I Dream of Painting, and Then I Paint My Dream.

I was at an art museum this afternoon, with Matt.

We've been there a few times, and we never seem to have time to make it through the whole thing. We start at different parts, but always manage to end up next to the chain mail, armor and swords before we leave.

Anyway - that isn't really what I want to write about.

My biggest issue with art museums is that it seems like everyone wants to run through them. I start looking at this really beautiful Monet painting of a footbridge. Oil on canvas. Truly beautiful. I take a step back, just to look at it from another angle, and I realize everyone I entered the room with has disappeared. They have moved on to another exhibit, and I've been looking at Monet's bridge for 5 minutes.

But how can you not? How can you not stand in front of this painting, or Picasso's "Woman in an Armchair" illustrating the absolute devastation of his own deteriorating marriage ...or Salvador Dali's lobster phone ...or that weird piece in the corner that's mostly comprised of geometric shapes - how can you not stand in front of them for minutes, hours even, and let them take you in - or you them?

I mean, you don't pick up a book and flip quickly the pages and claim to have read it.

These paintings, this art - it is proof that these people exist(ed). Hours of their life hanging on a wall just for me. Their intimate thoughts. Their light-bulb moments. Their heartbreaks and triumphs. They are hanging on a wall for me, you - us.

So I just don't understand. I don't understand how people just breeze through, glimpsing here and there. Pausing for a minute to look at the very tiny details of a portrait, or some other more complex piece, not reading the name of the painting. Is it oil? Acrylic? Something else? What does it look like if you stand 5 feet away? 10 feet?

Maybe I feel this way because I paint, too. Maybe that's why I want to stare for hours at the strange piece of abstract art that's title says one thing, but its colors say another. I want to know what the artist saw. I want to see it. Feel it, even. I want to turn to my left or right and make eye contact with the person next to me and come to a silent understanding. Or experience being absolutely baffled together.

And if Bacon's "Study for Portrait VI" scares or concerns me, or if Couture's painting of an Italian street musician makes me cry for no apparent reason - should that be a solitary thing? Was it not meant to be experienced together? And how long do I let myself be consumed by these things? If it were a text...I'd give it 20, 40 minutes - an hour, a day. Maybe a few days.

Do I stay when I am left alone with Monti's Veiled Lady? Or should I turn and run, like everyone else, to the next piece of art - not allowing myself to feel it? Just skimming the back page for the details, and moving forward?