Ghibli Museum - have a look at this, and also some of the theoretical underpinnings can be found here.

We're home!

So, we're back! The jet-lag is not good (I woke up at noon UK time, and had no idea where I was!) but nevertheless thought I would do a really brief summary before we start reflecting and making use of our findings back in the real world...

We planned to visit 5 venues (Getty Center, New Children's Museum in San Diego, LACMA, Phoenix Art Museum and Arizona Museum for Youth). In the end, we visited 10 (the above plus Skirball Center, Griffith Observatory, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Desert Botanical Gardens and the Children's Museum of Phoenix).

We have a massive list of further places to investigate, as well as an even bigger list of reports and books to look up and read. I'll post all these later.

It was such a rich and diverse experience: lots of shared ideas, but also lots of divergent ones, alongside a couple of fairly controversial ones. Really looking forward to putting it all to use.

Arizona Museum for Youth and Children's Museum of Phoenix

So we have come to the final day of our trip - and it was a really inspiring finale - particularly to see two spaces that had under 4 spaces that were so central to their aims. They were aesthetically very different (one bold and bright, the other neutral and natural), but both contained some really interesting things, and in particular we got lots of practical ideas (etch-a-sketch, magnadoodle pattern printing, Buddha boards, IKEA furniture, sorting activities...) Laura Matzer showed us around the Arizona Museum for Youth in Mesa, which opened in 1978 during the first wave of Children's Museums. They have no collection, although the curator works with Laura to choose work to have on loan during exhibitions. They also take touring exhibitions and had one from Brooklyn Children's Museum about pattern. They are also about to have one about Studio Ghibli which has been touring many venues for a long time with some serious thought behind it - Laura gave us papers about its theoretical underpinnings which I look forward to reading. She also suggested several other places that we could look into online, and was also interested in Reggio Emilia approaches... Lots of food for thought (yet again! - need to find some thinking time!)

Then we went to the Children's Museum in Phoenix - it took some finding and a few near misses, but it was worth the wait. Lots of ideas about using space: so a wind machine coming from a floor vent, a jungle of spongey rubber trees, bicycle courses, a supermarket and a pizza kitchen were just some of the activites. They were also just building a massive climbing frame from recycled materials which is being created by volunteers using found objects. The recycling and reusing theme is SO strong in almost all the places we have visited.

Anyway, we'd better go and pack now as it's back to reality (via a few airports first) tomorrow.

Desert Botanical Gardens

No visit to Phoenix could be complete without a visit to this amazing cactus desert park. We saw catuses: lots of them - but all different varieties. We also jackrabbits, desert woodpeckers that live inside the giant saguaro cactus (which only lives in this part of the world in the Sonaran Desert), lizards, desert quails, parrots (possibly love birds?) - and also - HUMMING BIRDS feeding off beautiful desert flowers. They were amazing and our photos do not do the wildlife justice (no prizes for us for Wildlife Photographer of the Year, although Alex's parrot is particularly amazing). The desert is not barren at all but really rich and colourful. It was amazing to see the vegetation and go inside some traditional houses made from plants. The dead cactuses were like skeletons and surprisingly hard and barky like trees. The park was surrounded by huge red rock hills and mountains and we watched the sun go down between the cactuses and the birds going to roost.

Then we came back for pre-dinner swim and had dinner near the canal in Scottsdale in a surreal area full of swanky bars and restaurants, but also the most kitsch shops selling chihuahas in sombreros etc.

Phoenix Art Museum

Phoenix Art Museum had the most different philosophy of any that we have visited - it could even be the polar opposite of the San Diego New Children's Museum. The thinking behind the Children's Gallery was not about being hands-on or making things, rather it was about trying to develop visual literacy, often using language, but again with collections at its heart. An interesting shift though about use of language and prioritising this over kinaesthetic learning in a way, and I am sure there will be some interesting reflections to come later about whether this was equally to do with the political differences between Arizona (conservative) and California (more liberal)... It was great to meet Kathryn Blake and share some of her ideas for the new strategy and thinking about museum behaviours and not setting up false expectations for a museum visit by having a manic hands-on space.

