PMA & The MET

Friday, my friend Alex and I met my drawing teacher at the PMA. She makes the placards there for all the artwork. It was awesome, she took us on a tour and was really knowledgeable about a ton of the artwork. I really loved all the period rooms, they were amazing! We only saw a small portion of the museum, though. Next week my whole class will be meeting her, so hopefully we'll see a different part! Right before we left, we got to take a peek at where she works. On the way, we stopped in at the conservation lab. Kate Cuffari, who gave a lecture a couple of weeks ago, and one of her colleagues was super nice and talked to us about some of the pieces they were working on. I was in AWE. It was so cool!!!! I saw all the pieces from the images that Kate showed us during her lecture. It was so interesting to see the artwork in a different context, in a cluttered lab instead of a fancy display. I absolutely loved it.

Yesterday I went to the Met with my Art History class. It was rainy and gross, so it was another perfect day to spend in a Museum! :) We spent a really long time with everyone's presentations, and we only had about 30-45 minutes exploring for ourselves which was a bummer. But I was super impressed by the building. I had no idea it was so HUGE. It would take a few days at least to see everything properly. My favorite part that I got to actually spend time in was the greek sculpture, it was in such a huge, open, and fitting space. I was really impressed with the collection as well. The African Art section was also amazing, I had never seen so much in one place. It's so easy to see how Picasso and modern artists were so influenced by African masks. Some of the sculptures in there were HUGE! I was really surprised. The Modern Art section was pretty nice as well, I got to see some Matisse paintings, he's basically my favorite artist ever! I also go to see the shark by Damien Hirst. I was really excited about the Degas section, it had a whole wall of just his tub pastel drawings which I love! And they were all in one spot together which was so cool to see them all at once.

So basically it was a great weekend for art! It was finished by a trip to Dick Blick earlier today to pick up some supplies for book-binding and silk-screening. Yay for art! :)