I posted earlier about some of the details of the Bead Museum’s collection coming to the Mingei, as well about Judith Bertoglio-Giffin’s talk for the Bead Society of San Diego County, also held at the Mingei. Now, on to the museum itself!

The Mingei International Museum of Folk Art, Craft, and Design “reveals the beauty of use in folk art, craft and design from all eras and cultures of the world.” It’s in Balboa Park in San Diego, an area of San Diego that you can spend days visiting the museums, something like 17 museums/centers in all. Include the gardens and trails and zoo, and Balboa Park is an excellent destination.

Following are a few pictures of the exhibitions I saw while visiting. I really enjoyed how the museum combined the traveling/temporary exhibits with items from their collection. A current exhibition is In their own words: Classic and contemporary Native American art, and the curators combined the modern paintings with historical pieces. Here are a couple of those historical pieces, click on a picture for more details:

Another exhibit was Zandra Rhodes: A lifelong love affair with textiles. It’s an exhibition of of the British designer’s haute couture garments from the 1960s through the 1980s. There was everything from her fabrics to her sketchbooks to her finished designs. Again, the exhibit was accompanied by related works from the Mingei’s collection:

Between East and West: Folk art treasures of Romania was the last exhibit I photographed.

This museum, while small, is definitely worth a visit if you’re in San Diego. And it has a wonderful gift shop! I came home with a Zulu telephone wire basket, a craft I’ve blogged about before.