Art Adventure 2017 [Art, Books, Food, Good Company - What more could we ask?]

 Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

~ Pablo Picasso

Three travelers - letting the art wash us clean.

Every now and again DH and I have the chance to escape with our youngest nephew, JRF. It's becoming more difficult as he is involved in more and more activities (and so it should be), but we had four days between the end of school and start of summer commitments...and we headed to the big city to see a few of the sights.*

FRIDAY --

On our way we stopped at a family favorite - Prasek's in Hillje.

They have expanded this once old-time smokehouse and bakery. Now it is almost an event!

They had plenty of Chupecabra...

...as well as honey, jams, and sauces...

But they were out of kolaches. [We settled for a few cookies - sustenance for the hotel.]

We settled into our hotel - we had a pretty view (with the pool below). I work hard to plan easy navigation in trips like this. Most was...more later about that which wasn't.

SATURDAY --

Our first morning saw at breakfast with friends*** from a trip taken last summer. These sisters, EG and SW, share our love of music, art, and travel. We were delighted to visit them earlier this year for a house concert and so glad to be able to visit again on this trip. We talked a bit about our weekend plans and future travel plans - if the Lord is willing and the creek don't rise.

Then it was time for some art. 

The Houston Museum of Fine Arts is a remarkable place. The Ron Mueck exhibit** was almost indescribable. In fact Mueck doesn't say much about his art. He doesn't name it or explain it. The curator ends up doing that, according to the docent who gave us the tour.

Here are some of our favorite pieces (Mueck encourages photography! This is a far cry from our experiences in another museum - where we were almost thrown out for photography). I'm not going to explain much other than that all of these works are either smaller or much larger than life-size. One is a self-portrait. [If you have the chance to see the work of this artist, you must go.]

This seems very close to home.

The self-portrait

Detail of an enormous newborn.

Not the only homeless we saw on the trip. It has an echo later seen in the sculpture garden.

Detail of the first piece you see in the exhibit.

We wandered through a number of galleries  - mostly the Europeans.  The antiquities in the "spaces in-between" caught me as well. I do love the birds and am only going to include this one ancient work. We could have spent weeks in the museum. We will have to come back and spend more time here. [And we can because we are members - for a year anyway.]

Ibis (Wait - I know those guys on the left).

After the museum we thought we should follow the recommendation of the sisters to go to 1/4 Price Books. We had never been there before before, but we have never met a bookstore we didn't like.

1/4 Price Books is a fabulous place. We loved the proprietor, the store, and the eclectic selection. <SIGH>  It would be dangerous for us to live in the same town with this place. We each found book after book. We debated which ones we "needed." It was a bit easier to decide since the owner handed me a 20% off coupon as I began picking up volumes. [If you love books, you must visit this store. Just don't buy the ones I want.]

Our silver hybrid chariot parked by the sign for the strip center where the store is located.

A "Thinker" runs the place - he's quite the character and we had a fun conversation.

He said he doesn't usually let people take pictures, but gave me permission.

After a quick nap we headed off to a play (Natural Gardens) at the Main Street Theatre. It is a small place. We found our seats and opened our program to find one of the leads was from the town where we live (she attended school with our kids). The play was good and staging very clever.  We visited with the actors before a very late supper.

It is a tiny, but well designed place.

DH chose well.

I had never heard of meatball lasagna. JRF chose well.

SUNDAY -- 

What do you do on Sunday morning? Well, first we breakfasted and then we went to church - to the Rothko Chapel.

We succumbed to the hype and tried Torchy's Tacos. It was fine, but I'm not sure I will go back.

I have long wanted to see the Rothko Chapel. I am not sure how many times I have tried to add it to a visit to Houston, but it had never worked out. This trip had only 4 "must do" items on the list - Fine Arts Museum, play, Rothko Chapel, and Menil Museum. All are within a few miles (the Menil is just across a park from the chapel. It would be silly to visit one and not the other). And perhaps I save some of these experiences for a time when there are "young eyes" with us. I have always thought our travels enriched by the presence of young people whose experience helps broaden ours.

