MBIP is no stranger to awkward moments, can you say, “Can I eat my lunch in here?” I knew that you could! Well, over at The Peoria Riverfront Museum they have a new exhibit devoted to awkwardness that sounds like a lot of fun. It’s the traveling photo exhibit from the popular website, Awkward Family Photos. It just opened up this week and I thought it would be fun to go and maybe even take a couple of our own awkward MBIP photos there at the exhibit, so let’s go get awkward!
Here we are at the Peoria Riverfront Museum, let’s go see what kind of awkwardness we can find and create in here!
I thought I’d ask for Cathie Neumiller, the VP of Marketing and Communications for the museum who was last seen on MBIP last 4th of July at the party they had here. I thought maybe if she had some free time she could give us a little tour of the exhibit.
Rachael was working the front desk and she called Cathie and told me she'd be down momentarily. It was at this moment that a reminder of one of the more awkward moments that has ever happened here on MBIP came walking up to me in the lobby of the museum...
This familiar face came up and said, “You have to remember me!” She looked really familiar and I knew she had been on the MBIP blog and then it hit me: This is Tammy, the woman who let us make an Elvis Presley sandwich in her house on Graceland! That was a post that started out about as awkward as it gets and then it turned out great, check that out here if you didn’t see it when it first ran. Wonderful to see Tammy again and a great start to this post devoted to awkwardness!
Okay, we’re headed towards the exhibit and we’ve been joined by not only Cathie, we’re also going to be accompanied on this awkward tour by...
Kristan McKinsey, the Museum Curator, who’s opening the door for us, okay time to officially let the awkwardness begin!
The exhibit looks great, let’s start out this tour with an awkward selfie of Kristan, Cathie and myself. Lights, camera...
And an awkward selfie of the three of us! Perfect! Now let’s take a look around in here.
The exhibit starts over here with framed family photos and information about the traveling exhibit.
The photos are the original family portraits and random photos that have been sent in to the website through the years. In addition to the exhibit, there’s also a lecture on awkwardness being given on September 27th at 2PM entitled, “The Unavoidable Awkwardness of Family Life.” You can read more about the exhibit and this lecture here in the official press release. Now let’s go take a gander at some of these awkward photos.
Some of them are more strange than awkward like this matching mother and daughter portrait.
Others are just plain weird!
Yikes, this one is really creepy and makes me think of the twins in The Shining!
A lot of these are truly, WTF moments in time!
Here’s a photo of a future cocaine abuser!
Okay, this one is truly awkward and just a little stomach-turning!
This looks like a poster for birth control to me!
One facet of this exhibit is that some of the photos have stories about the background of how the photo came to be. In this one, titled, “The Joker,” The person who was the baby writes: “In this photo my grandpa is holding me as a baby in 1989. After grandpa retired, he started a side job as a clown.” Later on in the story he tells us this fun fact: “He also often wore his boxing shorts from his days as a heavyweight boxer at Michigan State.” Some of the stories are as awkward as the photos!
Here’s Granny showing off her pistol skills, with a story to accompany it.
Yikes, check out what the Center of Attention, herself says about this awkward wet pants photo: “So, I took my chances and peed in my pants. My mom was so fed up with me, she decided to take a picture of it and use it for our ‘Happy New Year’s card.” And the award for the most understanding mom goes to...anyone but that woman!
This one titled, “The Chug,” is my favorite awkward photo of the entire exhibit. Here’s what the person pictured in the lower right of the photo has to say about it: “The awkward part of the photo has to be my grandpa in the next room slamming his first Easter beer of the day because we always took our pictures before church.” Ha ha ha! That’s so great!
This gentleman was enjoying the exhibit and I thought he’d be a good person to stage an MBIP awkward photo and so I grabbed him and here we go...
His name is Carl and he was a good sport! This is the two of us mirroring the shot behind us. Notice how Carl’s shirt matches the one in the photo! Love it!
There’s Awkward Family Photo books available at the gift shop in the museum.
And over here is a giant frame with a black back-drop that visitors are encouraged to take their very own awkward family photo and then submit them to the museum for an upcoming contest. Find out the details of that contest at the museum...I forgot to write them down! The phone number is below, so find out yourself! What am I supposed to do everything over here? Sheesh!
And here I am with Katie Batton, the manager of the museum gift shop who (kind of reluctantly, which added to the awkwardness) agreed to co-star in this final MBIP Awkward Photo! Thanks to Katie for posing with me and to Cathie and Kristan for the awkward tour, it was a lot of fun! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
Peoria Riverfront Museum
222 SW Washington Street
Peoria
309-686-7000
facecrack page
Related Posts: Stuff! The Art Of Collecting @ The Peoria Riverfront Museum, Saturday Night @ The Peoria Riverfront Museum 4th Of July BBQ Party and The World Premiere of Asian Carpnado @ The Peoria Riverfront Museum...Holy Carp!
Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!
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Get Lit. With MBIP Party—Tonight!
There’s a party tonight and guess who’s the featured speaker? None other than Yours Fooly! Jessica from Lit. on Fire Used Books is starting a new monthly series at her book store featuring local writers and authors and tonight the series starts with me jabbering on about some of my past exploits and stories. The party starts at 6PM and runs till around 10PM. In addition to me rambling on, there’s also an open mic with music, poetry and a special Get lit. swag bag give-away. Plus, I’m giving away an MBIP party package with my book. The Boy Who Would Be A Firetruck, copies of my magazines, POP and fishwrap and an ultra-rare copy of the thing that got me writing, Trivial Trivia—The Idiot Edition. There will be snacks there and it’s BYOB, so grab a six pack and stop on by. You can click on the banner below for additional information. Hope to see you there!
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Awkward Book Cover Sent In By Jaws the Cabbie!
Jaws the Cabbie sent in this very awkward Rifleman book cover. Ha! Nice one, Jaws, thanks for sending it in!
