Fun at the museum

One of my favorite place to take Nick is the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno. It's a wonderful museum with a lot of variety. They have free days twice a month with guided tours, which I really love because then the "professionals" can teach him.

Technically, I'm an artist at work, but I never studied art. I just know how to work the graphics programs. I don't consider myself an artist in the same way a painter or sketch artist is. I know that I am creative and if I had the time to study art, I could be really good. But I love going to the museum and looking at the works of others, studying them very closely (as close as I'm allowed). I love looking at paint strokes or seeing the imaginations of others.

I'm very moved by the passion artists have. To bare your soul like they do is an amazing and beautiful thing to me. If all people shared even a portion of what some artists do, I think the world would be a little more open and accepting.

Celebrating the Human Touch
On our recent trip we got to experience the "Human Touch" display (if you live in the area it's going on until November 14). It features "artworks devoted to creative interpretations of the human figure."
There are a variety of mediums to showcase the human being; some are emotive photographs, some are abstract comic-book style, and one is made of chocolate syrup (well, it's a picture of one made with chocolate syrup). The tour guide talked about several of the paintings and asked the kids to tell what they saw and what they thought. I think it's important for children to be exposed to a variety of artistic styles like that. They get to learn the why and how of it and may incorporate it into their own imaginations (just like I try to do when I look at others' work).

After the tour we learned to hula hoop. Why? Because, Burning Man, the ultimate show of personal and artistic expression, is coming and the woman teaching us hula hooping goes every year. It wasn't just hula hooping for fun but getting creative with your moves. Dance, after all, is yet another form of artistic expression. Some people thought it was a stretch to connect the Human Touch display with Burning Man, but I don't think so. Burning Man is about making connections, about being human and understanding how we all fit into the world together. I think it was a perfect combination.

Anyway, here's video of Nick free-styling with the hula hoop.