Noah's Ark at the Skirball

My gloomy sunday morning was spent indoors at the Skirball Cultural Center, about a freeway exit away from the more popular Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The Skirball is primarily a Jewish cultural museum, with rotating exhibits as well as a permanent collection of Jewish historical items, etc.
Anyhow, I had read an article about the Noah's Ark exhibit in the LA Times and what interested me the most was that rather than taking a traditional approach to bringing the themes of Noah's Ark to life they decided to use secondhand/reclaimed objects to construct the animals. So an old boxing glove becomes the body of a kiwi bird, piano keys become the mane of a zebra, really amazing stuff. My favorite was the violin case that turns into an alligators mouth.
The creativity and attention to detail is amazing, not to mention that you can touch and interact with practically everything in the exhibit. The only down-side to the interacting part is that you'll have to deal with the tons and tons of kiddies this exhibit attracts, which isn't too awful but you can see some of the attractions have already been manhandled or broken. There are also special performances like a rainbow mist feature, so if you go at the right time you can see something different each time. I'm leaving out a lot of the details, you really need to be there to interact and discover all the nooks and crannies built into this 8,000 square foot exhibit. It's just so whimsical and fun.
The Noah's Ark project took 5 years to complete, so you can imagine how amazing the end result is. Pictures soon. Here are some from their website so you can see what I mean:

The alligator bodies are made of tire scraps, like the ones you see on the side of the freeway.


Iguana body constructed from a saw, the head is the handle of the saw...


Cute boxing glove kiwis


So if you get a chance, order your tickets online and make a trip over to the Skirball. It's worth it just to see how trash or junk can turn into something really amazing.


Will update with my pictures soon...