One (wo)man's art...

Last summer, my daughter and I decided that we needed a bit of culture to balance out all of our hours spent mindlessly watching musicals like Hairspray, High School Musical, Mama Mia! etc. In attempt to broaden ourselves (not physically because I'm already beyond capacity that way) we made a trek to Forest Park to visit the St. Louis Art Museum.

I must confess that I had not darkened the doorway of this fine tribute to the gifted since my teenage years. My fondest memories are of my brothers giggling in front of paintings of shirtless women. Our parents tried unsuccessfully to hide their own smirks of amusement at such behavior.

It's nice to know that some things haven't changed. The Art Musum still houses portraits of topless women (some of them hideously deformed) and little kids still find them funny. We saw very few children in the museum that day, but the ones we did see found these paintings fascinating. Some of them probably felt their empty little tummies rumble.

We tried to behave ourselves. Really we did. We put on our best serious art-snob faces when we saw the occasional security guard, then tittered mercilessly as soon as they were far enough away not to hear us.

Now don't think I don't appreciate fine art. Really, I do. Things of beauty and the people who create them leave me deeply humbled, and incredibly jealous. Conversly, things that have been labeled art, yet resemble things found in the common junk yard leave me confused. And again jealous that someone obviously cashed in on someone else's misfortune at being born without taste.

Then there's this work, which, I truly believe I could duplicate with a few bucks and a trip to Home Depot. Maybe I missed my calling.

Anyway...

The time we spent at the Museum was fun and filled with girlish giggles. Sometimes we chuckled at the "art" and sometimes at the expressions on other people's faces as they studied the "art." One of the biggest laughs of the day was at my expense. I did not notice the line of tape on the floor that ran all the way around the rooms and ran parallel to the walls, about 18 inches out. That is, I didn't notice it until one of those security guards came over and told me to "move behind the line." Horrors! I actually got too close to the art as I studied the technique and composition. I did my best to look adequately contrite, but I doubt I really pulled it off, especially with Jesse snickering a few feet away.

It seemed I was destined to get into trouble that day, taking pictures of exhibits I wasn't supposed to photograph (at least I didn't make the unforgiveable mistake of using a flash), looking suspicious (I guess the blue jeans didn't fit in because they didn't have strategically-placed holes) and generally just not taking the whole thing seriously.

By the time we left, Jesse and I had all we could do to maintain enough quiet dignity to make our way out of the building. We did get some fun photos that day. I'm going to share a few here. I especially like the one of Jesse imitating the painting of the woman looking away. It was fun to play with on Picnik this afternoon.