Playing in the Clouds

Back in October, a new exhibit opened at our local art gallery.  If you recall, I've mentioned the Memorial Art Gallery a lot in the past, from my own visits when I needed to destress to visits to the outdoor sculpture garden.  I had been meaning to get there for months, but between COVID and our completely different schedule these days, it just never happened.  Eventually I decided it had to happen over February break since the special exhibit is ending in March.  I figured it might be fun to bring Carter because I thought he'd enjoy one aspect of the special exhibit.  Jacob went to the gallery a couple years ago with school, and I figured he might be bored seeing it again, so I thought it might be a good time to share it with Carter.

It still took until Friday of break to make it happen, between my two work days, the weather, and managing other events, but we finally went right after lunch, right after a rushed trip to the library to pick up some new books.  Of course, I messed up because I was planning on bringing snow stuff with us to the museum so we could maybe play in the snow around the sculpture garden or maybe even find a sledding spot in the city, but somehow in our rush to make our scheduled ticket time I walked out the door without the bag of stuff.  Darn it.  So, it would just be a quick-ish trip (which is probably all he would have patience for, but still), but I had high hopes we'd have a good time.

Spoiler alert: We did!  You never know with Carter, as he's a complete wild card these days, but we genuinely had a good time.  I enjoyed pointing out sculptures outside the museum as we walked in, and got a kick out of this wrap on a pillar outside the front door.  In case I didn't mention it, the special exhibit is an Andy Warhol exhibit.  So of course the Campbell's soup can (highlighting the nickname of a long-gone twisted highway nightmare here in town) was appropriate.  

It probably resonated with me even more because the picture below was my first Andy Warhol memory.  This work hung in the Albright-Knox in Buffalo when I was a kid, and I think it stood out to me on our every-couple-year field trips because it was something very recognizable in a gallery full of very foreign concepts.  Who knew art could be out of something so common?  The soup cans (which I photographed here on a special trip back to the gallery on my birthday in 2014) were always one of the must-sees.

It was interesting walking through the gallery with Carter.  You never know what might resonate with him, and I figured it might be fun to give him some culture and share with him some of the fun things I learned on tours I'd had from docents over the past few years.  He liked some of the old masks and statues from old North and South American civilizations, and even humored me while I pointed out some personal favorites and other highlights among some of the paintings and sculptures.  One thing I love about the gallery is it changes pretty regularly in spots, so almost every time I go, I see something new.  Having a little buddy in tow made this even more true since he was sure to notice things I had not.  

This was a painting that I hadn't noticed before.  It was hung near one of my favorites, a woman crying cutting onions, and had similarly vivid colors and realistic details.  I especially liked the way the glass was painted, and the grapes were amazing.  

This was also a new one to me.  It was a bit more modern of a premise than most sculptures there, and while I don't even like boxing as a sport, I thought the form was really cool. 

After showing Carter a few more favorites, we got to the Warhol section.  Unfortunately, as with most traveling exhibits, no photos were allowed inside the gallery.  I wanted to try to remember the basic concept of the contents so I snuck this one.

There were lots of cool portraits (including a series that used glitter as a frequent accent), sections with animals, flowers, fruits, and a whole bunch of single soup cans.  There was even a series done by artist Keith Haring that used Warhol as its focus.  Carter wasn't impressed but they were colorful and neat to see.

We were allowed to take a selfie by this mural.

After that it was on to the main attraction, an immersive exhibit I had been thrilled to hear was coming.  Many years ago, near the height of my webcam fixation, the one site I frequented hosted webcams focused on Andy Warhol, including one near his grave.  That one actually still exists.  There was another one that confused me for a long time.  It just looked like a bunch of mylar balloons randomly moving around a room.  The image updated every few seconds, so it was still a little hard to figure out what was going on.  It was an exhibit called "Silver Clouds", and while I never entirely understood why they did a webcam there when it always almost looked the same, I eventually figured out the art aspect and the randomness intrigued me.  Well, imagine my surprise when I found out the Warhol exhibit was going to include "Silver Clouds", and we'd actually be able to play with them!  It turns out that they have a proprietary mix of helium and air to just float wherever the air currents (and people) move them.  There are a couple fans in the room to help things along.  In reality, it was pretty much as ethereal as I thought it might be.  

Obviously video will help you understand a bit better, so here you go...

