Sunday, August 9, 2015

Art along the road

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Venturing beyond our east-west trajectory on I-80, we drove north toward Cleveland.  It was Day 10 of our road trip from Colorado to Maryland and back, taking out a trailer of Jose's belonging after he had spent a year in Denver.  His future lay in his past...going back to the communities he had lived in for the previous three decades.  After helping to get him and his family reestablished in the DC suburbs, we had spent some days with Charlotte's siblings and mine.  Now we were on our way back to the high plains and the Rocky Mountains.  Going home.

Yet time for art.   Cleveland Museum of Art...a 1916 classic building with a wrap-around addition that blends with its Greek temple facade.  


But it is the art inside that lends a sense of calm after the miles of interstate traffic...those stretches of grey concrete that ribbon across the Pennsylvania hills before hitting the soft plains of Ohio.  Inside its walls, the visitor shares space with objects and images that communicate ideas of the human condition and the worlds around.  


So many images...select a few to contemplate in the cool marble walls and terraces.  


Sometimes around a corner is a painting I recall from the art books my Dad kept.  The books lay flat on the bottom shelves of our bookcase.  I see them now again like an old friend who unexpectantly comes into view.  



Which could be what we see in art...at least in part...a place to contemplate our place in this world.