plan to visit. Generally, the museum is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, except if there is a special popular exhibit the museum may be open until 9 at night due to the number of people visiting. Certain Thursday evenings also see the museum open until 9 at night. Therefore, if you are having trouble determining how to cram everything you want to see into a few days, these extended museum hours on certain days may be vital to fitting a visit to this museum into the puzzle.

Perhaps the must visible landmark of the museum is "Hammering Man", which is a huge metal sculpture that (when the sculpture is working properly) moves a hammer back and forth like a blacksmith. This sculpture sits at one of the major entrances to the musem, at 1st Avenue and University. However, this entrance is NOT considered the "Main Entrance" to the museum. Instead, the main entrance is considered to be at 1st Avenue and Union Street, one block north of "Hammering Man" and the doors beneath his feet. You will sometimes hear the sculpture referred to as "Hammering Sam" and while this may seem to be an appropriate name, since SAM is the Seattle Art Museum, the fact is that "Hammering Man" is actually owned by the city of Seattle rather than the Seattle Art Museum, and so there are those who insist on the name "Hammering Man" as "Hammering Sam" makes it sound as though the sculpture is owned by the museum.

Or something like that. In any event, if you call it "Hammering SAM" people will know what you are talking about, but people intimately familiar with the museum or the city of Seattle might get upset.

UPDATE: Hammering Man has recently been repaired, and is now operating again, as of early 2010. To prove it, I have uploaded a short video of Hammering Man taken in April of 2010.

Starting at the bottom level of the museum, assuming that you have missed the main entrance and entered at the Hammering Man" sculpture:

Level 1 of the Museum has an entry hall called "South Hall". To the right, there is a fairly large auditorium for special shows, a smaller lecture hall, and a fairly small "Nordstrom Art Studio". Also to the right is a staircase up to a series of smaller galleries on Level 2. To the left of the entrance, there are stairs and escalators to the tecketing lobby on the 2nd Level of the museum. Past the escalators are SAM Taste Museum Restaurant and SAM Shop Museum Store.

Thanks to the museum being built on a hill (like most of Seattle is) the main entrance to the museum is halfway between Level 1 and Level 2. This "level 1.5" only consists of Sarkowsky Hall, which along with being the designated main entrance features the coat check area (mandatory for large bags of any sort), the information desk, and the entrance to the museum's parking garage. The coat check is free, but a donation is asked.

Level 2 of the museum consists of the Brotman Forum, which is the hall where the ticket desks are located. You can't miss this room: is the one whith the suspended Ford Taurauses have been turned into giant light stars hanging from the ceiling. However, it is easy to overlook the Forum Gallery and other rooms on the south side of the museum. Certain special exhibits and speakers may be found there, and the Forum Gallery to the right of the ticket counter regularly features exhibits, but because it isn't part of the paid admission part of the museum, it is very easy to miss it.

Levels 3 and 4 require museum admission, and include some 20 named galleries. Art includes both permanent collections and visiting shows. Among the permanent collections are works of Native Americans (both North and South), Australians, Africans, and Europeans. The Knudsen Family Room on level 3 and the Lockwood Foundation Living Room on level 4 are designed to help people interact with the museum's collection, in some ways as a complete family.

Providing information on most levels of the museum are scattered video kiosks and a complimentary audio guide system that may be obtained from the ticket booth.

Level 5 is dedicated to special visitors of the museum: the Bullitt Library features and extensive collection (some 20,000 volumes) for those needing to do further research, particularly with artists or works that are specializations of the Seattle Art Museum.

As the museum is quite extensive, you may wish to take part in one of the 30 minute or 60 minute public tourst of the museum that are offered, or if you are part of a group of 10 or more adults, it is possible to arrange a private tour - with reduced museum admissions, but also a tour fee.

Don't try to take the entire museum in at a rush, so as to make the $15 admissions fee worth the time you spend here.

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Curently free to enter, the museum is open Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 9 am to 3 pm. It is located on a Coast Guard military base, and therefore if you try to drive to the museum you will be subjected to a vehicle search.

The museum houses a number of artifacts from the Coast Guard and its past agencies, including material about historic lighthouses in the northwest, photos and brief descriptions of some of the ship wrecks in the region, and models of some of the important ships in the history of the Coast Guard.

There are one or two web sites out there that say that the museum allows visitors to go on board some of the Coast Guard ships that are in port here. This is simply not the case. It may have been true at one time, but not now.

Except for the rotating lighthouse lens, virtually everything in the museum is static display. While it is wonderful that these items have been preserved, it also makes for a fairly unexciting display. The ironic thing is that there is probably very little that is more "exciting" or action packed than attempting a rescue mission on the high seas, or even attempting to rescue a grounded vessel in a storm.

For those needing to do research into their relatives past, there are some 3,000 volumes in the museum archives that may be of use.

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The Pacific Science Center has many tremendous buildings built for younger visitors to explore the world around them. One of these is the Butterfly house. A small greenhouse set with lush plants, literally hundreds of butterflies from several dozen species, it is a pleasant stay. They flutter around, landing on people on occasion. There is a space on the side for the pupae as well, so you can watch them hatch into their adult stages. It's a lot of fun, colorful and pleasant. Just sit on the rocks, watch them go about their lives.

For the Pacific Science Center:
Mon-Fri 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Sat-Sun-Holidays 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Close at 3 p.m. Dec. 24.
Closed Dec. 25

Admission:
Adults (13-64) $11, Seniors (65+) $9.50, Juniors (6-12) $8, Kids(3-5) $6

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Before entering the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, I wondered just how would one go about setting up a museum about something seeming intangible as science fiction. I soon found out.

The museum has displays covering the timeline of science fiction, from its earliest contributors to the present day. Its hall of fame display includes many famous authors and other notables of science fiction. There was even a display of science fiction books that resembled a lost corner inside an old library rather than a museum.

The most interesting exhibits were artifacts from many movies and television shows. This included props, costumes, and scenery. The television series Star trek was well represented with authentic props like phasers and communicators. Weaponry from various movies was also on display at the armory. Star Wars took a place of prominence among the props. Displays about characters were also present.

The museum diverged into a robot display. This was an enormous collection of toy robots. Perhaps you might find something you remember from your childhood among the exhibits.

A nice collection of movie posters was available for viewing.

Entry to the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame is included with the Experience Music Project.

I think the Seattle Art Museum is a good general art museum, but I enjoy art. There is more spectacular Asian art than Western, I recall. However, this summer (2008) the museum is hosting a show on Impressionism, which should be popular with most people. I also like the Frye art museum, but check its website to see whether the particular shows up during your visit will interest you. (I've seen some shows there that I loved and others that didn't interest me.) It used to focus on contemporary figurative art, but its website suggests that it is now featuring contemporary art in general.