Art Access Pass – truly here, there and everywhere!
It was about a month ago when I realized that the Art Museum in Balboa Park was exhibiting some of the works of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, my favorite print artist. An added bonus was that the last day of the show, fell on the weekly free admission day at the museum. For decades, the museums in Balboa Park have attempted to make art accessible to the masses and Every Tuesday, rotating bunches of museums offer free admission. 
This perk provides a great reason to go to one of the prettiest spots in San Diego. If you’re so inclined, please feel free to donate to any of these wonderful museums.
Being a printmaker (an artist that uses wood blocks, litho stones and intaglio plates to create original art on presses) made going to the Lautrec exhibition on my birthday truly special. You can imagine my excitement walking around with my good friend Melissa, a fellow art
enthusiast whom had never heard of the print-making process. I was ecstatic to be with another person whom I could communicate my passion with. One element I wasn’t passionate about was the docent. “Please leave your umbrella at the front, please speak softly, please leave 3 feet between you and the art, please do not have a phone out”…out? It was a rainy, stormy day, and by evening we were the only ones at the museum. The woman, despite repeated attempts, could not drain my excitement for the art, but I was reminded of interruptions this past weekend when I discovered Google’s art project: http://www.googleartproject.com/ 
Google is working with museums to create virtual tours of their exhibits in the same way that Google earth gives you a 360 degree view of a
specific geographic location. I love it! The zoom on this program is amazing! This cannot replace the feeling of walking through a museum
and experiencing these works of art first-hand, but it does have its perks! This isn’t as simple as just seeing an image of a painting that
you could run a search for in Google Images, Flickr, or one of the other photo search engines.
Google Art Project actually takes you to the floor of a museum, offering high-resolution close-ups of approximately 1,000 works of art and tours of at least 17 museums. Right now these museums include the Tate Modern in London, the MoMA in New York City and Louis XIV’s
magnificent Palace of Versailles in France.
