1.8: Art

 When NGS was here in October, we went to the Columbus Art Museum. Art museums are such a different experience depending on who you go with. Years ago, NGS and I toured the MOMA in NYC and she stepped back and let me be my dorky, Picasso-obsessed self, and I was so thankful for that. One time, I took a personal day off of school and went to the Columbus Art Museum alone -- they had a visiting Picasso exhibit focusing on his sketches -- and I spent hours there, staring at the art, reading the information, and, yes -- NGS would be proud -- visiting the gift shop. Another time, back when I was dating an odd, kind of short bald man, we took my kid to the Cleveland Art Museum, and he was kind enough to entertain the child as I drank in the beauty of the art museum. 

I don't actually know what it is about art museums that draw me in. Is it that fact that you're not expected to exert much, physically? Is it laughing at the expressions on peoples' faces in paintings? Is it looking at something that was created dozens or hundreds of years ago? Is it just the colors? Maybe it's just that, when I go, I'm often with someone who knows even less about art than I do, and they just believe me when I make up stories (sorry, NGS). I absolutely adore art museums. 

I can't make art. I'm not neat, and I'll have to take a picture of the big bulletin board I put up for the English department because it's not cute. But I love that art mirrors history, and I adore that people are just trying their best. Throw some paint on a canvas? Like, literally throw? Jackson Pollock. Repeat some Campbell's soup cans? Andy Warhol. Make a bunch of prostitutes look like something out of a nightmare? Picasso. Or just make a big thing that looks like a stick of butter. It's art!