Phoenix, Arizona

A 6.30am start to catch the plane. It was the most weird system at LA airport to check-in for an internal flight. Clearly they are trying to economise so it's all self check-in and they managed to add hidden costs for baggage (as they'd done with the rental car as well) but finally we got through. Only an hour flight which was good. First impressions: Arizona really IS a desert! There are huge cacti everywhere like you see on cartoons, and big red rocks sticking up in the city. It doesn't seem like a city compared with LA. It's pretty deserted, very hot, low level buildings and wide boulevards. We're actually staying in Scottsdale which was recommended by Laura from the Arizona Museum for Youth as it has lots of culture going on. On arriving, we went to a Mexican restaurant for Sunday lunch (seemed to be the thing to do when we got there: lots of family lunches), the wandered round the corner - to chance upon the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMOCA) - AND a James Turrell sky space! Wow! Didn't know it was even here! It was an oval version of the one a YSP. However, being in Arizona, the sky was blue with little fluffy clouds (The Orb song keeps going through my head) and it felt totally different to being in a field near Wakefield. Obviously! Was so pleased to find it as had no idea it was even here. We picked up a few maps and the area looks very manageable with some interesting places to see. And a waterfron with canal which I look forward to seeing as there's not much other water round here. All the rivers marked on the map say 'Dry' next to them - just salt in the bottom. We've had a swim and are just relaxing and doing absolutely nothing now as we are shattered and have been on the go since Monday! So I will go now.

Don't forget to look up all the photos on Flickr. Have decided to continue this blog when I get back as so far it's descriptive rather than reflective in the main so need to use it for reflecting when I get back.

Santa Monica

OK - so we have to rub it in. As well as working really hard, we are managing to have a small bit of play time. So we spent Saturday afternoon and evening in Santa Monica. It has a pier that is 100 years old, traditional wooden boards, and lined with fairground rides, stalls and entertainers. At the very end sat a busker: Mr Larry Dallas Poling. He sang, played a mahogany guitar and harmonica and it was beautiful. When he got to Neil Young's Heart of Gold, I had a bit of an emotional moment trying to take in the amazing views, sounds, waves, seagulls, pelican (!). Needless to say I bought his CD. You can check him out here.

Then what else to be done, but to have a swim in the ocean (they don't say 'sea' here - it's all oceans - i.e. the Pacific) - it was about 100 degrees centigrade in the sun after all! The waves were awesome: lots of body surfing (without the board) and it was so much warmer than Sandbanks sea.

A wander round parts of the town and then watching sunset from the beach followed by a Bellini at Shutters, a restaurant/bar that is right on the beach and was recommended by Rebecca from the Getty. We followed this with dinner at the Library Alehouse (another thing from Alex's Lonely Planet) - I had a Bison Burger. And then we went to another bar where Alex nearly had an unfortunate incident with someone named Derrick and we nearly got locked in the parking lot as a cold mist descended. But other than that (and we did avoid these hazards!), a really amazing finale to our LA adventure.

PS - Alex W driving today for the first time: don't know why I was so worried - it was all fine.

Saturday - Skirball Center

Doing so much that we haven't had time to keep this up - sorry to loyal followers! So, just to go back to Saturday's events. My cousins Simon and Lisa recommended that we visit a place called the Skirball Center: it's a massive Jewish Museum, but prides itself on this amazing Noah's Ark exhibition for children which is all hands-on, interactive, fun and not too much explicit learning, all intuitive, no text or instructions. We were not disappointed.

In fact, it was the most laughing we have done so far, amazingly good fun, quite energetic (crawling through rope bridges and ladders designed for 4 year olds!), and some of the most ingenious ideas we've seen. I will post some films on YouTube that we made in the style of an artist we'd seen in San Diego who made films from the backs of animals and insects. I will say no more now about the films... Wait and see.

The Noah's Ark itself took 5 years to plan and build and we could really see why. Attention to detail and design was everwhere - and again this big American theme of recycling materials: turning familiar everyday stuff into new things. Sounds like the Object Dialogue Box? It was a bit. It wasn't overtly religious, although the centre itself had a Jewish museum proper and hosted all sorts of events and religious ceremonies there (there was a funeral while we were there). Again, like the Getty, benefactors and endowments are massive and it was clearly a very wealthy place. They also had a separate hands-on archaeology place in big sandpits on the roof. So glad that we went there on our 'day off'. Another proper immersive environment that makes use of junk. Can we make an immersive environment from all the detritus and debris left over from our dead interactives perhaps?! Anyway, more to report in next installment.