As expected, Carter loved it.  I only had to tell him a couple times to bat them a little softer, but he very much enjoyed moving them around, usually near my head!

Since there was a limit on people in the room, I convinced him to move on when some people were waiting outside.  We wandered upstairs to some of the older art.  I was hoping he'd like the Egyptian room, the suit of armor, and one other little trick I learned from a docent.  There's a painting in the Dutch room that has a little optical illusion.  As the video starts, notice that the boot on the right (the guy's left boot) is pointing toward me.  As I move to the other side of the painting, guess where the boot is pointing now?  
 

 

Still at me!  It is such a cool illusion.  I do it every time I'm there and I've watched the video repeatedly, and I'm still not sure what it is about how it's painted that does that.  There's another one across the room that sort of does it with eyes, but I think that guy had a lazy eye that helps a bit.  I told my little Scooby-Doo fan that it reminds me of those paintings in Scooby-Doo where the eyes follow you around the room.  He liked that comparison!

He actually enjoyed my descriptions of some of the impressionist works and marveled at one painting that looks incredibly realistic--like photo quality.  The detail, right down to her toes and hair, is striking, even if the picture is sort of strange and the context unknown.  Carter really did have a great tolerance for my descriptions considering "old" stuff is generally not his forte.  He asked some good questions, too, mostly about how old things were or odd details.  

Another new work I noticed was this mirrored mosaic tucked in a corner.

The up-close detail was so pretty!

In the Renaissance room across the way, he did like the armor, and also noticed the swords and this very fancy gun.

Can't say it's something I would have noticed myself, but that's the joy of being a boy mom, I guess!

On the way back downstairs, we stopped back in "Silver Clouds" for a few more minutes.  How often do you get to play in the "playground" of a groundbreaking, long-deceased artist, after all?

A different kind of selfie

After that, we headed out.  The indoor courtyard just got redone with a single skylight (instead of three) in the last year or so.  It's so bright now, and I had to take a picture with the Warhol cow wallpaper in the background.

Even though I forgot to bring the snow clothes, we walked around for a few minutes outside.  It's not too often you get to experience things with this much snow (seriously, we definitely have had a solid foot-plus on the ground for a while, despite some sun-driven melting (since it has barely been above freezing at all for more than two weeks--until today, anyway) and compression.  My favorite little bulb-lit walkway was charming as ever.

We saw some interesting things at the front of the gallery, and I pointed out the little courtyard with the penguin sculpture that Carter loved when we visited when he was three.  I will forever love the picture of him hiding behind the penguin, and Carter actually got a kick out of the story, too.  The other sculptures we saw that summer day looked a bit different buried in snow.

However, the one thing I loved was how the tiny little bronze sculptures in that area (they're maybe only about six inches high, perched on the various larger concrete versions of themselves) looked buried in the snow.  These two kissing just above the snow caught my eye first...

And this little guy looked even more endearing than usual, as it looked like he was looking up while being tucked in his snowy blanket!

The post I linked to above has a picture of him in his normal state, if you're wondering...

I love the gallery so much, and being able to share it with a kid who actually tolerated it (and maybe even had fun) felt so good in the midst of this rather challenging existence of ours.  My good moments with Carter are so few right now, between phone battles and school battles and the fact that this mama is so tired of having a still-messy eater who is oblivious to the mess he leaves behind, no matter how many times I try to remind him to stay in his seat as he eats and look at his spot afterward.  We've enjoyed playing Mario Kart this week (for the most part--he's practically mastered it, by the way, and I'm still generally terrible), but things have really been a struggle and I am eagerly anticipating a call to finally schedule an evaluation so we can get this ADHD(+) train on the tracks.  There is zero doubt in my mind that he needs medication right now.  Things continue to get worse with transitions and forcing non-screen activities, and I'm just so tired of arguing.  Craig and I also struggle to agree on how to handle things, which isn't helping.  I could care less if the phone is gone and he's forced to get bored and play with toys, but Craig also bears the brunt of that complaining ("I'm bored.  Play with me, Dad!") so I think it's harder for him to not find loopholes for him to earn it back.  But how can he really earn anything back if the disrespectful behavior continues in between moments of sweetness?  He flat out refuses to cooperate for family therapy, so I know we need to take action before we can expect any therapy of his own to do any good.  It's exhausting, so getting a few hours like this to bond and play in a different way felt so good, in so many ways.

At least we had one more good run before break was over.  More on that next!