Yesterday evening our family went to Reiman Gardens. For those of you who don't know, Reiman Gardens is an amazing facility on the ISU campus. It is basically a huge conservatory, but it also houses a butterfly house that has hundreds of butterflies flying around at any given time. We learned that they keep it at 83 degrees at all times, and that when a butterfly or any of the plants in there die, they take them out in biohazard bags and incinerate them. Apparently there are indigenous species that could be hazardous to the ecosystem if they were to get out. They also have an indoor conservatory, with plants they change with the seasons, and then they also have acres (6? 8? I don't know) of gardens, including a tulip garden, a rose garden (which isn't blooming yet but will be in a couple of months), and different plants and trees. They also have a childrens' garden, with cast iron frogs that pump water, a maze of paths, and other cool things. They also do a different theme every year, and during the warmer months, they host something different. I heard last year was dinosaur stuff. Well, this year is Legos. They had a Lego Certified Professional named Sean Kenney create giant lego creations to keep in the gardens until October. The official opening is today, but members got to go to a preview party last night to check it out. (One person, to go one time, is $8.00, but for an entire family to go as many times as they want for an entire year is $55.00. Yes please!)
I'm going to copy and paste the information about the exhibit right here, just so I can have the info kept forever on this blog for posterity :)
What do Reiman Gardens and 400 million people have in common? We
all love and have played with LEGO® bricks! Starting Saturday, April 14th through Sunday, October 28th,
Reiman Gardens will be the first public garden in the country to
display sculptures made from LEGO® bricks. There will be 27 sculptures
making up 14 displays created from nearly 500,000 LEGO® bricks!
As part of our 2012 Some Assembly Required theme, the show
is titled, “Nature Connects”, and the sculptures are inspired by gardens
and nature. They range in size from 6 inches to nearly 8 feet, with the
largest sculpture, a mother bison, made from 45,143 bricks. The
sculptor, Sean Kenney, is based out of New York, and is one of only 11
LEGO® Certified Builders in the world given permission by LEGO® to build
on their behalf.
At 12:00 p.m. on Friday, April 13th, Sean will give a talk in the
in the Lyle E. Lightfoot Forum at the College of Design at Iowa State
University, entitled “A Conversation with LEGO® Artist, Sean Kenney”. He
will discuss his career path, about the dynamics of his work, and how
he thinks as he builds. This lecture is free and open to anyone.
Sean Kenney will also be at Reiman Gardens for guests to meet him on Saturday and Sunday, April 14th and 15th. From 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 14th
the artist will be available to answer questions, take photos, and sign
autographs with the public. Then from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. on Saturday
there will be a book signing where you can purchase one of Sean’s books
in the Gift Shop and have him sign it for you. On Sunday, April 15th Sean Kenney will be available from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. to answer questions, take photos, and sign autographs.
On Saturday and Sunday, there will be a continuous build station at
the end of the Exhibit Hallway where guests can have fun and experiment
with making creations out of LEGO® bricks. Visitors can “play and let
it stay.”
Reiman Gardens is open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. including
the Gift Shop and the Butterfly Wing. Admission is free for CoHorts
members and ISU students with ID. Price of admission for the general
public. For more information on the artist, Sean Kenney, visit www.seankenney.com.
(P.S. What it says at the very beginning is true - the boys got so excited and reinvigorated about Legos that they played with them for over an hour this morning.)
Here are pictures of the Lego creations found in the gardens:
The bee, hanging inside the conservatory
The butterfly, right outside the butterfly garden. (My personal favorite.)
Hummingbird reaching inside a flower for nectar. (Aidan's favorite)
Life-sized lawn mower.
A bird feeder with finches. (Notice the "food" is legos.)
A life-sized man
An acorn seed, beginning to grow (Christian's favorite). The oak tree is Iowa's official state tree.
A dragonfly
A bison and her baby
Lily pads, a fish jumping out of water, and in the lily pad you can't see, a frog
A rose the size of a small tree
A mosaic
A fox chasing a rabbit (Ethan's favorite)
An orchid at the entrance
They said these creations took 5000 man hours and used up nearly 500,000 Legos. Wow!
The creator, Sean, spoke for 45 minutes about how these creations came to pass, and it was really interesting (well, the parts I could hear. We spent time chasing Kaitlyn around and going outside to look at the Legos during part of the time he was talking.)
And, if you know me at all, this will be no surprise whatsoever. This special evening was catered by The Cafe. There were four tables of food, and two tables of drinks (wine, beer, and soda). I completely avoided the drink tables, realizing I didn't care how thirsty I was. Food from The Cafe was there, for heaven sake!!! I did eat some bruschetta on yummy toasted bread, and some pitas and hummus, and both were delicious. Oh, and I had a deviled egg that was really good too. But the desserts - oh, the desserts. There were between 15 and 20 different kinds of desserts, and I will not be admitting how many of them I tried. But oh, my taste buds were so happy. Christian mentioned the brie, and I was sad to realize that I hadn't even noticed the brie due to the deliciousness of the desserts.
We all left full and happy. It was a fabulous evening. I am so happy we have a year pass. When school gets out, I will be making Reiman Gardens a weekly event. (The library too, happy sigh.)
