by Paul Cwalina
“Oh, I love the lighting in this photograph. I love how it gives everything that burnt-orange glow. Looks like it was taken during a late afternoon in the Fall. Beautiful,” I commented on a particularly appealing photo of a pathway that cut through a field with oak and maple trees throughout on each side of the path. “What do you think of it?”
“That one is very mono-chromatic, don’t you think?”
“Um...yeah. That’s exactly what I thought,” I replied sarcastically.
“Really?” she said, surprised.
“No. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She laughed. “One color is dominating the photograph. There is very little in the way of other colors, other than the burnt orange.”
“Oh, then yes...mono whatever,” I said feigning understanding. I paused and then added, “This is another Picasso moment, isn’t it?”
She laughed hard again. “No, no, no...I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be using jargon.”
“It’s ok. I’m sorry I’m such a...non-artist.”
“That’s not a bad thing. I love to see someone discover art.”
As we were exiting that section, she asked, “So, did you have a favorite?”
“Wow, I don’t know. They were all very impressive. I do tend to enjoy nature and the outdoors, though, so one of the landscape photos would probably be my favorite, but I couldn’t choose one right now.”
“That’s okay. I’m glad you like the nature photographs. They are beautiful. You can’t beat creation as a subject,” she said. I thought the word ‘creation’ was a little odd and I made a point to stop her and press her on it. “Did you say ‘creation’?” I asked her.
“Yes, why?” she asked
“I don’t know. It just struck me as an odd term.”
“Well, haven’t you ever heard of someone ‘looking all over creation for their keys’?”
I did recall hearing such a phrase and when I thought about it I guess I’ve heard it used other ways before. “Yeah, I see what you’re saying. Okay. I don’t want to interrupt you. Sorry.”
“That’s alright,” she said, “Did you like that section?”
“Oh, yes. I love photography. Thank you.”
“I thought that you would.”
“Oh, you did, did you? You think you know me, huh? Have me all figured out?”
She laughed. “Well, we’ll see for sure when we get to the paintings later. Let’s move on to sculpture for now.”
“Onward!” I said and held open my arm for her to take.
She held tight to my arm as we walked. We were mostly silent, though, as we walked. Our shoes clicked and clacked loudly on the tile floor and echoed throughout the empty museum. As we approached the sculptures, I had a sense that my enjoyment would be short-lived. I’ve seen too many abstract sculptures that are supposed to be deep and thought-provoking that did little more than provoke some sarcastic remarks from me.
The first piece was coming into view and with each step towards it my mind conjured up a new snide remark I would struggle to stifle. I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to control myself. Easy, now...don’t insult her.
“Oh, boy...now this is where you’re going to lose me,” I said as I gazed upon what could only be described as an organized landfill strung and welded together. There were old tin soup cans, copper wire, car parts, tools, and various other things you’d expect to find at a garbage dump. “I’m sorry, but this just looks like old junk.” So much for being tactful and not insulting her.
She smiled. “I know. Some of it can be hard to understand, but take a look at it again and let me tell you about the artist.”
I was skeptical, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I positioned myself in front of the sculpture and gave it a long second look. Sarah and I would be laughing at this if she was here with me. She should be here with me.
She began telling me about the sculptor and sculpture. “This man, this artist spent much of his life homeless. But he wasn’t the type that spent his time in one place. He traveled, he walked from city to city from garbage dump to garbage dump living off what he could find. He also lived off the kindness of strangers and simple providence. He found cars in junkyards, took out whatever usable parts he could find and either fixed or polished them up and sold them to whomever he could to help sustain himself. In a way you are looking at his life.”
“Isn’t art supposed to make you feel good or make you like it?”
“Not always. Sometimes it’s meant to make you think...”
“Well, it does do that,” I said. I think it’s garbage.
“Sometimes it simply can serve as contrast to make you appreciate other works. It’s important to understand the time in which it was done and who created it and why and even for whom it may have been done. All of that goes into understanding it,” she lectured.
“If you say so,” I said, still unconvinced of its merits.
“Let’s keep looking.”
