We set off very early on Thursday to make it to the Crocker Museum. This museum turned out to be one of my favorites. I saw through the first door some very (in my opinion) classy architecture. I love the tall doors and the rounded tops. The roman-style archways feel very welcoming and suave. The paintings in the first room were very nice, but they didn’t affect me very deeply. However, in the second room I saw a giant painting that covered almost the whole wall. It had so much drama in it, everything from the fire to the woman reaching for the child to the missing rung on the ladder and you don’t know how everything is going to work out. I feel like it is a very powerful piece.
Also in that museum was a great collection of pottery. I have only ever taken one ceramics class, but I feel like even the little knowledge that I have helped me to appreciate these pieces more. They had all sorts of things in this exhibit. There were a lot of traditional pottery with vases and teapots and things like that, but there were also a lot of more modern pieces. There were also a lot of traditional pieces with a modern twist. There was a little clay pot that was so tiny I probably could’ve put it inside my shoe. There was one modern piece that I ended up really liking. Normally I’m not the biggest fan of modern pieces, but I loved this one. It was a pot-type object with a very wide brim and had so many vivid and bright colors! The artist didn’t try to smooth down the inside; he just used it as another texture. I thought it was a very brilliant piece.
There was an exhibit in this museum that I thought was weird, but I liked looking at it. There were all these robots made of different things and placed in all sorts of positions. And also as part of that, there was a Bigfoot specimen and a doctor’s dissection lab (like one from a horror movie, not at the hospital). It’s interesting to see how people come up with all these different ideas. I wouldn’t think about putting that in a fine art museum, but somebody did and it was a big hit!
It was interesting to see all the different works of art. Throughout the rest of the museum there were so many paintings that were a mix of traditional and modern. There was one that showed 2 girls, one with a knife, being caught by a man looking through the trees. It’s a very dramatic picture, but the entire thing is covered with glitter, something that I wouldn’t think was very dramatic. But it’s almost like the artist is trying to show that things can be sugar coated as much as you want, but the real problem will always be there.
As much fun as it is to find the deeper meaning in artworks, sometimes you find a piece that you know you will never be able to take serious. I found one of those in this museum. I found a painting that looks just like my dad. He used to have a shirt that he would wear all the time and it looks just like the one in the painting. He has a beard just like that. And that stance just screams Mike Mitchell. So Dad, here’s one for you!
After the Crocker Museum we went to St. Mary’s College to look at their museum. I also loved the architecture all over this campus, and the giant palm tree we found! Our campus doesn’t look anything like this so it was kind of fun to see.
I will admit that this wasn’t my favorite museum. I do like looking at landscapes, but I like more vibrant colors than the ones we saw there. I did like that artwork and the style, but after listening to that lady talk about ever single painting for 20 minutes each, I lost my interest. But I was impressed at how much she knew about the man and the history behind each piece. Here are a few that I liked.
After St. Mary’s we finally made it to San Francisco. We went to China Town for dinner. I knew this already, but I guess I forgot that San Francisco has the largest population of Chinese outside of China. I also found out that riding around the streets of San Francisco makes me very car sick.
After dinner we went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This was probably my least favorite museum we went to. I tried to keep an open mind about all of it, but there was hardly anything that interested me. There was a very friendly elderly East Indian gentleman that helped us understand one of the pieces better, so that was interesting! The only thing was, we couldn’t understand about 60% of what he said. But he was very excited and cute and friendly.
This day started out very nice with a trip to the Japanese Tea Gardens next to the De Young Museum. I absolutely loved this place. It was very serene and peaceful. I admire the way the Japanese have been able to capture the essence of peace and be able to create a place where you can feel it so abundantly. I’m taking a Far Eastern Art class and it seems like almost everything in Asian art has symbolism so I wish I could’ve understood that better. I love all the architecture that we saw here as well. It’s so fascinating to me to see such ornate carvings, but it doesn’t look too ostentatious.
Across the street from the tea garden was the De Young Museum. From the tower at the top of this museum, you can see the whole city! That was exciting. The first exhibit we saw in here had a lot of South American art. It was interesting to see the difference between that and the European art in the Crocker. After looking at these, my mom and I decided to pay the extra money to see the featured exhibit “Masters of Venice”. It was such a great experience and I loved seeing all that Italian art! I think it was worth the money. I don’t know if I’ll ever make it to Europe, but I feel like that was the best I can do right now. 
My mother found her hero in this museum. We were walking down the hall and she ran over to a painting and I thought she was going to rip it off the wall. She loves Georgia O’Keeffe and found one of her paintings. I had to take her picture with it. When we were walking away, she said “I can die now. My life is complete.” I don’t judge her at all because I know the effect that art can have on someone. It’s a powerful thing that I think a lot of people underestimate. 
