No. 63 is go to twelve new restaurants in 2016. I'm lagging behind a bit but figure I will catch up before year's end. I've also been to a few that I haven't counted because I've been too lazy.
No. 86 is how many museums can I go to? (The grammarians might correct me. To how many museums can I go? But this is my blog and I can make purposeful grammatical errors if I want.) This is a grand challenge. I LOVE museums. I may even make this challenge the focus of 2017.
So this past week I killed two birds with one stone by going to a museum AND eating lunch there.
Caroline Wiess Law Building
Houston's Museum of Fine Arts is lovely. Two buildings with a wonderful permanent collection and exciting traveling ones. Kusama: At the End of the Universe was our main destination when friend Nell and I headed out on Tuesday. Timed tickets are required for this exhibit and none were available online so we were taking our chances for a same day,in person ticket. An arrival at 10:45am netted us some 1:45pm tickets. Did we want to wait? Why, yes. Yes, we did. And it was worth it.
This exhibit is really two separate small rooms. Both are mirrored and only a few people are allowed into each room at a time.
The first room is Love is Calling. About 5 of us entered into this magical room of translucent cloth stalactites and stalagmites, each covered in black polka dots, with lights inside so that they glowed and changed color. These forms, and the people viewing them, were then reflected again and again into infinity. It was MAGICAL and a little disconcerting. The mirrors made walking uncertain. Was that a wall? A mirror? How many people are in here?
Me taking a picture of Nell, ad infinitum.
After three short minutes we were ushered out.
Any longer and I think it would have overwhelmed us. The colors changing, the lights, the mirrors all fascinated but also added to sensory overload.
So cool, so confusing
The second room, Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity, was even tinier and only Nell and I were allowed in together. We stood on a narrow platform surrounded on three sides by water and were plunged into darkness. All around us tiny white lights glowed like the most magical fireflies-on-steroids night ever. I wish we could have stayed longer but were only given one short minute inside.
Absolute magic
And what did we do between 10:45am and 1:45pm?
Visited the permanent collection!
First off was the Antiquities. Mummies, a sarcophagus, lots of alabaster plus a gold myrtle wreath straight out of Animal House.
John Belushi, where are you? ∆
Then we wandered through the Beck Collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Art. We visited my most favorite painting in the museum, The Turning Road, by André Derain. I wake up to a poster of it every morning. (In Texas...)
Those colors!!
This piece speaks to me. ∆
All that art viewing left us with an appetite so we headed downstairs to the museum cafe. Formerly a Cafe Express, MFA Café is the museum's current restaurant featuring "an array of Italian-inspired fare with a Texas flair".* So much for Italian inspired lunches, we both had salads! The restaurant is all clean modern lines, simple yet sophisticated. The food was very fresh and-for salads- good and filling. I'd give the place a Thumbs Up even though we did have to ask for ice tea refills multiple times. The tea is self serve but the container ran out and then went missing in the back for a bit. Minor detail.
Sleek, almost sterile, but still good food. †
A fabulous day spent with a fabulous friend in the most magical of places.
Art. It does a body good.
† photo credit
∆ photo credit Museum of Fine Arts
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