From Tyler Green's Modern and Contemporary Art Blog:

On a quiet midweek afternoon in late November 2008, I was wandering through the Cincinnati Art Museum. There was unusual degree of activity afoot. Something was about to happen in the museum's main hall. Whatever it was seemed fairly significant and official: Seemingly everyone was wearing suits with ties that looked like American flags or nice red-white-and-blue dresses that looked like they'd been purchased for the still-mystifying patriotic occasion. People were alternately congratulatory and nervous. Obsessed with seeing the entire museum before it closed a couple hours hence, I initially paid the hubbub little notice and made a beeline for the paintings galleries.

Eventually I overheard someone explain the cause of the hullabaloo: Scores of immigrants would be taking the oath of citizenship in a ceremony held in the center of the museum. Having never seen something like this before, I pulled myself away from a notable Courbet to watch the brief ceremony. After brief remarks from various Official Figures, scores of middle-aged folks stood, raised their right hands and took the oath of citizenship.

When two people get married, two people are the focus of the scene and the people around them serve as extras. This was different. Dozens of people took the oath together, creating dozens of focal points, dozens of points of poignancy. They weren't just expressing joy, they were clearly full of pride - and most of them were sharing that with multiple generations of their red-white-and-blue clad families. The museum guard who stood to the left of me as we watched from the museum's second floor cried. (OK, I did too.)

Art museums try lots of things to get people in the doors: They launch allegedly populist exhibitions of dubious merit. They host after-hours, mating-dance parties. The put sports cars just inside their front doors and pretend that's meaningful. (Ahem, Cincinnati.) They think that they need to put up a multi-story sculpture of a train by a semi-famous artist so that people will think that the museum is a community landmark, a place of importance.

On a chilly weekday in February, the Cincinnati Art Museum trumped all that by doing what an art museum should do: Present itself as the center of its community, as a gathering place for a special experience, as a place where the largesse and generosity of several previous generations of a community are on view and available to welcome that community's most recent generation. The art museum made itself available, and as a result the visitors and new citizens made themselves available to the art. I'd bet $100 that everyone who took their oath of citizenship at the Cincy museum that day will not just go back to the museum, but that they will value the place for the rest of their lives. So will their kids. Sometimes the best things museums do are the simplest - and they don't cost $25 million.

Ohio recently released a new, incredibly ugly, license plate designed by... the governor's wife.

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I'm going to assume she has no prior graphic design experience based on how ugly it is. Fortunately, they have stopped production and the older, slightly less ugly plates will stay.

I am not sure why we feel we have to make the plates all fancy. A plain numbered plate would be fine with me! It's not that I'm not against the new plates looking like a butter package, my problems with them are, 1) they are trying to convey too many thoughts at once (Ohio is beautiful, founded in 1803, birthplace of aviation, we have both farmland and cities!, etc...) and 2) there are plenty of talented graphic designers and illustrators in ohio... why can't the state government hire one of them instead of making it a PR stunt for the governors wife?

I started digging around for other plates and here are my faves. I think simple is best.

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I love this Christmas illustration by Cincinnatian Charley Harper painted in 1956:

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Time for some mod finds from Cincinnati Craig's list:

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- Vintage Eames Era / Mid-Century Saarinen-Style Oval Tulip Table 60", $449, Maineville
- Mid Century Modern Streamline Modern Solid Birch Desk, $65, Cincinnati
- Vintage Mid Century Modern Black Vinyl Sofa, $200, Pleasant Ridge

- Vintage Mid Century Thonet Bentwod Chair, $175, Alexandria
- Very unique retro set of lounge chairs with side table, $100, Florence
- Vintage Modern Herman Miller Storage Headboards George Nelson Design, $450, Cincinnati

I share the self-imposed rules that so many Cincinnati blogs seem to have... I don't like to write about politics at designcincinnati. However, I feel that I would be remiss if I didn't urge you to vote NO on issue 9 on November 3.

However you feel about the streetcar, don't be fooled in to thinking this is solely about the streetcar. For more information, check out Cincinnati Streetcar Blog. Or, watch this video by Soapbox:

Detroit seems to have a problem with razing its historic architecture rather than preserving it... unfortunately, that sounds too familiar 'round these parts.

I recently came across the photography at 100abandonedhouses.com, which documents homes in Detroit's abandoned neighborhoods:

images from 100abandonedhouses.com | click to enlarge

From the photographer: "The abandoned houses project began innocently enough roughly ten years ago. I actually began photographing abandonment in Detroit in the mid 90’s as a creative outlet, and as a way of satisfying my curiosity with the state of my home town. I had always found it to be amazing, depressing, and perplexing that a once great city could find itself in such great distress, all the while surrounded by such affluence."

Let's make sure Cincinnati doesn't get to the point where tourists are flooding in to photograph our crumbling historic architecture.

Remember a few months ago when I wrote about Cincinnati unveiling a new logo? I just came across the new logo for Melbourne which is much more in line with a city that's innovative and thinking about its future.

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I also find it interesting that the Sydney office of Landor Associates designed the logo. For those of you that don't know, Landor also has an office in Cincinnati. Read more here about the identity system.

Also, check out the interesting video I posted about Melbourne.

via [paigeandmodern]