Ridiculous and Insulting.
The Masters of the American West exhibit closed today.
Last week I went to see it. I love art and I suppose I'm always hoping I'll see a piece that gives me chills or makes me loose track of time just looking at it, which happens once in a while, and has happened twice in all the years I've gone to the Autry Western Heritage Museum, which, since 2003 has been the Autry National Center.
I was walking around the gallery, and I knew I wanted to write about it, and after I saw Mian Situ's paintings of 1902 San Francisco China Town street scenes, which I loved, and JoAnn Peralta's "Spanish Shawl," which beautifully featured the play of candlelight through a shaw, and Scott Talliman Powers "Daily Bread," a painting of an old man panhandling, well I thought if I was going to write about it, I needed to take some notes.
I took a small 3X5 lined paper notebook and a pencil out of my purse and started to write down the names of the artists and the pieces; maybe later I'd figure out which one was my very favorite. Then there was a secutity guard telling me I was not allowed to take notes or "sketch!"
Whaaat!?!
A woman using a laptop which she seems to have taken out of a polka-dot rolling suitcase was writing/typing on the balcony.
Students with paper and pencils roamed the lower galleries.
I was not taking pictures with a cell phone as some people were.
I did not have any camera with me at all.
I didn't bring any brats in stollers, particularly not the screaming and running brats so often being pushed around the Autry since it's across the street from the zoo; the main reason not to go there on weekends.
I was using my pencil to write, not stab paintings.
I wasn't physically too close to any paintings, nor did I try to touch a sculpture.
I guess the days when people actually go to museums with sketch pad and art supplies, as I did in my teens, is over: Too much concern over someone lending their pictures, notes, sketches, drawings to forgers and counterfeiters?!
It was explained to me, because I asked to speak to a higher authority, and a woman named Lauren spoke to me, that because the museum does not OWN the paintings and scultpures on display, they have this policy.
THAT'S WHY YOU HAVE SECURITY GUARDS! I said.
C Christine Trzyna 2012 All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.
