[under construction since 1858]
No one I've ever met likes art like my dad does. By this I don't mean that he likes art more than anyone else I've ever met, because while he's pretty damn into it, he can't hold a candle to some of the art students I awkwardly hang around at school. And I don't mean he knows more about it than most folks, because while he takes an active interest, it's all wikipedia-knowledge, cobbled together from art museum information pamphlets and plainly-written history books he picks up in his free time.
I mean, people like art in all kinds of ways - some like it because they think artistic technique is just the neatest darn thing, and others like it because it evokes deep emotions in them, and others like it because it connects them to history or to ideas or to other people, or some combination of the above, and that's cool! But while my dad is awed by art, and humbled by art, and in love with art, he is also amused by art in a way I have not actually seen on anyone else.
There's just... something about standing in the Cleveland Museum of Art, among the marble pillars and quietly shuffling patrons and examining a charming painting of cupids dancing, only to have my father come up behind me, eye it critically, and declare, "They were really just 17th-century lolcats, weren't they?" before moving on to make fun of the portraiture in the next room.
That said! I love the Cleveland Museum of Art. I love it because we climbed the marble steps from the statue garden and entered blinded by sunlight into the even-brighter-marble interior, lofty ceilings and no lobby on that side, just the beginnings of endless winding rooms stretching halfway down the block, and all the curator on duty said was "Welcome." We walked past him with big smiles and I actually caught myself wondering if my father just intended not to pay before I realized: the museum doesn't charge admission. "Cleveland is so damn socialist! I love it!" Dad cheerfully informed me, as though looking at art for free were some kind of personal victory over the forces of class oppression, which I think he might actually believe it to be.
And, well-- there was something really wonderful about it, this idea that art was for everybody all the time, that you didn't have to prove up front how much looking at beautiful things was really worth to you. It was a Friday afternoon and the museum was downright crowded, with old people and young people and people in business suits and people with lots of tattoos and couples gay and straight and even children, little kids holding their parents' hands or sitting on their shoulders and staring wide-eyed up at the portraits and the plate armor - because when an art museum is free, you can take kids in there when you're sick of being outside in the oppressive heat, and when they get tired of it you can leave, and no one ends up associating art with tantrums and everything is great.
Also: free admission means YOU CAN LEAVE TO BUY HOT DOGS FROM THE VENDOR OUTSIDE AND COME BACK IN FULL OF HOT DOG WITH THAT AWESOME MUSTARD THEY ONLY HAVE IN CLEVELAND AND LOOK AT ART SOME MORE AND IT ROCKS.
I was hesitant to come to Cleveland at first - not too excited about it, as much as I missed my family. After the gut-pouring travel-angst of my previous entry, which had not abated even slightly, it felt wearisome - like another damn uprooting, another reminder of a place I've left behind that I can only kind of half-belong to, no matter how well I remember it.
But, well, it was good to come here, I think. I love this city, in a different way from the way I did when I was small; this city is great because it has such a strong... context, I guess, such firm roots both as a city and as a place for me. We drove down Euclid and my father pointed to things as we passed - "There's the bar where your great-grandfather worked as a dishwasher before he went blind. There's where I used to eat between classes at Case Western. There's the street your grandmother grew up on." My family is here, and has been here longer than I have ever been in one place in my life; and it's something permanent I didn't know I had, something to hold on to that's realer than simple memory. It makes me happy to feel connected to this place still, after ten years gone.
A few months back I tumbl'd about the closing of the cathedral I attended as a kid, and my sadness over its closing. Yesterday I picked up the paper on the kitchen table and read how the parishioners had gone over the head of the bishop and appealed to the Pope for help - and St. James celebrated its first Mass this year last week. We're going there on Sunday. My warm fuzzies: let me show you them.
I mean, people like art in all kinds of ways - some like it because they think artistic technique is just the neatest darn thing, and others like it because it evokes deep emotions in them, and others like it because it connects them to history or to ideas or to other people, or some combination of the above, and that's cool! But while my dad is awed by art, and humbled by art, and in love with art, he is also amused by art in a way I have not actually seen on anyone else.
There's just... something about standing in the Cleveland Museum of Art, among the marble pillars and quietly shuffling patrons and examining a charming painting of cupids dancing, only to have my father come up behind me, eye it critically, and declare, "They were really just 17th-century lolcats, weren't they?" before moving on to make fun of the portraiture in the next room.
That said! I love the Cleveland Museum of Art. I love it because we climbed the marble steps from the statue garden and entered blinded by sunlight into the even-brighter-marble interior, lofty ceilings and no lobby on that side, just the beginnings of endless winding rooms stretching halfway down the block, and all the curator on duty said was "Welcome." We walked past him with big smiles and I actually caught myself wondering if my father just intended not to pay before I realized: the museum doesn't charge admission. "Cleveland is so damn socialist! I love it!" Dad cheerfully informed me, as though looking at art for free were some kind of personal victory over the forces of class oppression, which I think he might actually believe it to be.
And, well-- there was something really wonderful about it, this idea that art was for everybody all the time, that you didn't have to prove up front how much looking at beautiful things was really worth to you. It was a Friday afternoon and the museum was downright crowded, with old people and young people and people in business suits and people with lots of tattoos and couples gay and straight and even children, little kids holding their parents' hands or sitting on their shoulders and staring wide-eyed up at the portraits and the plate armor - because when an art museum is free, you can take kids in there when you're sick of being outside in the oppressive heat, and when they get tired of it you can leave, and no one ends up associating art with tantrums and everything is great.
Also: free admission means YOU CAN LEAVE TO BUY HOT DOGS FROM THE VENDOR OUTSIDE AND COME BACK IN FULL OF HOT DOG WITH THAT AWESOME MUSTARD THEY ONLY HAVE IN CLEVELAND AND LOOK AT ART SOME MORE AND IT ROCKS.
I was hesitant to come to Cleveland at first - not too excited about it, as much as I missed my family. After the gut-pouring travel-angst of my previous entry, which had not abated even slightly, it felt wearisome - like another damn uprooting, another reminder of a place I've left behind that I can only kind of half-belong to, no matter how well I remember it.
But, well, it was good to come here, I think. I love this city, in a different way from the way I did when I was small; this city is great because it has such a strong... context, I guess, such firm roots both as a city and as a place for me. We drove down Euclid and my father pointed to things as we passed - "There's the bar where your great-grandfather worked as a dishwasher before he went blind. There's where I used to eat between classes at Case Western. There's the street your grandmother grew up on." My family is here, and has been here longer than I have ever been in one place in my life; and it's something permanent I didn't know I had, something to hold on to that's realer than simple memory. It makes me happy to feel connected to this place still, after ten years gone.
A few months back I tumbl'd about the closing of the cathedral I attended as a kid, and my sadness over its closing. Yesterday I picked up the paper on the kitchen table and read how the parishioners had gone over the head of the bishop and appealed to the Pope for help - and St. James celebrated its first Mass this year last week. We're going there on Sunday. My warm fuzzies: let me show you them.