The Metropolitan Museum has a long history of making its collections accessible to blind and partially sighted visitors through touch and description. In the 1970s, the Museum established the Touch Collection, a group of small artworks from different curatorial departments, for the purpose of tactile exploration by blind and partially sighted visitors. Since 1998, these visitors have been invited to engage with a range of Museum objects through touch tours—guided or self-guided visits in which they can explore specific objects with their hands. For several years, photographer Matt Ducklo has captured participants on these tours at the Metropolitan and other museums, creating a body of work that explores how all people—both sighted and otherwise—experience art. I interviewed Matt about his work and how it has affected his own experience of looking at art.

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The importance of the Islamic world within current geopolitics and the global context in which we live makes the study of these regions essential in K–12 classrooms around the world.

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Visitors of all ages are invited to join us this Friday, October 26, for Fright Night!, an evening of dark tales, photography workshops, drawing activities, films, and more. Inspired by the eerie images in the exhibition Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop, the festivities will allow visitors to connect to the exhibition and the Museum's collections in a variety of spooky ways.

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Although I am an Egyptologist, I recently worked for two years in the Museum's Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art as the 2009–2011 Hagop Kevorkian Curatorial Fellow. The experience was invaluable, not only for its curatorial training, but also for the opportunity to approach my dissertation topic—ancient Egyptian ostraca—from a cross-disciplinary perspective.

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On Friday, September 28, at 7:00 p.m., rock legend Patti Smith will pay tribute to Andy Warhol, her fellow traveler on the cutting edge of the New York art and music scene in the 1970s. The concert is sold out, but a live audio stream of the performance will be available in Met Media.

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The Cloisters incorporates significant sculptural ensembles from medieval cloisters from the south of France, traditionally identified as coming from four sites: Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa, Trie-en-Bigorre, and Bonnefont-en-Comminges. (Ensembles from a fifth French medieval cloister come from Froville, in northern France.) Bonnefont Cloister includes two galleries that frame a beautiful medieval garden overlooking the Hudson River.

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Storytime in the Arms and Armor galleries? Salsa dancing in the Vélez Blanco Patio? Mariachi music in The Charles Engelhard Court? It's ¡Fiesta!, a Museum-wide festival taking place next Saturday, September 29, in celebration of Hispanic and Latin American art and cultures.

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Twenty-five digital artists and programmers descended upon the Metropolitan Museum's Art Studio on June 1 and 2 for our first 3-D scanning and printing Hackathon.

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Genevieve and Alisha write about an intriguing photograph in the exhibition Spies in the House of Art, and nine new posts conclude the blog accompanying Byzantium and Islam, which closed July 8.

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Artists come to the Met every day to be inspired, discovering visual and technical solutions in works from every corner of the world, ranging from ancient times to the present day. They might attend a program, sketch from objects, or create their own copies of original paintings, as they have done since 1872 when the Met first allowed artists to re-create works of art on display. In that spirit, for the first time ever, on June 1 and 2, approximately twenty-five digital artists and programmers will gather at the Met to experiment with the latest 3-D scanning and replicating technologies. Their aim will be to use the Museum's vast encyclopedic collections as a departure point for the creation of new work.

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What do Madame X, a murder, and a mobile phone have in common? They are all part of Murder at the Met: An American Art Mystery, the first mobile detective game created by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with Green Door Labs and TourSphere.

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«In commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001, the Museum mounted a small exhibition, The 9/11 Peace Story Quilt in the Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education. On September 11, 2011, Museum visitors from all walks of life participated in various special events at the Museum: a lecture by artist Faith Ringgold—who designed the quilt with New York City youth—poetry readings, and a memorial concert.

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«Armor made from steel plates that covered almost the entire body was developed around the late fourteenth century in Northern Italy, and spread north of the Alps soon after. Most early examples were plain, but by the middle of the fifteenth century armorers began to emboss surfaces with ridges and grooves and add gilt copper-alloy applications, transferring current tastes in civilian fashion to create sumptuous garments of steel. The turn of the sixteenth century saw the first elements of armor embellished with etching, a technique that dominated the decor until the end of armor as an art form, in the middle of the seventeenth century.

