Luck of the Draw

I took Friday afternoon off.

Partially due it was end of week, and leading into a holiday week, so things were pretty slow. And I have a butt load of PTO.

710 does too, but his does not roll over, so he's off the rest of the year. So we had a date afternoon.

We met after my morning meetings were over and walked down the street to lunch. Nothing special, but it is a place I go when I walk out of the hospital (which isn't often).  They know me and love me there.

But then it was down the street to the Cleveland Museum of Art.

For the last few months, they've been having an exhibit on Michelangelo.

I wanted to go, but knowing the Louvre has a major showing of his works, I figured we were getting the hand me downs.

Cleveland has an incredible museum, but let's face it, if it's between use the Louvre, we're going to lose.

What we had though, was different.

Mike (we're close that way), worked in many medium, but what he did with pencil or chalk drawings are rare. He used many to sketch other pieces of work, be it paintings or sculpture.  Fear that people would see the sketches, he burned most of them.

The few that remain - are pretty frickin' amazing.

Michelangelo's early studies had him sketching corpses, which is where he learned to draw definition of the muscles.  Many of his big commissions came in his late 20s or early 30s.

There were replicas of his actual work (see Sistine Chapel above), just so you could see how the sketch in the foreground made its way into the finished piece.

SO glad we went. The exhibit ends in early January, and I figured people would start to pack in like sardines over the holidays.

It was crowded, but not horribly so. My problem - as is usually the case - was with people. I'd say in general, but these were specific.

Two groups - one being two women, the other a group of four elderly folks - standing directly in front of the small pieces (none of them are huge - as they are sketches on paper),  The women going on about Karen and Dan - and how troublesome they are.

I got right behind the two breathing down their neck, literally, trying to read the descriptions what went with the piece. They didn't get or take the hint.

The other group were debating how to get a two year old grandchild to eat.  Jesus folks, stand over by the wall or at the cafe to have that convo. Same clueless behavior. But just as with the movie we saw last week, I think we are the exception anymore and not the rule when it comes to public etiquette.

....and let's face it, if I'm the good benchmark, we are all kind of screwed.

We had a nice afternoon date day. And I got some culture out of it.

After we saw the special exhibit, we walked around looking at the "regular" pieces. But these are some of my favourites, so I could go there and look at them daily.  Honest.



Song by: Bonnie Raitt