LACMA

Following a late breakfast of pancakes and waffles at the Farmer's Market, we headed to LACMA to meet Karen Satzman. LACMALab no longer runs and the Boone Gallery is being refurbed, so I was unsure how useful this trip would be compared with others. My doubts were unfounded: we had fantastic discussions about family programmes, their NexGen programme for families and teens. Found out all sorts of useful things for Visual Dialogues. Also discovered that art has been removed from the curriculum here along with music and PE as they are 'not academic subjects'! Could not believe it. It puts museums in a strong position as they can be the creative providers, but also means it is hard for people to get time out of school to go on a gallery visit. Catch 22. While the Boone is being refurbished, they have a temporary one housed in the brand new Korean Gallery. A haven of Zen-like calm, this was the absolute antithesis of yesterday and nevertheless equally wonderful. One set task in the family room involved learning to do Korean brush painting. We had a go: surprisingly difficult but requires such concentration and meant the space was a really peaceful and chilled family zone compared with the often noisy and manic spaces.

The collections themselves are I think the best I have ever experienced: room after room of Rothko, Nolde, Giacometti, and 'new' people I had not come across before... And beautiful architecture (contemporary space by Pompidou person). Anyway, it is very late now so I think I will go to sleep.

New Children's Museum, San Diego

Oh wow! This place prides itself being unique in that it is a children's museum and a contemporary art museum all in one. There are no permanent collections, and every 18 months, the entire museum closes for a redisplay with new commissions. Based on thinking by Alan Kaprow (really need to read that book, Liz), it opened in 2008 and the first exhibition was 'Child's Play'. We were taken round by yet another lovely person, Lauren Popp, who manages the education programme, to see the latest display which only opened last week - 'Animal Art'. All about sensory overload, immersion, experiencing things in a bodily way. And do people know that they are playing in/with contemporary art? I don't know - but I am not sure that it matters. Something to think about further. It explored animals, creation, extinction, evolution - but in such a way as you don't need to engage with this. They have 3 concepts: think, play, create, and the whole experience is geared around these, with the art experience being the 'play' bit. And the artworks were fantastic: some had been made by artists who work with children often, others had never done things like this before. There was a Trojan Horse that filled the entire atrium space - where you could go in and they held story-telling, making stations everywhere with guides who were all art students leading bat-making workshops, clay making outside. There was a bubble machine, a bouncy castle that was a piece of contemporary art. Above all, an amazing balloon creature that they are going to plot as it withers and dies like an animal by photographing and displaying images in the gallery. Really inspirational and I am sure that we can take plenty of ideas from this. Fuzzy felt wall, even a climbing wall that was a work of art. And intimate spaces for younger people: a Barn Dance barn where light switches at toddler level activated lights, disco balls and line dancing music. A beautiful house with birds linking a school in Tihuana (over the border in Mexico) through an outreach project with this museum. Need to think more, but I think it's the most exciting experience/event I have seen that makes contemporary art fun and brings it properly to life. Integration of graphics, aesthetics of building and furniture plus values around recycling was done impressively.

It was great to be there with Rebecca and Katherine as we spent lunch talking about what we'd seen and how it could relate to our more traditional gallery spaces. And then we drove back along beautiful Californian coastline and got lots of tips on other places to see. Might have a swim now.

Hollywood Boulevard

Just so you know where we went after work yesterday!

Hollywood by night: a very seedy underworld in a way. Lots of extreme poverty, drugs, drink, people talking to themselves, people yelling, police cars driving by with sirens blaring - but also this amazing wealth and film/glamour world of film. A really weird experience. The picture above is the nearest I think I'll get to Jack Nicholson's 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' character (for you, Sam!) but exciting nevertheless. We had an amazing evening and had delicious Chinese meal in a place in Alex's Lonely Planet, followed by a trip to Amoeba - the biggest record store in LA - have never seen so much music in my life. Second hand CDs for $1, vinyl, cassettes, old posters for $300. It was really amazing - could have spent ages in there and really wished that Sam could have seen it! It was open until 11pm so we stayed for a while and then headed back along Sunset Boulevard to our hotel.

Proper work time!

