This afternoon, Julia, Genevieve, and I hit the second half of the St. Olaf senior art show. It was a fantastic time. I insisted on listening to "grown-up music" on the way to campus, and Julia immediately fell in love with last year's best pop song, the 1990s' "See You at the Lights."
and the great old Pavement song, "Stereo."
The opening lines - "Pigs, they tend to wiggle when they walk/And the infrastructure rots" - were thoroughly discussed, to say that least.
The main event - or so I thought - was the art show itself. Many of the pieces were really impressive, and many merited hilarious reactions from Julia (as well as shrieks and "mmmmmwah" kisses from Vivi). A sample of these:
"I'm scared of those. They look like real alligators." (My internal reaction: "Wha?")
This is how Julia walked around the pieces above - until she realized that they were made of eggshells, which changed her mind about them.
"Is that a maze? It looks like a maze."
(This is actually the incredible sculpture by my boss's son, Karl Gleason.)
Of this rather dramatic installation, Julia said, "It smells like sculpture."
This piece invited everyone to lie down inside it and look up through the kaleidoscope-like glass suspended above. "Pretty! It's stars!"
Though I couldn't get a picture, Julia also was impressed by a Ole who was wearing a funny hoodie to which she'd affixed oversized gray rabbit ears. Julia asked, "Why does that girl have rabbit ears?" but relentlessly rejected my suggestions that perhaps the "girl" was actually a rabbit in human clothes. "Daddy, rabbits don't wear jeans or hats."
Though of course she couldn't be quite so verbally expressive, Vivi liked some big stoneware plates (you can see them in the background of the second photo above) - shouting "Nana!" ("Banana!") when she saw them - and going right up to this piece and mumbling "Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh..."
After we meandered out of the second gallery, Vivi insisted on climbing up a nearby flight of stairs to the second floor, where we looked at some more art and then - cue the choir of angels - saw a girl down the hall in a leotard and ballet shoes.
Julia was drawn like a moth to a flame, first to a full-length window onto the studio and then - at the invitation of one of the dancers (high schoolers rehearsing for a show next weekend) - actually into the studio. While I held kept Vivi from sampling a water bottle sitting near us, Julia stood literally slack-jawed, watching actual ballet dancers dance. I was getting ready to drag her out so we could go home for dinner when the dancers blessedly took a break, ending the rapture. As we trundled back to the car, Julia kept saying, "I can't believe I saw real ballerinas! I wonder why they weren't wearing their tutus?" This little episode only deepened Julia's fascination with ballet and dancing. She changed into her own tutu within 60 seconds of getting home, even though dinner was ready, and then did some rather impressive dancing afterwards. (The dancers were really good, too.)
All in all, it was quite an arty Saturday afternoon! I feel so cultured.