Last night inaugurated the Pacific Islander Ethnic Art Museum (PieAM)’s venture into later operating hours with their After-Hours program, in which the museum stays open every Thursday until 9PM.
PieAM is a truly unique museum, known for being the only artistic institution dedicated entirely to Pacific Islander ethnicities ranging from the Marshallese and Maori to the Polynesian and Papuan.
The chance to visit the relatively new museum (it opened about a year-and-a-half ago) during the dusk of summer is a particularly unique experience, especially in the museum’s sculpture garden. Straddling the tri-intersection of 7th Street, Alamitos Avenue, and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue–making the museum an island itself–the small walking experience visitors receive make it almost impossible that traffic wrests attention from the outside. And with the glow of dusk settling on wood and stone sculptures that range from bright white to deep browns, the experience is an overall calming one.
Author Daniel Pouesi helped launch the opening with a presentation and discussion evolving around his new novel, Akua, based upon a trilogy relating to a Samoan family. This is the beginning of a series of special events–including the live hosting of a popular radio show from the museum — every Thursday.
{gallery}addison/PieAM{/gallery}