With it being the first Friday of the month, I pulled out my handy-dandy free museum days calendar and noticed that the Pasadena Museum of California Art had free admission on the first Friday of every month.  I had my mission for the day.

I was excited about the possible exhibits I would see at PMCA the minute I drove into their garage.  The garage itself was like a street art exhibit.  The colors, characters, and space theme all peaked my interested.  Then when you walk up the stairs to the lobby, you run into a very interesting art piece entitled “Layer” that extends from the lobby through the window and across the front of the building.  To me, it looked like a metaphor for the window being an eye–the piece, to me, was shaped like an eye with really long eyelashes.  Of course art is subjective so I’m not sure what it really meant.

Off to the left is another gallery room with woven rugs hanging on the wall.  I listened to a couple talk about the intricate patterns, textures and what not.  They all looked kinda the same to me so I simply walked in and then out of that particular gallery room, which I later learned was called the “The Project Room Gallery.”

Unfortunately there was a notice on the door that no photography was allowed so I couldn’t take any pictures of the current displays but in some ways, it was OK because there wasn’t anything that I really wanted to photograph besides a wood press.

I timed myself.  It took me a whole sixteen minutes to go through the PMCA main exhibits and the bookstore.  Yep, this time included browsing through the bookstore.  The exhibits just didn’t interest me.  The main exhibit was on Greta Magnusson Grossman, a Swedish-American architect and designer.  The furniture was nice but it kinda felt like I was walking through the IKEA showrooms.  This is an exhibit that would be more fitting for an observer interested in furniture, design, and architecture.  I am more a fan of paintings and photographs so I moved on to the side gallery.

In the side gallery was an exhibit entitled “White on Black: The Modernist Prints of Paul Landacre.”  Now this I found interesting and I wished that there was more on this particular artist created these detailed wood engravings, some of which were used for printmaking.  These were amazing.  I would describe Landacre as the Ansel Adams of wood engravings.

Then it was on to the back gallery.  I was excited when I realized it was a photography exhibit but disappointed when I realized they were simply botanist style photographs printed on a large-scale.  This is an agricultural exhibit not really a photographic one, in my opinion.  The pictures were shot straight on with no creativity in the composition.

Yep, sixteen minutes including a walk through the bookstore.  All I have to say is that I am very glad it was a free admission Friday because I can’t imagine paying $7 for just sixteen minutes of my time.  I can think of many more enjoyable things that could be done with $7.

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