Sometimes I find myself in a location where I know there is a great deal of art to be seen and possibly enjoyed, but do not get to see it. This was the case with my recent trip to Washington DC where there are the wonderfully rich Smithsonian Museums, besides the many other galleries. It has happened before, travelling for work in San Francisco, Chicago and yet not attending their famous museums.
There are always excuses. Usually the excuse is time. This time, I was on the road between different family members' homes and on my way to an alumni meeting for my college. The small gallery at my college was closed and I thought to ask the Alumni Relations Director to open it and allow us to see the current exhibit but did not want to be a bother. In the past, I have decided there were too many business meetings and the museum trip was not possible to add. I have argued that the museum was too far away and so would take too much time in to-ing and fro-ing. Sometimes, the excuse is that I am tired. Other times it has been the weather. Excuses are easy to find.
The truth is that I regret these lost opportunities. This time, for example, I wish that I had made time to go to the National Gallery of Art simply because it offers the comfort of the familiar and would have calmed me amidst the family bustle. Seeing the art at the college would have revived me during the dull patter of gossiping divisions after brainstorming sessions and powerpoint presentations. I would have better enjoyed my many travels for work had I taken advantage of the locations to which I was required to fly. The weather would have been irrelevant once inside the cosy sanctuary of a desolate museum on a stormy day.
I live in a city with so many galleries and museums that it is inevitable I would miss some shows. But I miss so many more simply out of laziness. After a long week of work, I do not spend Friday evening at one of the free entries to world class museums. On a frigid or muggy day, I do not wander into the temperate climate of a gallery. If I did, I might find that I was less concerned with a friend's rebuff, with a less than stellar evaluation, with the nonsense agitation of life in the Big City. I convince myself that I am too tired, overwhelmed, distraught to look at another's work of passion when in fact that would relieve the headache far better.
Looking at art fills me with new thoughts. Even if the thoughts reflect my dislike of the art I see, the occasion wipes my mind of the minutiae that confound me, presenting instead alternative neuronal pathways. Or so it seems. Sometimes, I discover that I am filled not with thought but with visions and am grateful that art somehow managed to silence the language of my mind- even if only briefly.
It should be possible to make time for art. It is possible. It is merely a choice. Otherwise I miss it. The less we attend these art events, the fewer of them there will be to enjoy. And that I would really miss.
Showing posts with label museum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label museum. Show all posts
Art and Friends
Looking at art with friends can be a revealing and difficult test of the relationship. Making a museum date with a friend can be a great way to catch up with him/her or see an exhibit, but rarely can you accomplish both. A first visit to a show with a friend can reveal that you have very different taste or worse, that you interact with the art in different rhythms. Meeting at an art gallery opening is a guarantee that you will neither see the art nor each other for the crowds standing in front of you no matter where you stand.
Friends go well for a casual art visit. If I kind of want to see the art, or maybe want to know if I am interested in it, then I have a few friends who are good company for a chatty visit.I can see the art briefly and share various relationship and work failures. Successes are always good news and as such they require celebration, which means toasting with a glass of bubbly and listening to all the details- not walking through a room of pictures that are good or bad and demanding my attention. Friends can be great for simple viewing. I once watched two eight year old boys walking through a room of Renaissance oil painting without ever slowing. They sauntered past a very somber painting by an unknown artist of Christ being taken in the night with the statement, "Whoa, that's deep." Two paintings along, still cruising by, they see the Velazquez Infanta Marie Theresa and the other one says, "Her dress is too poofy."
I find that I need to be alone if I want to look at the art, think about it, create a memory that I can retrieve and discuss. One of the best days I had this Spring was a trip up to Boston where I spent a day at the MFA. I got there in the morning and spent the day looking at whatever I wanted to see for as long as I wanted to see it. Some pictures led me to pull out my notebook. Others I walked past. Some made me go back and look at them again several rooms later. I went in no particular order through the museum, entering new rooms where hallways or interest led. At the end of the day, my head was full of ideas and thoughts and I walked back to the hotel seeing everything in a new light.
A more stressful moment was a recent visit to a museum with my new and wonderful beau. We had many long conversations about art, literature, life, love and all the rest of it in the many months preceding this excursion. But how would we do walking through a museum together? In fact, would we have to walk together the whole time? How pressured! As it turned out, we were both inclined to wander and return to the other one, freeing us to linger over one thing, and skip another. Neither of us really studied the exhibit but then neither of us felt that the exhibit called for it. We liked some of the same pieces and discovered that we both enjoy being cruel and cynical critics in confidence. If I were to say much about the pieces, I would have needed to return but overall I think we both determined that we could attend a show together again. At any rate, neither of us revealed such despicable judgment that we ran screaming from each other.
Art and friends, in my opinion, are a delicate balance. Largely, one loses my attention. That being said, I am off to meet a new friend to see a small gallery show that I want to see. Pity that I don't listen to my own advice.
Friends go well for a casual art visit. If I kind of want to see the art, or maybe want to know if I am interested in it, then I have a few friends who are good company for a chatty visit.I can see the art briefly and share various relationship and work failures. Successes are always good news and as such they require celebration, which means toasting with a glass of bubbly and listening to all the details- not walking through a room of pictures that are good or bad and demanding my attention. Friends can be great for simple viewing. I once watched two eight year old boys walking through a room of Renaissance oil painting without ever slowing. They sauntered past a very somber painting by an unknown artist of Christ being taken in the night with the statement, "Whoa, that's deep." Two paintings along, still cruising by, they see the Velazquez Infanta Marie Theresa and the other one says, "Her dress is too poofy."
I find that I need to be alone if I want to look at the art, think about it, create a memory that I can retrieve and discuss. One of the best days I had this Spring was a trip up to Boston where I spent a day at the MFA. I got there in the morning and spent the day looking at whatever I wanted to see for as long as I wanted to see it. Some pictures led me to pull out my notebook. Others I walked past. Some made me go back and look at them again several rooms later. I went in no particular order through the museum, entering new rooms where hallways or interest led. At the end of the day, my head was full of ideas and thoughts and I walked back to the hotel seeing everything in a new light.
A more stressful moment was a recent visit to a museum with my new and wonderful beau. We had many long conversations about art, literature, life, love and all the rest of it in the many months preceding this excursion. But how would we do walking through a museum together? In fact, would we have to walk together the whole time? How pressured! As it turned out, we were both inclined to wander and return to the other one, freeing us to linger over one thing, and skip another. Neither of us really studied the exhibit but then neither of us felt that the exhibit called for it. We liked some of the same pieces and discovered that we both enjoy being cruel and cynical critics in confidence. If I were to say much about the pieces, I would have needed to return but overall I think we both determined that we could attend a show together again. At any rate, neither of us revealed such despicable judgment that we ran screaming from each other.
Art and friends, in my opinion, are a delicate balance. Largely, one loses my attention. That being said, I am off to meet a new friend to see a small gallery show that I want to see. Pity that I don't listen to my own advice.
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