We moved on to the first large display room; this one had a collection of African folk art. A little out of its element here in Wyoming but maybe that was the point. I've already seen statues like these when I was down in New Orleans so I admired them for their different cultural vantage point and for their overall uniqueness...and then moved on.
The next large room had swatches of wall paint colors by a guy named David Simpson. I mean, here were heavily thought-out, masterfully done paintings with several layers of color to attract the eye from any angle; each shade meant to luminesce a slightly different tone as you walked by and viewed it in passing as a monument to movement. I as an untrained artist-saw BIG canvasses covered in paint and was reminded of walking into a Lowe's and seeing paint swatches and varieties of painting techniques for walls. Have you seen them? They have mini walls to show you different texturizations possible with a minimal set of tools and they're all done in neutral colors suitable for a mature adult's house. One painting in a nondescript purpleish color reminded me of the time my mom and I tried to do scalloping with primer, then ran out of paint, tried another can and then gave up halfway through and painted over the top of it with a base color, followed by the actual color. Yeah, our living room kinda looked like that big mural hanging with a gentrified tag attached to it. Does it betray me as a bumpkin to reveal I had to stop myself from looking closer at the tag and seeing if it had a "remove bottom portion and take to your nearest Lowe's representative for a gallon in this tint"?
Oh well, I was getting fairly disappointed by this point. I had seen nothing to spark my interest and was starting to imagine I was losing my touch at being able to admire "good" works of art, and then I got to the next room. AND IT WAS AMAZING!!!! In this room and the next were breathtaking photos, paintings and sketches of flowers, seeds, seed pods, and all sorts of beautiful organic matter captured for the viewer to be mesmerized by. One series was called Nature Morte and it held stunning still lifes which were truly well done. The other was a series of photographs by Gerald Lang and Jennifer Tucker and I swear any of these photos could have honorably graced the pages of a plant encyclopedia. Whole plants were shown from petals and stems with leaves all the way down to the roots which had obviously been painstakingly cleaned of any fragments of dirt leaving only feathered tips of the roots curling in on themselves. P finally had to walk on before I remembered myself and moved to the next room.
The next series of art was from Michael Eastman and was called Urban Luminosity. It was modern city life taken for granted and caught in a surreal moment to show just how Sci-fi technology has gotten. It was marvelous and awe-inspiring. Almost made me want to study architecture or lighting just to figure out how some of the buildings, arches, and scenes were made possible. I loved the pic from a Japanese airport tunnel but this time it was I who had to pry P away from the works of art so we could move on.
The remainder of the rooms held a mish-mash of paintings, portraits, and sketches from illustrious artists, un-famous artists, and some people I had never heard of. But they all contained that desperation to be heard, the longing to portray the beauty around them deep within the lines of the canvas. One picture was of white lillies on a black background, and it must have been 4 feet tall at least. I was spellbound by it from upclose, the side, far away, from every angle I wanted to follow the movements of each brush stroke and be surprised at how it ended. It was magnificent in its simplicity. One of the few moments when I remembered the teachings I got from Mrs. Sorenson (retired elementary art teacher and watercolor specialist) who properly trained me in how to view paintings and try to get the gist of what the artist was aiming for in the artwork. Let me tell ya, you go to NYC and visit all the great museums with an art teacher for your companion and you will get quite the education in artwork, art history, and art critiquing!
Having exhausted the museum's supply of art to look at and form opinions of, we decided to try another museum. So P and I went to the Ivinson Mansion located at the heart of Laramie. It's a large gigantic Victorian-esque mansion which was turned into a girl's school in the 60's, then abandoned, and now restored and open for tours. We drove over there and paid our money for tickets and then waited for our guide to show up, as they don't let people just walk around on their own. I must say P and I looked askance at one another when we realized our guide was a 12yr(?) old boy with punk/emo bangs, braces and slouched shoulders. Yep, we marvelled over hundred year old artifacts while a prepubescent docent mumbled (like a robot) the canned speech I'm sure he was forced against his will to memorize. The poor kid tried valiantly and I remember being forced to greet people at the Fine Arts Center in Gillette as a young girl myself so I shall go easy on him. I'm sure he wanted nothing more than to go home and play video games or hang out with girls, and instead he got us the snarky yet inquiring adults who prejudged him and the house before setting foot in it. And the house is just as pompous on the inside as the outside. You almost feel Mrs. Ivinson wrote the notes herself- "talk of this, reference that, DON'T mention this or that...." and so forth. The entire speech contrived to place the mansion in the best light and it is a magnificent building. I loved the picture hangers (which were not mentioned); before 100 yrs ago they'd suspend everything from the ceiling rail rather than crudely poke a hole in the wall. Isn't that awesome? AND they had a full crystal and porcelain tea service WITH tea caddy, which was also not mentioned. Not even a card informing us of the details. I told P all this and he just looked at me and reminded me that I should just volunteer to be a docent. Right, with all my spare time. :)
But the best part was after the tour. P and I were in the car chattering about where to go for lunch before I had to go to work and out pops our little docent and one of his tweener buds. They held brooms and carried skateboards and then before our delightedly surprised eyes-they got on their skateboards and pushed the brooms down the sidewalk to sweep it! P and I burst out laughing and then rolled down the window to congratulate their superior thinking. It truly capped the day! So if you go to the Ivinson Mansion and your guide ends up 20yrs younger than you, comes up to your shoulder and in a monotone voice regurgitates all he's told you and pleads with his eyes to not touch anything or ask any questions-remember, at some point we've all been there and done what mom thought best as a volunteer project. And we all survived it and deeply appreciated the kind adults who allowed us our sulky manners until we figured out how to be mature about it! ;p
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