Monday, January 4, 2010

Review: Sacred Spain

As we were driving along on Friday, I saw a billboard for the Art Museum, that said their Sacred Spain exhibit ended on the third. Yesterday. I had really wanted to go. I had this vision of going with other art aficionados, but as I don't know any, I convinced Eric to go. So Saturday after rather early naps we drove out the Art Museum. Chris kept saying, I want to go to Children's Museum. He was confused. I kept explaining that we were going to the ART Museum, that it would be neat too...until we got there and there was a line dead stopped, so long we couldn't even turn into the parking lot. So we went to the Children's Museum instead. Well, that made the boys happy.
Yesterday, though, we played Hookey from church. OK, Chris didn't, he made it to Sunday School. But Sam fell asleep, and had not awakened when it was time to go fetch Chris and get to the 11 o'clock service. He'd been having a rough night, and so we opted to let him sleep. I went and got Chris, and brought him home, in time to miss the service, but still just before noon. We decided to "avoid the crowds" and try the Art Museum again. We figured if we saw the Sacred Spain exhibit, there would be enough Jesus there to count as some churchy worship. And there was. It was cool.
We arrived and were able to park. However, there were a lot of other people coming in at the same time. A nice lady offered to take our picture when she saw us unpacking the camera and Sam was in his cape, which she said, Needed to have his picture taken. She thought he and his outfit were just adorable. But he wears it everyday now, so it's not as new to us. But still pretty sweet all bundled up.



So we went in to see the exhibit, "Sacred Spain". When we arrived there was a honking line to get MP3s for 'extra info'. Seriously, with two young children I'd be lucky if I got to read the artist's name, let alone get to stand for Extra Information. We did that at King Tut, and it took us 1 1/2 hours to get through it, insane, cool, but insane. Not an option with the kids. To say the didn't like the exhibit would be putting it lightly.
The first room was so stuffy with people that immediately Sam started griping. Chris wanted to run on to the next room. I guess he thought it might get better. I tried to distract him by pointing to all the beautiful pictures. Where there were lots of people, I'd ask him which one was Jesus? He could pick him out! He could spot Baby Jesus too. He was mildly upset by a sculpture of Jesus laying at the foot of the cross, obviously greivously wounded. I explained Jesus was hurt, and drew his attention to a nearby painting up an Angel lifting the wounded Jesus. I told him the Angel helped him and that Jesus was so strong he got better. That's Mommy's abridged Easter Story on the fly. (Really going to have to work up a better explanation by Easter, if anyone has ideas....) Still there were some beautiful paintings, I always have loved Spanish art. I only saw one El Greco piece (one of my favorites) and no others I knew. But there were some Mexican artists who really were amazing. Sorry, I barely caught there names, one began with an M. There were lots more paintings of Saints and the miracles that went with them than I thought there would be. Chris really didn't like it, so we blew through a lot of it. There was this one beautiful crown, a giant regal thing with 450 emeralds. Nice looking emeralds. Ahhh.... I wish I'd gotten to see who wore it.
Once we left, Chris found the computer lab, that entertained him for about 15 minutes, so we left. We went outside, and we showed Chris a couple large outdoor sculptures.
Here he is, feeling the LOVE with Daddy.



LOVE all my boys!

Then Chris ran through the Numbers with Daddy while Mommy and Sam got in the car. That was definitely more fun for him. Plus I hear they put in more large sculptures on the property...sounds like a summer play date / picnic type spot to me. But Sam was NOT a fan of the cold, OR the Art Museum.

All in all a good little trip, I'm really glad we were able to squeeze it in before the exhibit closed, and what a neat way to end our Christmas vacation.

1 comments:

amypfan said...

Is the exhibit gone now? I'm so bummed! I've been meaning to go see it for months but, like you, just never found the time with the kiddos.