Twelve Months in the Creek: "P-burgh" and this mom's perfect museum

David Shrigley: I'm Dead, 2007: taxidermy kitten with wooden sign and acrylic paint

As promised, we took David to see dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. It turned out to be the perfect museum! Why? It's in the same building as the Carnegie Museum of Art. And, it just so happens to be biennial time.

We entered the museum from the rear, where the parking garage is, and, on our walk to the front admissions desk, we passed through a wonderful, bright installation (thank you, Barry McGee).

Photo: Jeff Swensen for The New York Times

I was expecting a cursory trip to see dinosaurs, but there I was, standing in the middle of Life on Mars: 55th Carnegie International. (I'd seen a review of it in The New York Times a few weeks earlier that had criticized the International for including too many well-known artists, but, hey, they weren't well-known to me.)

After we paid the admission (which is for both museums) and were walking to the natural history wing, I kept wandering off into galleries, so my good, kind, very thoughtful husband suggested that he take the kids to see the dinosaurs while I walk through the exhibition. (Do I have a great husband or what?!) As exciting as dinosaurs are, they can only hold David's attention for so long--which means I had just 30 minutes for the art museum. But it was 30 minutes of bliss! Sure, I didn't see everything, but I did see some, and I was alone and light as a feather. I think my favorites were this and this and this (the last of which I think is especially appropriate for a museum with a natural history wing). I also have to mention Thomas Hirschhorn's Cavemanman, which was this huge cave with multiple rooms created out of packing materials. It was a little confrontational and political for my taste these days (I'm getting old, remember?)--but, hello, it was a cave made out of tape! Pretty cool.

Photo: Jeff Swensen for The New York Times

I met up with the gang at the appointed time, and David enthusiastically told me that, in addition to a big dinosaur and a "bird dinosaur," he had seen "a big bear eating a fish, yuck!!" (Don't you love natural history museums?) According to Greg, on their way to see one of the dinosaur fossils, they passed the sculpture gallery. David insisted on going in and wandering through this eerily wondrous Mike Kelley installation:

Photo: Jeff Swensen for The New York Times