Museum Buttons - Collecting

Every time I come back from a museum visit, I dutifully put my little metallic badge in a jar that I have for such items. I don't even remember how this peculiar little collection started. It was probably when I first noticed that there was a different color every time I went. It soon became a small obsession like hunting for the prize at the bottom of the cereal box - collect all five! 

Most of the buttons are from multiple visits to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art each emblazoned with a giant "M" diagrammed like Leonardo's Vitruvian Man. They are from the days when I was a student practically living in one perfectly-ventilated environment or another. Others are from the New Museum, the Whitney, the MFA in Boston, DIA in upstate New York, the Morgan Library, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (identified and distinguished by the gryphon on a colorful background). As I see them all spread out, I realize, that's a lot of looking at art!