I have visited a lot of museums in America, just in the course of my normal life, and also during my big adventure traveling around all of America.
First a bit about the big museums:
The big museums are of course fantastic, and special. They have a lot of money and they spend it. They preserve and care for works of art that are literally priceless. And they have massive amounts of items. Here is a picture from the Vatican Museum. Look how long that hallway is. And look how many spectacular works of art are in there. And this is just one average corridor. There are more corridors, more room and a whole lot more.
This is all quite wonderful. But it is also overwhelming and a bit intimidating. What should you look at? What will you pass up on? How long will you walk around the museum and how exhausted will you be. And.... these museums all have multiple exhibitions going on. Each one has enormous sections that specialize in something or other. In other words they are like a large group of museums all gathered together. Although this breakdown and categorization can be helpful. You can zoom in a bit on just the topics you find most interesting like Renaissance Art, Medieval Art, Modern art, ancient art, European art, Asian art etc....and of course types of art like paintings, sculptures, textiles, pottery and more.
That was a long paragraph. But it gives you a sense for what I am saying about being overwhelmed. And this leads me into why I love the little museums.
Here is Why I love the little museums:
The little museums are smaller. Excuse the tautology there but there is a distinct benefit in being smaller. The small museums, because of space and financial limitations really work hard to bring you something special. And in order to do that they focus very specifically on something or on just a few things. And they delve deeper into it, giving it to you in a relaxed experience that you can enjoy in just an afternoon.
With this in mind let's take a quick look at my favorite three musuems in America. And it is because they cover, or have covered something that I am passionate about.
- The Higgins Armory in Worcester Massachusetts
- The Cloisters in New York City
- The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore
The Higgins Armory - I visited twice but they are now sadly closed. Much of their stuff however has been moved over to the Worcester Art Museum.
 (The exterior of the museum)
This museum was exclusively devoted to Medieval armor and weapons. The owner of the museum was a sheet steel manufacturer and he was fascinated by suits of armor which are hammered and shaped sheets of steel.
I do have a page with more about this museum here.
The Cloisters in New York - This is a satellite museum under the MET in New York. But it is exclusively devoted to the art of the middle ages. .
One of the remarkable things about this museum is that the building itself is a middle ages work of art. Various parts of it embrace architecture from the Romanesque period (ca. 1100-1200) through the gothic periods (1150-15200). And a lot of the structures incorporate portions of five medieval cloisters that were disassembled and shipped from Europe.
I have more about my visit to the Cloisters here
I spotted a little medieval coffret in this museum and decided to turn it into a project.  Make the medieval box with the heroic story on it.
It's a beautiful box and I have a full tutorial showing you how to make it. I keep pencils and office supplies in mine: Make the Medieval Box
The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore Maryland
Admission to this museum is always free for everybody. Which is a nice litttle bonus.
THey regularly change their exhibitions, each one focusing on a theme with several going on at the same time. Currently, as of the writing of this article one of their exhibitions is "Healing the Body, Healing the Soul: Methods of Therapy in Medieval Europe.
Some past exhibitions include: Activating the Renaissance, Arts of the Medieval Mediterranean, The St. Francis Missal, and Seeing music in Medieval Manuscripts. And these are just a few.
But, while I was there they had this wonderful exhibition entitled "Chamber of Wonders". In the 17th century wealthy dutch people would create a room with wonders that they collected from around the world. This could include animal, maps, books, artifacts, scientific items and more. Anything of wonder.
And the Walters Museum replicated this by creating a Chamber of Wonders within their musuem. I love it!
I have a page here on my website of my visit to the chamber of wonders
And I have a neat little kids project where they can make their own chamber of wonders out of paper:
 Make a chamber of wonders
A chamber of wonders was a 17th century Flemish thing. People would collect up wonders from around the world and display them. I visited one, and have pictures and a video. And, turned it into a paper diorama project. You can download it, print it, and make it here: Make a Chamber of Wonders
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