We spent Wednesday at the Getty Center where we'd arranged to meet with Rebecca Edwards who manages the Family Programmes, along with her colleagues Katherine who oversees the Family Room. We also met with the Manager of off Education Programmes, Elizabeth Escamilla.

The Getty is HUGE! You get there via what would be an amazingly scenic route on a driverless tram that goes up the mountainside. It was raining all day though so we had to imagine the views! Apparently some visitors' feedback says "Can we have more rides?"!

We spent the morning looking round the Family Room, sharing ideas and lots of similarities in our approaches and common issues with things like maintenance, lack of technical expertise (their space is entirely low-tech and brilliant for it). The Family Room is small and somewhat hidden in the vastness of the Museum, but nevertheless really popular. It is based on 6 different 'coves' or little environments each with a different character and based on one of six of the different collection areas (manuscripts, works on paper, fine art, dec arts, photography and sculpture). They all have a unique flavour: we particularly liked one with mirrors and another one where you could create a sculpture from bendy foam. (for some reason these pictures are at the top and won't go here...)

The theory behind the room is similar to our thinking: multi-levelled approaches (both physical and literal), open-ended activities, sometimes with things for visitors to take home (i.e. quite maintenance heavy which they had staff to replenish, but not sure we would...). They chose to go down the route of interactives based on individual artworks, but purely because the designer's ideas were stronger for this... Lots more to say but will be brief here.

After an amazing lunch (choice of ANYTHING!) in the cafe, we met with Elizabeth who talked about some of their Youth programmes - although this is something they don't do much of as yet, partly due to the logistics of getting people there. We also talked about the strategy for families (she said in an ideal world, there would be a PERSON to welcome every family and tell them where things were before even attempting to do any interpretation which was really interesting). We also touched on the current economic climate and funding for the Getty (endowment) etc.

Then we explored. See pics on Flickr

Everyone is so friendly and welcoming - really going out of their way to help us.

We're just about to be picked up for our drive to San Diego, so I'll stop now, but will just do one more post before that!

Chinatown

LA's Chinatown - really near the central finance district of Downtown LA, but so different. Sadly most of the arty places were closed today and it was surprisingly quiet everywhere, but we did manage to find the bakery in the Lonely Planet so all was not lost!

After this, we walked back to the car, and then drove (after a bit of hysterical laughter/fear at not knowing where we were) along Wilshire Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard back to our hotel where we met my cousin, Simon Andreae. He drove us to their amazing house in Pacific Pallisades, where we were given a guided tour by 3 of their sons, Jonah, Moby and Fitz. Then Simon and his wife Lisa took us for an amazing dinner of sushi and crab cakes in Santa Monica. They also recommended the Skirball Centre as a place with amazing interactives so we hope to go there too as it is just down the road. And now it is past my bedtime and we have proper work to do tomorrow at the Getty so time for some much needed beauty sleep.

Downtown LA

Here's our drive to Downtown LA - totally bereft of real people, but full of scary traffic. A few near misses, but all adds to the experience! The amazing building is the Walt Disney Concert Hall which we toured around - fabulous gardens on the roof as well as amazing design inside - Gehry. Parked somewheere underground underneath a big bank (or similar) - the parking attendant could not believe we were going to walk to the concert hall even though it was literally 2 minutes' walk away. People just do not walk anywhere here.

Runyon Canyon

I was very excited here as it was the first glimpse through torrential downpour of the Hollywood sign! My photo is not so impressive however! Have attached here for amusement value - can you make it out? No, neither can I. But I promise, we could see it on the hills opposite, and the views once the skies cleared was pretty amazing. Could see right across LA and get a sense of the flatness of the central part of the city, with the massive skyscrapers appearing like ghosts through the mist, and then canyons and hills surrounding the city.

Day 1

This is a picture from our hotel taken first thing this morning. As you can see, the sun is not shining on LA today and it's apparently the first cloudy day since January. Ah well... We have had an amazing day. Slept very well despite our proximity to the Freeway (glad I brought the earplugs although bed is so comfy!) and woke up at about 8am for a very hearty breakfast consisting of spinach and mushroom omelette. Then we hit the road with Alex T at the helm and Alex W attempting to work the satnav (more complicated than you might think!) We drove up through Hollywood and to Mulholland Drive and then Runyon Canyon - in torrential rain - pretty awesome views though... Oh it seems that I can only post 1 image at a time. Will do another post. In the meantime, see

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31780608@N05/sets/72157622582014428/

Here we are in LA!

