essex studios and the american sign museum

warning: this post is not about food or politics. has this ever happened before?

one of my favorite things about cincinnati is all the little hidden gems. i love that some of the absolute best things about this city are things that hardly anyone even knows about. when i lived in NY and i discovered something awesome and new and secret, it either got overrun within days or else shut down just after i discovered it for some strange reason usually related to some type of health code violation.

essex studios, which i will get to writing about in this post eventually, i promise. hang in there, readers!

however, in cincinnati that's not the case. my favorite little hidden spots in this city usually remain that way even after years of me raving about them to anyone who will listen (examples: mt. airy forest, king wok, irons fruit farm, mammoth coffee, CAM, la mexicana, etc.). i like that about this city. except for the fact that places are always closing. that sucks.

laura at the entrance to nirvana, i mean the american sign museum

other things that are better about cincinnati than NY (in case you are feeling down on your city):

• barbecue
• tacos (i am not kidding, finding good tacos in NY is almost impossible)
• rent prices (and home buying prices too i guess)
  
• hiking/canoeing/rafting/camping/etc.
• terrorist attack threat level
  
• ikea accessibility
• baseball ticket prices and overall game watching experience
• ratio of good to bad thai restaurants
  
• trees

things that are better about NY than cincinnati:

• too many to list
  

sorry to depress you, readers. but i do like living here, you know that! well sometimes anyway. i guess the point is that every place has its pros and cons.

signs: way more awesome than i ever realized

back to the point of this post though which is a couple hidden cincinnati gems... essex studios and the american sign museum (conveniently located inside essex studios). for months now i have been meaning to make it to one of essex studios' art walks, which happen four times a year. this is a weekend when essex studios opens to the public to come check out the artists' work and sip wine and munch snacks and be all leisurely and art-appreciative. if you have ever been to the pendleton art center for final fridays, it is pretty much the same idea as that.

i highly recommend that you make it over to the next art walk, which will happen december 5th and 6th from 6-11 pm. i hear friday nights are the popular night for this, when it gets really crowded and there is live music and all that. but i am a grandma and generally cannot make it out very late on friday nights, so i went on saturday with laura and krishna.

signs can be funny too!

we totally enjoyed ourselves and saw some cool art and met some fun people and ate and drank some tasty snacks and beverages. i did see this one photograph i really wanted but it was out of my price range... boo. the art walks are free, which is totally not out of my price range... yay!

one of the highlights for us was getting to stop into the american sign museum. i had read about this place in a citybeat review or something a while back, and i was like "signs? whatever. how interesting can that be? yawn." readers, i was WRONG. signs are awesome! did you know that there is a whole magazine about signs that comes out every month? it is called "signs of the times." what i am trying to say is that signs are interesting and people care about them!

here i am catching up on all the latest sign industry gossip

if you would like to visit the american sign museum, you can either stop in during the art walk next time, or you can schedule a tour with the owner, who i met. he is an awesome guy who just loves signs. his whole family is in the sign business. he told me that most people have my feeling about signs (that is, that they are boring) but that once they visit and learn about signs from him, they are totally into it. just check out all the photos sprinkled generously throughout this post. am i right? awesome! tours are 1.5 hours long, cost $10/person, and can be scheduled whenever.

you too can take cool photos like this if you visit the sign museum

more sign museum trivia:

• the american sign museum is the only sign museum in the entire country
• ok, i forget the rest of the trivia i was going to write here

back to the point, which i seem to keep losing: visit the sign museum, and essex studios, asap!

note: all photos in this post were taken by laura. thanks laura!