We continued walking through the sculptures. Many of them were as hard to understand as that first piece. Some of it seemed very dark and heavy - a noose in one and what looked to be a severed head on another. There were a few grouped together that just evoked such violence and bloodshed - what looked like weapons and the skulls of animals. Some were just simple geometric shapes. Others seemed to make a little sense, but nothing seemed to generate any interest to me.
Then, as we were leaving the sculpture section, there was an odd one set a apart just outside of the sculpture section. It seemed to link the sculpture section to the next. It looked like three strands of barbed wire formed into a circle. The barbed wire circle was painted gold and balanced by one of the barbs on one of three railroad spikes or long thick nails that had been welded together top to bottom, each of them probably eight or nine inches long, with the bottom one hammered about half-inch into the base of the sculpture. I stopped to look at it.
Chelsea kept walking unaware until her arm was tugged back by my coming to a stop. “Ugh. Of all the pieces to pique your interest,” she said.
“Why? What’s wrong with this one?” I asked, surprised.
“That piece just gives me the creeps.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It just does. I can’t explain it. I begged my director not to bring it in. I begged him to pass on it.”
“Not sure what I think of it. What’s it called?” I asked.
“Well, the back story on this one is that the artist died the day he finished it. They couldn’t find any notes from him on it, so they just call it ‘Finished’.”
“Wow. Really? Is that what bothers you about it - the fact that the artist died?”
“I don’t know. There is just something about it that gives me chills in a bad way,” she said, somewhat agitated. “Come on. Let’s keep moving.”
“Okay, if you insist,” I said, still fascinated by this last sculpture. Then I turned to Chelsea and asked, “Where to now?”
“We have some wonderful pencil drawings just ahead.”
I wanted to pursue her unusually strong dislike for that sculpture. This was my first glimpse into another side of her. It seemed like there was something I should know, but I let it go. I didn’t want to cross a line.
We entered the new section and she was right. There were several very impressive drawings of all types of subjects. Just as in the photography gallery, there were brilliant works featuring people, animals, landscapes and cityscapes. The overall theme seemed to be people, though. They were a welcome relief from the heaviness of the sculptures.
I enjoyed them all until I saw one very strange one. It was a pencil drawing of that sculpture piece that Chelsea said made her so uncomfortable.
“Hey, isn’t that...” I said.
“Yes, it is,” she said, cutting me off and knowing exactly what caught my attention. “That artist was so taken by that sculpture that he said he had to draw it.”
“That seems strange.”
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p; “I don’t know. I think it’s nice in a way. Certainly unselfish of him. You never see an artist shining a light on another artist or his work.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of such a thing,” I said, then paused before continuing, “Of course, this is my first time in an art museum, so what do I know?”
“That’s okay. It is unusual. I hadn’t heard of such a thing, either. The artist that drew this is also a painter and painted that sculpture, too. You’ll see it when we get to the paintings.”
“I can’t even wrap my head around that.”
“It seems odd, I know, but there is something wonderful about his unselfishness in promoting a work by another artist, I suppose.”
“Don’t the drawing and painting bother you, then?”
“No, for some reason. I don’t know. It does sound strange, doesn’t it? But neither the drawing nor painting bother me like the sculpture.”
“Ok, if you say so,” I said, thinking again that there is something she’s hiding or she has some serious issues. “Let’s see the paintings.”
“Yes, let’s,” she excitedly responded. “I can’t wait to show you one of them.”
“Just one?”
“Don’t you ever turn off the jokes?”
“It’s a gift.”
“I hope you kept the receipt.”
Ouch “Don’t you ever turn that off?”
“Just keep walking, buddy.”
The paintings did not disappoint. There were several very nice works. Large, small, traditional, modern...and it seemed that people dominated as subjects, again. Mixed in, though, were many that, like the sculptures, just didn’t make sense to me. They tended to be modern and looked more like paint randomly thrown onto the canvas or had no particular subject, just a collection of colors.
