Museum, Museum, Movie (Day Three)

Ahhhh! Day three started early, but not as early as it usually does when we're on vacation. When we go on vacation, I usually feel the need to get up and get out of the hotel super early, like, breakfast at 7:00, our first destination at 8:00 a.m., and so on. But this time, I didn't feel so much pressure. So even though I got up early, I spent the time having coffee, journaling, and reading and looking out the window of our hotel room at all the flatness that is Kansas.

 Dave was surprised when he woke up on his own a bit after 8:00 that I hadn't roused him earlier. In fact, I hadn't even changed out of my pajamas.

We had a snacky breakfast from some foods we had with us (crackers, a bit of fruit), then we went to the Starbucks in the lobby of the hotel and had a latte (me) and some tea, Earl Gray, hot (Dave).

Our plan for the day: Museums, museums, and more barbecue.

Our first museum was the tiny, fabulous Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. This place? Gorgeous. 

There was a small exhibit ("Supper Club") of an artist, Scott Anderson, who got his BFA from Kansas State University. Dave thought his work was disturbing, but I thought it was colorful, thematically dark, and bizarrely funny (similar to the Day of the Dead art that is so important to me). I got one (terrible) picture of one of his paintings, a piece called Farm to Table Dinner Theater (2016).

I only got this one photo because the "security guard," a young man who was clearly an art student making a few extra bucks at a work-study job, was basically shadowing us as we moved around the tiny gallery. I mean, he and I could have been mistaken Siamese twins at one point, I don't know. He wasn't at all unfriendly about it, just a little unfamiliar with the concept of keeping an attentive distance.

After the Anderson work, we went into the next gallery and looked at an exhibition ("Super Indian: Fritz Scholder 1967-1980") of Fritz Scholder's work. Dave's father knew Scholder and collected his work, so it was familiar to both of us.  We strolled the exhibit with our new "security guard" BFF, a young woman this time (but clearly another art student in a work-study position), keeping a close eye on us.

Dartmouth Portrait #14 (1973)

Dark Indian (about 1970)

There was so much gorgeousness to look at. At the end of the exhibit, there was a short film about Scholder's work and life. He was one-quarter Indian, but made his mark on the world by painting Indians. Whatever that means.

Upstairs, the art continued. There were a couple of paintings that I loved. This was one of my favorites, Dana Schutz's Surgery (2004).

Wow, right?

But this, this was the best painting in the place as far as I was concerned.

Marcus Cain's Soft Bones (2009).

I love that painting.

After we saw what we could see (the museum is fairly small, on the campus of a community college!), it was time for lunch. Since we were headed to the larger Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, we decided to have lunch in the cafe there.

We sat in the lovely interior courtyard and I had a BLT wrap and a salad and Dave had some kind of vegetarian curry. Then we had coffee and shared a tiny mocha-chocolate tart.

I had wanted to start with an exhibit of found photographs (An Anonymous Art: American Snapshots from the Peter J. Cohen Gift), so we walked the galleries until we found the found photographs. It was a small exhibit, but wonderful.

I mean...

Just...

After we saw that exhibit, we walked the permanent photography galleries. They led us into the contemporary art galleries, which led into a Nick Cave exhibit which led into...something else...I don't remember what. My eyes were full of art by then and they were just not processing anything.

We hit the gift shop on our way out. I bought a pair of earrings made from old, round typewriter keys and Dave bought a book of Nick Cave's art.


It was still early in the day, but we were both tired so we headed back to the hotel in Overland Park for a little while.

Our plan was for an early dinner then a movie. Taika Waititi's new film Hunt for the Wilderpeople was playing in Overland Park, so we wanted to make the 7:30 showing. Our plan for a very early dinner at Fiorella's Jack Stack Barbecue was thwarted by the crowds of people lined up at the restaurant at 5:00. We opted instead for this weird "healthy" fast-food-ish place called Sheridan's Unforked ("natural ingredients from local farmers"). I had a chicken quesadilla. Dave had a couple of tacos. We shared an order of guacamole and chips then a toasted marshmallow shake. It was...okay. 

Then we headed over to the theater. The theater was...wow. It was in the basement of a dead mall and was probably built in the early 70s. It had horrible seats and layers of horrible smells. It was one of those theaters where even a good movie won't take your mind off the uncomfortable seat or the fact that the screen seems only slightly larger than a large screen TV. But, yes, the movie was good. It wasn't "see it again ASAP" good, but it was funny and heartfelt.

(My blog cuts off part of the trailer screen, but it's worth clicking to go to youtube to watch it there.)



Then it was the end of the evening so we went back to the hotel and climbed into our pajamas again.

And that was the end of day three.