Night at the Museum

The giant hall seemed endless. And with the on-going construction at the museum, it truly was. Raised ceilings and extra-wide hallways were necessary for transporting the precious art and artifacts, some thousands of years old. Marty and I walked hand-in-hand and followed the giant circles that marked the garbled way to the exhibitions. Our long- awaited date night was here.

He had prattled non-stop from our home on the west side all the way to the Cleveland Museum of Art. As one of three children in a very busy family, date night with mom was a big deal. And although I couldn’t get him to dress the part and extract himself from his Star Wars Lego sweatsuit, we both knew that tonight was going to be a big deal.

He just sees the world as an artist, I think. And I thought our destination was the perfect place. But we didn’t even get to the museum before he was obsessing about color and shapes. “Mom, look at that giant chimney! That’s the biggest chimney I’ve ever seen,” he screamed from the back seat of the mini-van. That was quickly followed by commentary on a landing plane and the Cleveland skyscrapers and one of those dancing floodlights he called a “stick light”. He liked Dead Man’s Curve the best. A feat of engineering folly, Dead Man’s Curve is preceded by rumble strips and yellow flashing lights and a great deal of fanfare as far as a little boy is concerned. Even the parking garage amused him.

His demeanor changed when we entered the museum. There was something about the dimmed lights and the men in the blue blazers that immediately snapped him to attention. I let him lead the way and focus on what interested him; I sure am glad I did. He was tickled by so many things, roughly in this order of importance: the escalators, the ornate iron grates covering the heating ducts, the automatic door to enter the statuary room, the entire room full of knight armor, the “moving curtain” picture, and the giant tube of toothpaste on the podium in the contemporary area. In the Armor Court, he plopped on a bench, whipped out his own little notebook and pen, and drew his own version of the knight on horse in the middle of the room. He noticed things I would never have seen, like the pencil-thin canons in the hall outside the Armor Court and the peepholes depicting the stages of construction in the walkway. But he kept going back to the escalators; my little artist already bouncing between his need for form versus function.

He led me through the cavernous rooms of the museum and paused at many of the paintings as well. I was surprised that he would have some patience for the old Renaissance portraits and the winged angels with Jesus motifs. He spent an awful long time staring at American painter Gilbert Stuart’s picture of a woman named Elizabeth Beltzhoover Mason. I’m not sure if he was admiring her well-endowed chest or shopping for a new mommy, but it took me a while to prod him away. Salvador Dali’s “Dream” also held his attention. What five-year old boy wouldn’t like the idea of ants crawling on someone’s face and bulging eyelids? Although the painting is known for its Oedipus undertones, I’m kind of hoping he didn’t notice those. And he cracked me up when he took one look at Lee Krasner’s “Right Bird Left” and muttered “Looks like a bunch of scribbles to me.” He was also notably unimpressed with Sean Scully’s “Stay”. I can’t say that I blame him. It looked like a whole bunch of black paint on canvas to me too!

Our night at the museum drew to a close and I must say Marty was equally enthralled with Dead Man’s Curve on the way home and the dinosaur sprinkles when we stopped for ice cream. He doesn’t need a museum to be in touch with the vivid colors and strong shapes of his world. But it sure was nice to see the world of the museum through his eyes.