It is quarter past midnight on Monday in LA (and 08.15am on Tuesday in the UK). Having been travelling for over 24 hours, we are pretty exhausted but got here in one piece thanks to Alex T's amazing driving of our HUGE hire car - it's in the 'economy small car' range, but it's like a 4X4 and Alex took to the wheel straight away (having worked out how to switch it on - but we still don't know what 'L' means on the gear thing ('P' for park, 'D' for drive and 'N' for neutral and 'R' for reverse) Anyway, Alex was fearless as we drove up I405 (the massive Freeway from the airport to our hotel). Carbon footprints are huge here but the drive wasn't as scary as I thought it might have been.

So, what has happened so far? The first flight to Philadelphia took about 8 hours I think and was pretty uneventful: cheesy film, lots of quite nice food served regularly but - very noisy baby number one sitting next to us. The second flight from Philadelphia to LA was another six hours - extremely noisy baby number two, and demonic toddler crashing about and shouting all the way. Not much fun. Why people take small babies on long distance flights is a mystery.

What else? We did do a bit of museumy stuff: at Philadelphia customs, the guy asked why we were here and when we explained, he said we should just have been staying there as there's a children's museum called 'Please Touch' or something. Sure enough, there were even displays with real objects at the airport terminal advertising this - and the text panel was written by the resident exhibitions curator at the airport! Not sure whether they have one of those at Heathrow...

Anyway, that will do for now. Hotel is lovely although in the middle of the freeway (!) - amazing views from the bar on Floor 17 right across the city with live jazz playing. But now for some sleep.

Choices of venue

Here are some reasons for why we're going to the places we're going...

Getty Family Room, Getty Museum (and the Getty Villa), Los Angeles, California - Rebecca Edwards

In its current form, the Family Room primarily makes connections with collections although developments planned for 2010 intend to enable more art-making activities and will draw on the experience of the Family Art Lab programme. Key questions currently being addressed by staff at the Getty include how to make interactive spaces intuitive (i.e. no text), how to develop open-ended, collaborative and multi-levelled activities, and how the aesthetic of the environment impacts on learning.

Issues around text, aesthetics and intergenerational experience are central to our own thinking, as is the relationship between dedicated gallery spaces and learning programmes. Rebecca Edwards has done a great deal of research on the topic, and has spoken and written widely about it.

LACMALab and Boone Children’s Gallery, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), California – Karen Satzman, Manager: Art Classes and Family Programmes

LACMALab, the research and development unit of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, commissions artists to create original artworks as interactives. Works are not exclusively aimed at children, rather they have a goal of public engagement for all ages. Previous artists have included Allan Kaprow, Jennifer Steinkamp, Eleanor Antin, Jim Isermann, Daniel Martinez. LACMALab have also worked with collections material and within universities and art schools to create installations.

The key aspect of this visit would be to find out about commissioning original artworks in a space not just for children, but for all visitors’ engagement. It may also be possible to meet with some of the commissioned artists to hear their perspectives.

New Children’s Museum, San Diego, California – Lauren Popp, Education Programmes Coordinator

This is a brand new museum that opened in May 2008, as yet with little external research, and has been recommended by Rebecca Edwards at the Getty as somewhere with a new perspective that is ‘phenomenal’. Again, original artwork is specifically commissioned for the space, but here it is primarily for children, rather than for all visitors. From the museum’s website:

The New Children’s Museum opened just in time to meet an urgent community need, providing early exposure to the visual arts at a time when arts curriculum is increasingly cut from schools. And with a focus on sustainability, The New Children’s Museum provides an environment that encourages active minds, healthy bodies and unstructured play.

“Our goal is to inspire children to think, play and create by providing accessible and meaningful art experiences,” stated Rachel Teagle PhD, Executive Director of the Museum. “We are a unique hybrid of a children’s museum and an art museum.”

“The New Children’s Museum exhibits contemporary works of art for children and families,” added Dr. Laurie Mitchell, President of the Museum’s Board of Directors. “We approach contemporary art with a playful spirit, and take children’s need for play seriously.”

