It seems appropriate, my excursion into the Art Museum today. And enjoyable! And maybe even prescient, as my wife just shoved a book under my nose entitled “Art Before Breakfast - A Zillion Ways to Be More Creative No Matter How Busy You are”, by Danny Gregory. This is the third time she has checked it out of the library, she informed me, so I figure I have to read it.
And it starts like this:
“This book is for people who don’t have time to read it.
You don’t have a second to catch your breath.
To smell the roses or the coffee.
Your Life is getting more and more full and crazy.
Which is why you need to add one more thing to your to-do list:
MAKE ART!”
Danny Gregory then goes on to tell us how much better our lives will be with art (I agree) and makes some great points that all apply to the art of photography. This one is my favorite:
“Tell your story. Life is just a long succession of small epiphanies. You need to stop and seize them. By making art, you will be recording what you are living through and what you are learning about it.”
Today in the art museum, I did the Carpe Diem thing, finding quite a number of pieces of art that resonated with me, pieces that spanned the last 3000 years or so. A relief frieze of a Sumerian king, with all of his exploits inscribed in cuneiform letters overlaid on the art, a marble statue of Sainte Someone, who was unfortunate enough to have her head chopped off because she knew too much, the bust of a pretty French woman, a madonna smiling in love at the toddler Jesus laughing in her arms, strangers talking, bored students sucked into their phones, mysterious footsteps, and the Kehinde Wiley exhibit all drew me in and gave me joy. On the other hand, finding that the curators of the internationally renowned Saint Louis Art Museum think a person who tends cows is called a shepherd, made me shake my head over the sad state of education in America, something we old people do with alarming frequency.
Enough of words, lets have photographs!
