Day of Art

Blake's Take -

Today, we went to the Tate Modern.  It’s a visionary museum on the South Bank of the Thames, converted from an old power plant.  Bacon, Picasso, Braque, Miro, Rothko, Pollock, Warhol, Matta, Duchamp, de Chirico, and many others.  Declan liked the Picasso especially (a decent selection of his more surrealist work).  Cal liked the “you draw it” interactive exhibit – thanks Michael Bloomberg for sponsoring it.  They left with their own sketchpads from the gift shop and have been busy at work for the rest of the day.

I love art museums and have enjoyed introducing Declan to modern art a bit at a time.  For all of our DC friends with kids, there’s a great scavenger hunt at The Phillips Collection to introduce young people to art and how to experience it.  Highly recommended.

We’ve hit the museums hard these first couple of weeks.  I know it will be different once we get to Berlin, as I’ll be in rehearsal.  But for now, it’s great family time.  Tomorrow…I think it’s back to WWII (yes, Tim, we’re not done yet)!

Connan's Take -

OK.  Taking your children to a modern art museum full of abstract expressionist paintings and weird sculptures is not the easiest thing to do.  Especially when all they really want to do is drink tea and eat scones, be carried around like papooses which is impossible to do because one if 45 lbs and the other is 85 lbs, and run around like banchees. Soooo… what you do is ask what colors the 5 year old can point out.  And you ask the 10 year old what shapes he can see in an abstract painting by Picasso.  He sees a boob.  You tell him that it is indeed a boob.  He blushes.  Then you move on. Then you shush him as he passes the Pollack when he exclaims loudly that he could do that too. Then you have your tea in the café.  Then the parents decide to divide and conquer.  I watch the boys while Blake takes a solo tour and then we switch.  Then we regroup. 

Then you take a boat ride on the Thames to the Tate Britian.  Which everyone loves because it is calm and no one has to do anything except look out the window.

Then Blake and the boys head back to the hotel and I head off to see the RED SHOES at Battersea Arts Center in Clapham by the Kneehigh Theatre. South of central London.  Getting there is adventure because there is no tube stop nearby.  I spent the entire AM figuring out which buses to take. Fun but when you don’t know where you are going and don’t have a map to tell you spend the entire journey perched ready to get off at a moment’s notice. The show is terrific.  Bohemian, tatty, sexy and dark.  With great theatrical flourishes and fantastic movement.  Jenny Langsam, this company has your name written all over it!  I kept thinking of you the entire night.

So show ends.  I get on the bus. The 345 towards Peckham. I have no idea where Peckham is but I go with it. We ride and ride.  I’m a bit nervous but I’m OK.  Then we approach signs that point towards central London.  Civilization! I’m feeling good, proud and a bit smug because I’ve figured it out. Then the bus turns. Hmmm. Maybe we’ll catch up with it somewhere else.  We ride and ride. Pass a police station.  Then all of a sudden we’re in Brixton. I don’t know anything about Brixton but somewhere in the back of my mind I think, “Brixton riots!!  There were riots in Brixton!”

I don’t think I was going in the right direction.

The bus voice tones “ Shakespeare Road” in her nice BBC voice.  I think to myself, “Shakespeare was a nice man. I bet this is a nice road.”  I scramble off the bus and cross the road, wait for the 345 going in the other direction.  It comes in less than 5 minutes. I scramble back on.  Ride for a few minutes. Spy a underground station. Get on.  I’m home in 25 minutes.  No worries.