A Very Special Date!

This week my husband surprised me with an unexpected date. He came home Monday night and said that he was taking me some where special the next day. He had it all set up, baby sitter and all. (Extra special brownie points to him for going the extra mile with the babysitting.)

So, after getting the babies settled over at Datha's the next day, we were off to who knows where. Which ended up being Cleveland. We stopped first for lunch at -which was awesome because we had a wonderful lunch and I didn't have to cheat on my diet. I had the wok seared lamb and schezwan asparagus. ~heavenly!~
Then he took me to......The Cleveland Museum of Art. Now this might not seem very romantic to some, but, you have to know me. When I realized that's where we were going, I think I actually squealed. I love art museums. Love them, people. I fell in love with them as a very little girl of about six or seven years old. I've even had the opportunity to visit the Louvre in Paris. I only spent a day there, so I didn't even scratch the surface, but it was magnificent. When we lived in Kansas City, I was a regular at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. Of course, I did work right down the street on the plaza, for a while. Spending a day at the museum falls under a perfect day for me. It just makes me happy being surrounded by beautiful things. And I'm just lucky my husband enjoys it as well, or at least enjoys indulging my weakness for culture and art. Hugh said he knew he had to take me when one of the doctors at the hospital told him it was one of the most distinguished, comprehensive art museums here in the United States. And it did not disappoint. I couldn't believe that I actually got to see Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, Pollock, Miro, Warhol, and O'Keeffe all in one place, among many, many others. Her are a few of our favorites....
This room is called the Armor Court. It was a walk through history. The tapestries that flanked the walls were my favorite.
This is one of the three panels that make up the painting Water Lillies by Monet. One of the other panels is at the Nelson Atkins museum in Kansas City.
Pollock's #5.
This bust is called Harlem boy by Augusta Savage.
Grey and Gold by John Rogers Cox.



Lot's Wife by Anselm Kiefer.

This is my favorite. It is so moving. -A barren, scorched landscaped with converging railroad tracks fills the lower portion of the piece. Over a substructure of lead mounted on wood, Kiefer attached a thickly plastered and painted canvas, burned in a number of places and covered with a thin layer of ash. Above, a solution of salt was applied to the lead support in the upper half of the work, creating an abstract, suggestively eerie sky.

The painting has been interpreted in numerous ways. The railroad tracks refer to the Holocaust; the transformed landscape is a metaphor for human suffering; and the heating coil alludes to the warming of the global environment. In the upper panel, the use of salt suggests the biblical lesson of Lot's wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt for disobeying his warning not to look back at God's destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

I had such a wonderful time. It was perfect. But the best part was just having a few quiet moments alone with my husband. Thanks sweetie! I love you so much. You're the best!