The Museum experience features innovative, provocative artworks that kids can touch, climb, or move (exhibitions); messy, hands-on art making opportunities (studios); and a variety of arts-based classes and camps (Arts Education Center). Rounded out with an organic cafe, unique retail shop, abundant seating, quiet space for parents and infants, and an outdoor park, the Museum provides a comfortable and engaging environment for the entire family to enjoy together.

Arizona Museum for Youth, Mesa, Arizona – Laura Matzer, Curator of Education

Founded in 1980 as the first US children’s museum with a focus on art, AMY has been recommended by Rebecca Edwards as well as colleagues at Tate Modern as somewhere in which the ambience and environment itself creates an interesting family learning dynamic. Its intention is to integrate looking-at-art activities with making-art activities and it is also one of the only museums in this research visit that makes explicit learning about art processes. Laura Matzer completed her MA thesis on interactivity in several US museums (Speed, New Orleans Museum of Art, DeYoung and Phoenix Art Museum), so it will be interesting to hear about this research.

PHX Kids Gallery, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona – Kathryn Blake, Curator for Education

Kathryn Blake presented an interesting paper at the Getty Symposium on ‘Museum Behaviours’. The focus here would be to explore the pros and cons that arise with having separate identified spaces for children and to look at how the Kids Gallery equips family visitors to visit other museum spaces in a confident way. Like the Clore Interactive Gallery, this is a space that uses original artworks from the collection, and we are interested to explore further the balance between innovative interpretation and conservation restrictions. This children’s gallery also incorporates its own website and we are keen to explore the potential of digital technologies, both specialist and everyday.

Our aims for the CIG

• To facilitate social and intergenerational activity within family groups, in which learning is a byproduct of fun and enjoyment, rather than a primary motivation

• To stimulate curiosity and imagination, play and experimentation through hands on, creative and open-ended activities

• To put people in the mood for art, to encourage an imaginative and questioning response that is further developed in the surrounding galleries

• To create a sustainable gallery that complements the family programme, encourages repeat visits and can be maintained within existing resources

Funding for the trip

I am very grateful to have been awarded a research bursary from GEM (the Group for Education in Museums) to fund this trip. It was brilliant that the Development Trust at the gallery were also able to fund Alex T so we'll be able to bounce ideas off each other and hopefully bring some really useful experiences back to Manchester.

Why are we going?

We're currently working on the redevelopment of the Clore Interactive Gallery at Manchester Art Gallery. The team consists of Liz Mitchell (Interpretation Development Manager), Alex Thorp (Family Learning Manager) and Alex Woodall (Interpretation Development Officer) working alongside several other members of staff from across departments.

The Clore Interactive Gallery (CIG) was developed for families with young children, and consists of a variety of both digital and hands-on more low-tech interactives. All of them were designed to encourage links with specific works in the collection, displayed alongside the interactive.

Since its opening about 8 years ago when the refurbished and redeveloped galleries reopened, the interactives have become increasingly difficult to maintain, are often broken, and most importantly, thinking about family learning and the way to engage audiences with collections through interactivity has moved on. Indeed, an important piece of research on the CIG undertaken by Pat Sterry at Salford University made it clear that links with the collection were simply not being made.

We've been researching latest developments in thinking about family engagement for almost 2 years now, and were particularly struck by papers and research from 2 conferences: one at the V&A back in 2002, and one held at the Getty in 2005. We've also been lucky enough to go on several research visits in the UK over the last couple of years: to Kelvingrove, Discover - the Centre for Children's Stories, Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Weston Park Museum and York Art Gallery. All of these have helped us to shape plans for the current redevelopments of the CIG.

Yet it was reading some of the papers about galleries and children's museums in the USA that made us really want to go and investigate these first-hand, and meet colleagues from these place who could explain the thinking behind their projects and outcomes from evaluation undertaken.

Just getting ready...

With only one more day to go in the office at Manchester Art Gallery, I'm feeling both excited and a bit nervous about our American Adventure. It's a busy time and I am worried about the things that I won't have time to do before I go, and the things I'll miss while I'm away...

I've just emailed all the people who have agreed to meet us while we are there to check it's still ok. Our schedule includes visits to the Getty Center, San Diego New Children's Museum, LA County Museum of Art, Phoenix Art Museum and Arizona Museum for Youth. An extremely action-packed time. I'll post later about the aims for the trip...