August 09, 2013

City Museum, Play, Inspiration

City Museum and its 10 story slide (check out the bus coming off the roof too! You can get in and sit in the driver's seat!)

Ohmygosh. The joy my husband Z and I found at City Museum in St. Louis. It is, without a doubt, my favorite place on the face of the earth. And I've been lucky enough to see lots of the earth's face bits. :)

Z and I spent hours playing, exploring, and being awed. Imagine our surprise when we came upon this gem:

The World's Largest Underpants live there! Did I tell you it was my favorite place on earth?

First things first. City Museum is an old shoe factory turned into giant playground for kids and adults alike (with adult beverages even!) made by visionary artists welding and upcycling anything you can imagine:

One of the old garbage chutes picture above has been turned into a 10 story spiral slide (Wanna take a ride down it? Click here to watch my husband's 30 second video of his ride, but be careful- you might get a little dizzy!).
Hamster tubes made out of rebar welded together crisscross the entire place, with slides in every direction.
There are Enchanted Caves with hollowed out trees that double as slides.
Wall coverings made out of old gears, catering equipment, and amazing tile mosaics (among other things!)
Part of one floor is a dedicated Architecture Museum. The mind reels.

Doorknobs of City Museum's Architecture Museum. I <3 doorknobs. Seriously <3 them. :) Even the creepy baby face. :)

I loved the Architecture Museum and ate up the old doorknobs and other building parts. There was such emphasis on detail and personality and craftsmanship. Naturally, I wanted to turn some of these doorknobs into Upitees prints (but not the scary baby face. That was just a creepy present for you :)). Here's what I've got sketched up so far...

Inspired by the Architecture Museum at City Museum, these motifs will soon be gracing panties by La Vie en Orange

Panties with refined versions of these prints and more will be available when korijock.com relaunches with its squeaky clean new look later this summer. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I'm wondering- when did you last play? When did your heart last sing and giggle like a little kid?