better than ice cream

Perhaps my need for art as nourishment stems from a childhood founded upon regular doses of it.
My father did not take us to the zoo or out for more unnecessary ice cream during our visits (yes, another child of divorce). My father took us to museums. Being that he was an artist, he went for inspiration. And I will never regret a moment spent, those hours in the quiet, respectful museums, where people gaze so seriously. Thing is, I often wondered why it all had to be so serious. Why were they staring so long? What did they see that I didn't see? Or were they just pretending? I never understood that. All the same, I liked what I saw. I enjoyed the brushstrokes, the bronze statues, the things people made because they just....had to.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art was as familiar to me as my grandmother's pool (which my chilly grandfather meanly preferred at a bone-freezing 68 degrees). We called it "Granny's house" because she was the one with the sugar cereals and the stocked cookie jar. And the bags of Tootsie Pop lollipops. It was her house and therefore, her pool. But anyway, art was all about healthful consumption of beauty. And healthful consumption of metaphoric wheat germ, too. While I was drawn to Monet or Manet or O'Keeffe, my father made sure I had a little helping of Goya or Velasquez, too. And one dollop of Pollock which, of course, my eight year old mind found accessibly possible ("I could do that" I thought, when many years later in Venice, I realized, wow, that's really something).

And so, I will share with you the man whose soul passion is art, who lives and breathes it, who is and will always be art full rather than artful, possessed rather than postured.