Delights: November 8 to 14

November 8: It was like an art museum scavenger hunt: find the red dots on the floor, find the clusters of people, find the artists discussing their work. Today, at the urging of our docent training coordinator, I attended the open house for the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s new exhibition The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture. The objects will be there until September 2025, but the artists’ visits were ephemeral. 

So, with cane in hand (and an eye on the location of every gallery bench), I talked to four of the six artists who attended the open house. I saw two works in textile, one in porcelain and one in bronze and rhinestones. Three of the works presented the human form (body, torso or face) and one presented makeup powder puffs with flame-like chicken feet. 

I took lots of notes, which someday I’ll share with visitors. But the highlight of my day was an artist’s conversation with the museum’s lighting designer. 

I had been chatting with the artist Young Joon Kwak about her sculpture “Divine Ruin (My Face, Bronze).” The work consists of an upside-down mask cast in bronze. Its hollow interior faces the viewer and we can see indentations for the mouth, nose and eyes. The back of the mask is covered in rhinestones. Placed in a corner, the work dangles about five feet above the floor and casts glittering spots on the converging walls. 

The museum’s lighting designer approached us and asked the artist what she thought of the lighting. The artist said she loved it and then explained that not only had she never exhibited her piece before, but also that she had given SAAM no installation instructions, apart from specifying the mask’s distance from the floor. 

This, then, precipitated a fascinating discussion of the choices the lighting designer needed to make:  Flat wall or corner? Bright light or dim? Cast the mask’s shadow high, low or at the junction of the walls and floor? And how to do justice to those rhinestones? 

I felt I was in the presence of two artists.

Bonus: The lighting designer turned to me as he was leaving and asked, “Are you a museum art professional?” Oh, no, I replied, practically saluting, “I’m a Docent in Training!”

November 9: Happy 33^rd wedding anniversary, Kevin. Our partnership has made me a better person, a better parent and a better manifestation of my true self. Thank you. 

November 10: Yesterday, I decamped to our local Panera to do my docent homework. We were asked to read a (very) long scholarly article about the 18^th century American portrait painter John Singleton Copley. I flinched, at first, at the graduate-level density of the prose, the author’s peculiar thesis, and the deconstructionist tendencies I was sniffing out. (I liked all the illustrations, though.) 

This is going to be a very long training. Then suddenly I got it. After two and a half hours of study (and four pages of notes), I was able to see symbolism, echoes, even illusions in a piece that originally I thought was simply beautiful. Woo hoo! I am so ready to include this piece in my springtime check-out tour, which determines my docent certification. 

Except this Copley resides in Boston, not Washington DC. 

Therefore, I’ve crossed my fingers that our classroom discussion on Wednesday helps me to leap from specificity to generality and (someday, maybe) to look at SAAM’s own 18^th century paintings like a real museum art professional. 

November 11: Today my orthopedic surgeon cleared me to drive. I cheered out loud in the examination room. As for the family and friends who have chauffeured me these past two weeks, I think I could hear their cheers too.

November 12: Please bear with me: Many of my delights these days are sedentary. And I love this one. 

I read in the newspaper today that behavioral neuroscientists have taught lab rats to drive. The car is a small plastic box, the “gas pedal” and “steering wheel” were three small wires, and the destination is a Fruit Loop. In addition to studying the rats’ learning process, the scientists also observed — while the rats waited to take a spin — signs of anticipatory joy. 

As good as all this is, here is my favorite part: when three rats were given the opportunity to dash straight to the Fruit Loop (a more efficient choice), two elected instead to drive the little car to their Fruit Loop destination. They literally found joy in the journey.

Bonus: This 2019 BBC News article features a short video of the joyful long-tailed drivers. 

November 13: Last week at SAAM docent training, I talked about the artist Alma Thomas while modeling my Breeze Rustling Through Fall Flowers tote bag. This week our training coordinator herded us to SAAM’s Luce Foundation Center, which is a 19^th century, three-story bronzed and balconied open storage area displaying nearly 2,000 objects from SAAM’s collection. While our training coordinator directed our attention to Glenn Kaino’s new aerial installation Bridge, my colleagues nudged me and pointed to a glass-encased peg board: “Look, Alma Thomas!”

That made me smile. Better, though, was when our training coordinator used Alma Thomas’s work to elicit ideas on a particular topic. Although my colleagues glanced at me before responding, I just listened. I’m learning more things than art. 

Bonus: This is the same Luce Center case my colleagues pointed to, but not the Alma Thomas works currently on display. I like these a lot, though, especially Eclipse (left).

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If you’d like to browse my past delights, please consult the “word cloud” featured at the very bottom of this post. Find a theme or two that interests you and sift through the sands. Or learn a bit more about my Blog by visiting my Welcome page. You’ll also see links to four essays that were published in print magazines. I’m glad you’re here!