I spy with my little eye...Walter Wick

I've never thought of those I spy books as art, but the Walter Wick exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art changed my mind. We took the girls down to the art museum on Saturday and we all had a great time.

Walter Wick is the artist that created the I Spy books and the exhibit displays large photographs of his work and several of the models on which the photos are based.

We all enjoyed it. Grace, our artist, was especially impressed with it all. I had never seen any of Wick's fairy tale work and the girls really liked all those pieces. His optical illusion pieces were cool. Grace liked those, but Brynn was too young to really understand them. Brynn liked a piece that showed a huge sandcastle and a picture and model that showed a futuristic city with all the buildings made out of cardboard. One piece, Balloon-popper, was really cool. It reminded me of that old game Mousetrap. Each piece of the contraption triggers the next until ultimately a pencil springs and pops a balloon. They had a video you could watch and it showed that the contraption really worked!

I've always thought those books were fun for the kids, but I never realized the artistry and care that go into creating them. It's so much more than spreading some trinkets around and taking a picture of them. What a talent Wick has, not only to take amazing photos, but the creativity to come up with these ideas and the talent to build the models and put everything together. It was an impressive exhibit.

There was also an exhibit by Dan Steinhilber that the girls loved. It is very modern and uses everyday objects to create massive sculptural displays. One piece was a huge wall sculpture that from across the room looked like orange glass. It was really beautiful and the way ti caught the light gave it so much movement. When you got up close you realized that it wasn't actually glass, it was thousands of packets of orange duck sauce. Yes, the condiment you get at Chinese restaurants. Interesting to see what kind of beauty people can create out of such ordinary materials. I always think if I want to do something creative it has to be really grand or extraordinary, but actually simple things put together in new ways can be pretty amazing.

The girls were positively good as gold while we were at the museum. They kept their hands in their pockets, the looked at everything, they talked in soft museum voices, they didn't run. All those museum trips may finally be paying off; I couldn't have been prouder.

For interested patrons, the Walter Wick exhibit runs through August 1 and admission to the museum is free. Click here for more information on the exhibit.

Nice face, Brynn! :)