It has happened.
We've taken the first steps in making my dearest art pilgrimage dream come true.
Tickets for two to London (by way of Memphis/LaGuardia/Toronto) have been purchased.
We got a great deal on tickets and it should have been exciting but I was oddly anxious for weeks. It was so overwhelming. Now it has sunken in. It seems real enough I can reach for it and the giddiness has begun.
I teach art history classes by day. I love it. I'm Miss Frizzle without the but but with a serious passion for art. In our darkened classroom I visit sites all around the world, the spanning well over 30,000 years in only 11 weeks dragging the students along with me. Each quarter as I share the stories I laugh and I fume. I swoon and roll my eyes. The students drift in and out of the moment as I lure them from their phones and laptops and tempt them to join me.
My incredibly indulgent husband feeds my addiction by buying me libraries of art books and taking me on art pilgrimages. Before we married he took me to Nashville for the Pre-Raphaelite Dream exhibit at the Frist Center. Many day trips of admiration were made to the Delaware Art Museum as well as the Wyeth's home and Brandywine River Museum. He has driven me to New Jersey to tour the
art shrine home of Fred Ross. We've taken the train to Montreal to see the J.W. Waterhouse's long overdue retrospective. We went on a self-guided whirlwind tour of Chicago to view the surviving masterpieces of Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Louis Comfort Tiffany. We flew back to Washington DC to see yet another Pre-Raphaelite exhibit. Countless small trips to local museums to view collections and traveling shows. Coming up just after the New Year we are going to see the art jewel box home of my kindred spirit, Isabella Stewart Gardner. After nearly 17 years together he had spoiled me, it is true. All he asks is that I take off the headphones from the curator's tour and stop scribbling notes long enough to share it with him, giving him a private tour.
All of those trips were training - building map reading skills in strange cities, detective work finding treasures off of the beaten path, marathon sessions of walking on marble floors, strategic planning to see the most art as efficiently as possible - all for a week of art intoxication in London.
With all this is mind I'm starting this blog (or a digital journal as I'm thinking of it) to keep track of everything I've dreamed of seeing, celebrate the excitement of planning this trip, and as a way to share it with you.
All of those trips were training - building map reading skills in strange cities, detective work finding treasures off of the beaten path, marathon sessions of walking on marble floors, strategic planning to see the most art as efficiently as possible - all for a week of art intoxication in London.
With all this is mind I'm starting this blog (or a digital journal as I'm thinking of it) to keep track of everything I've dreamed of seeing, celebrate the excitement of planning this trip, and as a way to share it with you.