Just as with the sculptures, Chelsea’s dissertations and explanations helped me to appreciate them more - or appreciate them at all, to be honest. I would have missed so much without her there. She helped me make sense of them - the brushstroke, the background, the use of color, the inspiration. She expounded on everything that I would have been satisfied to let pass as just paintings.
Toward the end, we saw the painting of the sculpture that she mentioned. It captured the sculpture with remarkable clarity, but added an interesting glow to it. It was hard to describe and even harder to explain, but it seemed to celebrate the sculpture in a powerful way.
“Okay, now my favorite part. We’re going to see if my prediction was right,” she said.
“Prediction about what?” I asked her.
“About you, pink lemonade and Picasso.”
“Um...what?”
“You don’t like people messing with reality or tradition or the way things are supposed to be, do you?”
“Well, there are no pink lemons and nobody has a triangle nose or two eyes on the same side their face, if that’s what you mean.”
She laughed. “Exactly,” she said and guided me toward a small alcove. As we drew closer, I could see an easel with what must have been a painting on it that was covered with a blue cloth.
“Close your eyes,” she said.
“Ugh. I hate that,” I said, protesting.
“Just do it.”
I did and she guided me the last few feet and positioned me in front of the easel. I could hear her take the cloth down from the easel. “Okay, open your eyes.”
When I did, I was looking at Vermeer’s ‘Milkmaid’, although I didn’t know it at the time.
“Oh, wow,” I said. “Now, that’s a painting. That’s an artist.”
“You like that, don’t you,” she said with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.
“That is beautiful. I love it,” I said studying the painting carefully. “I love the lighting. I love the detail. You can feel the texture of the wall in that room, you can feel the floor and the texture of her clothing...wow,” I said, completely taken by the beauty of the painting.
“I’m not surprised,” she said. “What else?”
“What else?” I asked to myself really. “Well, you feel like you’re in that room with her. It’s like any second, she’s going to look up and catch you staring at her“ I said, marveling at how realistic the painting was. “You can almost hear the sound of that milk being poured into the bowl.”
“That milk was being poured almost 400 years ago, and you can imagine it being poured right now. Isn’t that cool?” she said, thoroughly pleased with my reaction. “Now, close your eyes again, and tell me more. Tell me what else you hear.”
“I can hear the sound of carriages and horses outside the window. Maybe the voices of people talking or shouting on the road or whatever outside. I can hear the floorboards squeak a little as she moves,” I said, completely enthralled.
“Can you smell anything?” she asked.
I subconsciously inhaled through my nose and said, “The bread. I can smell the bread....maybe a little mustiness, too.”
I opened my eyes again and couldn’t take my eyes off of the painting. I could feel Chelsea looking at me the whole time. Without looking at her I said, “Thank you for showing me this. That is a beautiful painting.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, pleased with the outcome. “That’s Vermeer’s Milkmaid. It’s part of an exhibit that will be here until the end of the month. I figured you’d like it.”
“I’d love to see more of his work if the rest is like this.”
“It is, but let’s leave it with this one tonight. I want to savor your reaction,” she said.
“You’re so weird,” I said jokingly, as we turned to walk back to the lobby of the museum. “Do you see much of the Schmidt family? Do they come around much?”
“Oh, yes. They are very active in the operations of the museum. Elena, her sons, her grandchildren...they’re all involved. Even her great-grandson is starting to do some things here,” she said fondly.
“They are a wonderful family. Do you talk to them much?”
“Oh, yes, especially Elena. She’s my favorite. It is remarkable how sharp she is for being 95,” Chelsea said, speaking even more fondly about Elena than the family itself. “And she is so incredibly nice. I could talk to her for hours.”
“Yes, she is a remarkable woman,” I responded.
“Do you know her?”
“Yes, she was very supportive of my campaign.”
“Oh, that’s nice. I didn’t know she got involved in politics,” she said, somewhat surprised.
“Really? She’s very active,” I said. “You mean she has never talked to you about her late husband?”
“No and I’ve been afraid to ask. I’m afraid of saying the wrong thing or something that might upset her. I know she loved him dearly.”
“Well, then, get your coat on. Now I have something in a frame to show you,” I said with just a hint of satisfaction.