The Rothko Chapel just beyond Broken Obelisk (by Barnett Newman).****

Broken Obelisk and the reflecting pool.

I loved this view - point to point to point.

We spent a little time in the chapel, tried a few Tai Chi moves in front of the reflecting pool before we walked across the park to the Menil.

The park and surrounding properties were home to many squirrels. I counted 10 before I quit.

Two fig trees grace the edges of the park. I'd spend time here if I lived nearby.

Bygones by Mark Di Suvero

The Menil Collection is hard to describe. All I can say is I love it and I love the de Menils.***** What a gift! Some of the works stuck in my mind were by Rothko (in stark contrast to those in the chapel) and Magritte. There was also a room full of objects that "witnessed" the works of many great surrealists (I must say it made me feel much better about my collections).******

With a bit of time before supper with another friend, we headed back to the Museum of Fine Arts to tour the sculpture garden. While it was almost too hot to spend any time out of doors, we managed to make a quick round of the works:

Decanter by Frank Stella (1987)

This work was dwarfed by these construction cranes just beyond a barrier and the white mushrooms just below.

Mushrooms/toadstools beneath Stella's Decanter.

The Pilgrim by Marino Marini (1939) [I had to include this one because we were on an art pilgrimage of sorts.]

When I saw this sculpture I knew I loved it and so I was not surprised that it was by Louise Bourgeois. We have seen her "spiders" with our children in Rockefeller Center in 2001 and with JRF in the Smithsonian sculpture garden. This is Quarantania I (1947-53, cast 1981-84)

Four bronze panels by Henri Matisse. Back I (1909), Back II (1913), Back III (1916-17), Back IV (1930) Each work increasing in abstraction.

They missed out when they didn't call this "running man." It is Untitled by Joel Shapiro (1990)

Memory of Machu Picchu No. 3 (The Terraces) (1984) by Eduardo Ramirez Villamizar

Spatial Concept/Nature No. 1 (1965) by Lucio Fontana

Remember when I said there would be an echo of the homeless man of Ron Mueck? Here it is.

I would have gone over to look inside, but there was a guard nearby. They don't want you to touch the work. I wouldn't have touched it, but I just wanted to see if there was a face in that little opening.

I had no other place for this. St. Paul's is across the street from the museum. It is a beautiful church.

Our final adventure was a trip across town to dine at Ninfa's (original) and visit with our friend TDW.***  We have so missed him and his dogs and our wanderings in the wild. I don't know how we managed to eat as the conversation was so brisk. Then he showed us his neighborhood and the wonderful places to take the dogs - along Buffalo Bayou.

Our trips to the restaurant and back to the hotel were eye-opening. TDW had directed us on surface roads because he hates highways. We saw neighborhoods that probably aren't meant for casual visitors. We also found ourselves a bit confused by the changes wrought by the light rail that must be a convenience for riders, but is a menace for people who don't know the ins and outs of downtown Houston at night.

We hustled home between storms on Monday after our only "fast food" breakfast. JRF saw yet another side of the big city before we left it. We do hope he enjoyed the trip. We were unusually cranky in our sharing of directions and information. It could have been the efforts of the fates to derail the trip (driving in a city is hard - driving an unfamiliar car in a city is nuts), the wiggy-headed navigator, the heat, or all of the above. JRF is always an uncomplaining and easy companion. On this trip as our others he was game for anything.

We are looking forward to hearing about some of the other summer adventures he has planned.

A new kitten was more than ready to welcome JRF back home.

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

~ Thomas Merton, in No Man Is an Island

NOTES:

* This was the trip that almost wasn't. We settled on the weekend and then there was vertigo followed by a wayward rock (that took out the condenser for the car air conditioner). But Houston was waiting. We just ignored the distractions, rented a car, and hoped for the best.

** https://www.mfah.org/exhibitions/ronmueck

***We are blessed with such wonderful friends. They were generous to share some of their holiday weekend to see us. How did we get so lucky?

**** You will want to read about how this sculpture came to be on the grounds of the chapel.
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/Experts-still-trying-to-fix-what-s-broken-with-6801865.php

*****https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_de_Menil

******https://www.menil.org/collection/5137-witnesses