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«As the J. Clawson Mills Fellow at The Metropolitan Museum of Art for 2010–11, my research has focused on the artistic community in the city of Utrecht during the seventeenth-century "Golden Age" of Dutch painting. Through close examination of this network of artists, I have explored Utrecht's role in the magnificent flourishing of the arts that occurred at this time in the Netherlands, despite the civil discord caused by the Dutch fight for independence from Spain. This circle of artists used several different avenues—including displays of camaraderie, strong professional organizations, an emphasis on artists' education, and joint artistic endeavors—to keep their community strong even as Utrecht buckled under the political, religious, and social strain of war.

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«Established in 1951, the Fellowship Program at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is flourishing, with scholars taking up residence in all corners of the building—from the curatorial departments, conservation labs, libraries, and study rooms to the Education Department, gallery spaces, offices, and archives.

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At the recent American Association of Museums annual conference, the Metropolitan Museum won two awards for online projects.

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«My first day as senior manager of the Museum's Uris Center for Education in July 2010 was an exhilarating and hectic day, chock-full of new information, faces, and experiences. The third annual P.S. Art exhibition was on display in the corridor alongside Carson Family Hall, and the space was alive with the expressive and vibrant artwork of New York City public school students. This burst of artistic energy greeted me every morning until it came time to return the artwork to the talented young artists who had created it. Now empty, beige, and boring, the cases begged for something to fill them. I thought, "This area needs some visuals to introduce visiting schoolchildren to the Met experience. These walls should never be bare!" I began thinking about what we could exhibit that would be visually stimulating and representative of the Uris Center's educational mission.

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The Met's permanent collection includes works of art that represent a wide variety of art styles, time periods, and geographic regions in Hispanic and Latin American countries, which makes celebrating these works no small task. But on Saturday, September 25, ¡Fiesta! will do just that.

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I recently posted an article about our twenty-two Summer College Interns (see "New Connections in the Permanent Collection"), and invited you to join us for one of our Highlight Tours or Special Topics Tours. In addition to these undergraduate-led tours, beginning July 23, our twelve Summer Graduate Interns will present Gallery Talks: hour-long lectures exploring single subjects in a carefully selected handful of rooms.

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Exceptional works of art by sixty-nine New York City public school students, ages four to twenty, are on view now through August 8 in the Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education through P.S. Art, a collaborative program between the New York City Department of Education and Studio in a School Association, Inc. This is the third consecutive year that the Met has hosted the juried exhibition, P.S. Art 2010: Celebrating the Creative Spirit of NYC Kids.

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As the Senior Manager for Concerts & Lectures at the Met I am extremely proud of our ability to present amazing programs each year. While many of our readers are familiar with the Museum's program of scholarly lectures, some of you may not realize that the Met also has a long tradition of presenting musical events, including special programs just for families.

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What do you get when you mix a groundbreaking exhibition, a cutting-edge curatorial team, two enthusiastic Museum educators, and a great American fashion company? A T-shirt design competition for teens!

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Last Tuesday, we unlocked the doors of the Musical Instruments galleries, which had been closed for an eight-month hiatus while roof work was performed on the American Wing side of our galleries.

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When I'm not teaching adults or students in the galleries of the Museum, I develop, plan, and oversee workshops for K–12 teachers designed to introduce educators (and, thus, their students) to great works of art through object-based learning, interdisciplinary integration, and inquiry.

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Every year, the Met welcomes close to twenty thousand family members who participate in more than five hundred special activities.

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«As the educator responsible for the Sunday at the Met lecture series, I plan about twenty to twenty-five different events a year. The programs usually include one or two talks, and may also feature a film or a demonstration. They are often held in conjunction with a current exhibition, a special theme, or an interesting connection to the Museum's vast permanent collection. My job is much like that of a Broadway producer, director, travel agent, and stagehand all rolled into one. Even though it's a lot of work, I wouldn't trade it for anything! I'm lucky that there are many talented people throughout the Museum who help out.

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