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Day at the Museum
The art museum was a refuge for emotional misfits
Playing around with the idea of sketch memoir bits.
When I was a teenager, I would go to The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis pretty regularly, usually with a friend who had access to a car. It was free at the time.
Now, I believe there is an admission fee steep enough that it would have kept my minimum-wage-earning teenage self out. The Walker is where I first saw authentic works by Picasso, Chuck Close, Louise Nevelson, and so many more in person.
I went to the Walker for all the wrong reasons. I wanted to be cool.
I wanted to be sophisticated and worldly. Even though I didn’t know exactly what that meant, I felt I couldn’t find it in the first-ring suburb where I grew up. We lived on a comfortable blue-collar block.
The dads were roofers, bricklayers, gas meter readers, and one candy salesman who was nothing like Willy Wonka.
My dad worked at an oil refinery about thirty minutes outside of town. He was smart, gentle, and well-read. When I was an adult, we exchanged book recommendations, and he introduced me to…
