At Last, the Mint

Enter either up a cascade of steps (thirty-six of them) from the street to the front door or through the double doors to the right and ride the glass elevator. if you park underground, elevators will take you to the lobby.

Eight levels of parking for the cultural campus, as well as other buildings, burrow beneath the forty- eight-story Duke Energy Center. Enter off Stonewall or College streets. Museum visitors get a special rate. Bring your parking ticket to the lobby for validation.

As of Sunday, October 3, both Mint locations, uptown and randolph road, will have new—and the same— hours: tuesday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. (free 5 p.m.-9 p.m.); Wednesday- Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (until 9 p.m. on the first Friday of the month); Sunday, 1-5 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for students with an iD and seniors 65 and older, $5 for children ages five to seven, and free for members and those four and younger. mintmuseum.org, 704-337-2000.

The expanded shop at street level focuses on ceramics, glass, and other crafts from the Carolinas. Reached by the stairs one floor up, the café fea- tures table service and seating indoors and out. Jill Marcus of something Classic consulted on the menu, look, and name of the bistro-style café, which will debut sometime in october.

Spanning 1971
Helen Frankenthaler

Behind the ticket console is the huge Robert Haywood Morrison Atrium (the glass curtain wall alone is sixty by sixty feet) with two monumental, colorful abstract paintings from the Bank of America Collection — Helen Frankenthaler on the west wall and Sam Francis on the east. Elevators rise to the galleries, but the escalators (see bottom) offer a dramatic view.

Besides an auditorium and classrooms, the entry level has a family gallery for parents and children from eighteen months to ten years. there’s art, activities for kids and parents, and a mural and interactive playhouse based on the work of Charlotte-born artist Romare Bearden.

Damascus Gate II 1968
Frank Stella

Out of sight in the depths of the underground parking, but crucial to the museum’s function, is a loading dock large enough to handle a trac- tor trailer and an art elevator seven- teen feet deep—a vast improvement over randolph road. Without it, the museum never could have loaded in Frank Stella's fifteen-foot-long Damascus Gate II, which is part of the opening exhibition.

Threshold
Danny Lane

The Mint Museum of Craft + Design takes up the third level. the permanent collection, with its distinctly international feel, is to the left. At the entrance is a blown and stacked glass sculpture by American artist Danny Lane commissioned by the Founders' Circle. going counterclockwise, the collection starts with glass and ends with ceramics and fiber. Don't miss the reinstalled 6,600-pound glass Libensky Wall, created by husband and wife Czech artists Stanislav libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova and moved from the North Tryon facility. look from the side and become lost in a universe of bubbles.

Good Harbor Beach
William Glackens

On the fourth level is the Mint Museum of Art, featuring the American art holdings. Start to the left, where the permanent collection begins with the colonial period and continues roughly chronologically. Mixed in with paintings are decorative arts, furniture, and costumes: a child's wool knit bathing suit from the early 20th century near William Glackens’s seaside painting Good Harbor Beach. See, too, Evening of the Gray Cat in a gallery devoted to Romare Bearden, and Kahinde Wiley's towering portrait Philip the Fair.

Philip the Fair 2006
Kehinde Wiley

On the fourth level is the Mint Museum of Art, featuring the American art holdings. Start to the left, where the permanent collection begins with the colonial period and continues roughly chronologically. Mixed in with paintings are decorative arts, furniture, and costumes: a child's wool knit bathing suit from the early 20th century near William Glackens’s seaside painting Good Harbor Beach. See, too, Evening of the Gray Cat in a gallery devoted to Romare Bearden, and Kahinde Wiley's towering portrait Philip the Fair.

Flattened Tall Form 1993
Gabrielle Koch

To the right, one of the opening exhibits, Contemporary British Studio Ceramics: The Grainer Collection, fills the changing exhibit space. it includes work by about 100 artists, including classicist Lucie Rie and more cutting-edge artists Julian Stair and Kate Malone, as well as a selection of what the Brits call "honest pots" — works based on function.

Young General George 1976
Roy de Forest

The big opening exhibit, New Visions: Contemporary Masterworks from the Bank of America Collection, is in the changing exhibition gallery to the right. Don’t miss Joan Mitchell’s siz- zling abstract painting Sunflower II or Deborah Butterfield's uncannily lifelike sculpture of a horse, made out of lead.