A visit to the Met

I never know where I am going next with my job, which is part of what makes it exciting. This week I was fortunate and found myself going from LA to downtown New York City! (On a side note, I had actress Cloris Leachman on my flight with her Dancing With the Stars partner and her son!) I was staying in Manhattan, so I called my good friend Jonathan and we ventured out into the city. Luck was on my side, and he mentioned we were close to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I had been to this museum years ago, but I was so exhausted from my trip that I ended up overwhelmed and passed out on a bench in a room of Monets. I was so stoked I didn't know where I wanted to begin...Egypt? Roman sculpture? American paintings? We started in the direction with the shortest line of entry and dove in, wandering among classical Roman sculpture. The once perfectly chiseled bodies were like ghosts frozen in time, a host of grisly decapitated and limbless bodies that were once symbols of godlike beauty and perfect proportions. I like to guess who I am looking at before I read the plaques. An easy one to spot is the Three Graces, all young and nubile female nudes entwined with each other.
After the halls of sculpture, I was ready for some paintings, so I led us to the Modern section to pick up where I left off years ago. I spotted the notorious Madame X by John Singer Sargent and excitedly told my companion the story of the scandalous broken strap having to be painted on last minute before the exhibition. The Van Goghs brought back memories of Amsterdam and my visit to the Van Gogh museum, and I peered as close as I dared to the texture of his brushstrokes on the canvasses. I love Van Gogh for his variety of brushstrokes, such as the staccato-like lines in his Self-Portrait With Straw Hat, or the fluid swirling motion seen in Cypresses (my favorite), and then the dark, dense depictions of Dutch peasant life. Fantastic!
As we wandered through the rooms, I was delighted to hear my friend say "Hey, it's the three Graces!" before he even read the title. He had recognized it based on my earlier observation, and I felt the pride a teacher might have for their student.
I recognized an artist by a work I had seen at the Denver Art Museum by the name of Anish Kapoor. The Indian/British artist is known for his curved constructions of simple forms, like the giant reflective sculpture in Chicago called Cloud Gate. I find an element of whimsy in his works, and he often invites the viewer to interact with the sculpture. Cloudgate, for example, can be walked under and gives distorted reflections of the viewer and the buildings of Chicago in its shiny, mirror-like surface. At the Met, the work is simply Untitled, and is a concave disc made up of many polished stainless steel hexagons. The sculpture is not only interactive in the different reflections one sees as they observe it, but my favorite part is if you stand at just the right spot right in front of the piece. The sculpture amplifies sound, and you suddenly hear with sharper clarity.
We finished our visit with a trip back to ancient Egypt. I thought mummies would be appropriate since it was the eve of Halloween. The Met has some great installations of the walls from tombs with narrow corridors that you can walk through. I'm always amazed at how well preserved these pieces of antiquity are, when our houses and roads are falling apart at such a fast rate. Craftsmanship just isn't the same these days.
I still feel like I need to go back and dig deeper into the Met, but I was happy to get the chance to revisit it with a bit more energy. And to top off my New York experience, we walked a few more blocks down the road to the famous Serendipity 3 for some sweet treats. They are known for their "frrrozen hot chocolate", which was fabulously refreshing and chock full of cocoa flavor. But for a surpreme chocolate experience, I'd recommend their mousse, which my friend ordered and I sampled. The desserts could probably be shared for their price and portions (not huge, but very rich!). Also, the sweet shop is pretty small and filled with decorations and hanging Tiffany lamps, so I wouldn't recommend it to the claustrophobic. Still, it was a sweet way to end my day. Until next time,

Mission Statement

If anyone out there has taken an art history course, you probably felt one of two things for the class: you were either bored to death and struggled to stay awake as the lights dimmed and the pictures flicked across the screen before your heavy lids, or you were intrigued by the stories that unfolded as history was presented in a more tangible, fanciful form. I would side strongly with the latter opinion, as I pursued art history from my high school days into college to declare myself an Art History major. I have to give credit to my high school humanities teachers, not only for their infectious enthusiasm but also for all of those presentations we were forced to do. But the more I learned, the more I found I was genuinely interested. After I completed a couple of semesters of required general credits, I began thinking about what I wanted to focus on as my major. The chances that I would get a career based on my major seemed slight, no matter what I did. Wouldn't it be more practical to pick something I was good at and actually wanted to learn? So art history it was.

Now that I have graduated, I find myself growing apart from the art world. As I predicted, my career is not directly related to my major. However, as a flight attendant I have had the opportunity to see many works of art. Part of what I'd like to do here is describe those moments when they are fresh in my mind. The brushstrokes, the musty smell, the curves in stone; all of these things start to slip from my memory as time passes. So I'd like to have a place to document my excitement next time I come across a Bierstadt or an ancient mosaic. Also, whenever I read an interesting article or see an exhibition, I'd like to give a review. Anything to keep my mind sharp and focused and to prevent myself from growing distant again.

I strongly encourage anyone to post comments or pose questions they may have for me to explore. Or if you have any leads on a good exhibition, new artist, or fun trivia, I'd love to hear it!

In closing, I'd like to bring up a couple of upcoming exhibitions at the National Gallery:
Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples
Oct 19, 2008 until March 22, 2009.
Documenting Discovery: The Excavation of Pompeii and Herculaneum
October 20, 2008–March 20, 2009
Sounds neat! I can't wait to check it out!