A couple weeks ago I ventured out to Tulsa’s Gilcrease Museum for a public meeting they were having to get public input on their garden spaces. The museum building is above. It is completed but they have not finished all their displays and I think they are still working on offgassing all the fumes from the concrete’s dewatering, carpet glue, paint, varnish and other chemicals. Things that can be okay levels for humans can be deadly to art. They are opening it in 2027. So now they are working designing the gardens to go in the immediate vicinity of the museum.

The meeting was not held in the museum, it is in an adjacent museum housing all their historical archives. (Among there documents is an original of the Declaration of Independence. They have it on display on July 4th sometimes, and I got to view one year. Big thrill.)

They had a consulting Landscape Architect talk about gardens and their plans for it. I thought it was all very interesting. And he had a model of what they were talking about. I think it will all be very nice. They just need funding. He didn’t say a figure but hey, if you have a Gazillion Dollars you don’t know what to do with give them a call. I’m sure they’ll take it. The Director of the Museum told everyone, “There are no small donations.” Yeah, well, he hasn’t seen mine yet.

After the talk I decided to take a stroll at the park adjoining the museum, Stuart Park. It was closed during construction but is now reopened. Has been for some time.

It’s a favorite of mine. It winds around a couple ponds and incorporates a bunch of sculptures that are going to be relocated on gardens adjacent to the museum.

The museum has several hundred acres and they are going to build trails for bicycling and hiking. They need funding for that as well, in case you have a second tranche of gazillion dollars that you don’t need.

The backside of the new museum from Stuart Park.

The museum has already started a bunch of work. It looked like they had mulched a considerable amount of invasive species. What was left was this sign about leaving the bees alone. You can bet that if you called Gilcrease security they would come running out the museum to save you. Probably now, call 911 instead.

Seeing the park was like seeing an old friend after several years. I loved it.

The views are wonderful.

And I love any type of wood structures. They rebuilt this and others.

I’m looking forward to 2027. They demolished the original museum in mid 2021. I loved it but it was a hodgepodge of various buildings added onto over the years and had an antiquated air conditioning system which is not good for an art museum. The vistor traffic flow was awkward and had all different levels which is not good for disabled people. They then built the new building on the same footprint as the original.

It’s going to be awesome.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday and galeria-himmelsblick