Creating Things

I saw something out of my nightmares today. It was a giant pink poodle, about the height of a building and as wide as a school bus. It was fluffy and vaguely the color of Pepto-Bismol, and had eyes the size of dinner plates. It was a kinetic sculpture, and inside there were bicycle seats enough for 4 people to paddle it around the inner harbor. Which is awesome. But terrifying.

Today my father and grandmother and I took a trip to the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore. There is no other way to describe the museum then insane. It’s stuffed to the brim with oddities and strangeness. Some beautiful, some deeply disturbing, all of it making up a collection you couldn’t imagine anywhere else.

People talk all the time about the beauty of art. About how art is the beauty we find in the world, or how art allows beauty in our lives—but art isn’t always beautiful. Sometimes art is strange and painful and nonsensical and the things you wouldn’t expect to work. Sometimes art is hurtful and angry and a release of the emotion that the artist needs to release. Art can be weird.

The Visionary Arts museum is a place that feels a little bit like an art museum met a junkyard, had a torrid affair and had a baby who met a kindergarten classroom’s craft area, and their baby threw up all over a building in the inner harbor. It’s chaotic and organized in a way that probably makes sense to someone, but I am definitely not that person. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy it- I most definitely did.

My elementary school took field trips to the art museums in DC four times a year. We’d go over and over again, until seeing works by Matisse or Chagall seemed as commonplace as seeing as seeing certain relatives. Art was just a part of our lives, if we wanted it to be or not. My mom hated those field trips- they made her remember her own trips from school, when she was forced to carry her coat all over for long days in hot museums. I liked them. I liked getting to see interesting things, and an interesting city that had so many things I didn’t even know that I didn’t know about.

I’ve been to the National Gallery in DC dozens and dozens of times by now… and the Hirshorn, and the Corcoran and the Phillips, and lots of other little places in between.  Every visit shows me new and interesting things, and paintings and sculptures and photographs that fill me with awe and inspire me to learn more and create more.

Blog Every Day November is almost over. I’ve written a lot this month, about a lot of different things. It’s given me a chance to get my creative juices flowing in ways that I wouldn’t have expected. I’ve written lots and lots of blog posts- but it’s inspired me in other ways; I’ve written 60 pages of a story I’ve been trying to get out since high school, I’ve painted a little, I’ve collaged and doodled and written more poetry then I have since I was 17.

I’m grateful that this was something I was able to do. I’m grateful for all the things that I’ve gotten to experience that have inspired me so much. The art; beautiful and strange that makes the world a better place. The playlists of songs that friends have sent that help me write until I feel like my fingers are about to fall off. 

I’m grateful for the things that I don’t understand, but mean so much to the people that created them.

The things I’ve been making mean a lot to me, and even if they seem strange and weird to anyone else, I hope people can appreciate the fact that I’m doing and trying and putting myself out there in a way that feels scary.

So I guess I’m saying I’m glad for the art museums filled with giant scary dogs and the cds full of songs I don’t like and even the books and movies that give me nightmares. I’m glad people can make things that they are proud of. 

I’m glad I can make things I’m proud of too.