After a couple of days feeling down, wondering when we’d all be able to travel again, I realized that I hadn’t really taken advantage of all the wonderful activities in the Bay Area (well, there was that trip to the Vacaville outlet shops :)) I needed some art and inspiration…
Although I might dream of visiting the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, maybe I could stop complaining! And get a little cultural buzz from a trip to a local museum. So Dear Husband and I headed to San Francisco on a recent Sunday for lunch, a stroll, and art and inspiration at SF MOMA.
We had a lovely lunch before our entrance reservation time, and I’ll be sharing more details on that (plus our sunny stroll through the Salesforce park) in a future post. I realized after I took dozens and dozens of photos that I had enough content to share our museum visit in one full post.
From a purely logistical perspective, visiting a museum during a pandemic is actually pretty pleasant. There were, understandably!, no lines to get into the museum (everyone has to make an entrance reservation) and no crowds. I can only imagine how crowded the galleries must be on a typical Sunday afternoon. Well, not this time! It was lovely to stroll through the galleries with, at most, a few other people in the room. So much easier to focus on the art at SF MOMA, rather than dodging crowds.
Like a lot of people, I’ve been getting more interested in art and doing creative things since we’ve been quarantining. It hasn’t been sourdough bread for me but instead I’ve been drawn to watercolors, journaling, drawing and (more to come!) typewriters. So walking through the art galleries at SF MOMA was really inspirational for me.
I’m sharing some of the photos I took during our visit. I did a horrible job of capturing the titles and artists, so apologies in advance on that. I basically took a photo of everything that caught my eye- particularly from a color standpoint. And any appreciation and knowledge of art I received was thanks to the “History of Art and Music” class taught by Ed Long. It was required for every Hockaday graduate, and honestly I would be a cultural bumpkin without it.
Alexander Calder gallery
Anyone who grew up in Dallas in the 1970s knows Calder right off the bat. But I was curious as to why- and then I stumbled upon this interesting story about how Calder assembled his largest mobile for Braniff Airlines in Dallas in 1976. I am sure it was big news at the time, and kids must have heard about it at school and perhaps on a field trip. Interesting! And another point of interest-that greenery wall behind the terrace sculpture is also a piece of art.
Color!
Some of these works of art are inspiring my (very primitive!) efforts in watercolors- they make me smile looking at them
Pattern and shapes
I can see myself finding a lot of inspiration from some of the patterns in the paintings pictured above. It’s got to be more interesting than endless flowers 🙂
People (with a distinctly San Francisco flair)
There was a David Park retrospective taking place during our visit, and I really liked the quote they had printed at the entrance to the gallery.
Art and inspiration at the SF MOMA museum shop
I’d be lying if I told you that visiting the museum shop wasn’t one of the highlights of the visit. Isn’t it usually one of the best parts of any museum visit? (I also enjoy a museum cafe, if I’m being honest!) SF MOMA has an expansive and well-stocked shop, and there were lots of tempting items for sale. I loved these John Derian/Chilwich placemats (picture above), and they offered a lot of good art and stationery supplies. Alas, I’ve spent enough on all that recently, and I took a pass for now.
I’d really encourage you to explore some of the museums and activities in your local area. The people working at museums need our business right now. And it’s probably the least crowded experience that you’ll ever get in some of these places.
Have you made the rounds of the cool places in your backyard? Do share in the comments.
SF MOMA, 151 Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
