Dear Family, Friends, and Diary,
The hardest part about today's diary was leaving out most of the pictures I took and still ending up with too many. That's a common problem at art venues and should be expected after a visit to the the 150,000 square-foot Crocker Art Museum
.
We managed just a pair of the dozen or so areas in "The Crocker", and still wore ourselves out. We started with "Rebels with La Causa" a temporary exhibition showing art from the imaginatively-named "Royal Chicano Air Force". The posters were particularly colorful and quite sophisticated and a "family altar" gave us three-dimensional art.
We moved on to the three gallery rooms showing "American Art, 1945-The Present". The collection of contemporary and abstract art was filled with pieces that appealed to our house artist (and the engineer.) Again, my small selection of photos does not give justice to how extensive the collection is.
This painting was one of several donated by
neighbor Vern's friends, George and La Vona Blair.
Speaking of Vern, for late lunch we went to Ella's, a Selland family restaurant started by his son Randal and now run by his son Josh. Ella's is always a goal for us when we are in Sacramento. The family has several local restaurants, including the Michelin-starred "The Kitchen". The $500 price tag for dinner there was more than we budgeted today, but someday we will get on the months-long waiting list and make a special trip. Someday.
Back out on the street, our walk home was under dreary skies and through big-city "roughness". Above us, a Johnny Cash mural memorialized the "United Prisoners Union", while at street level a fountain reminded me of a European central square. Kinda.
Just before sunset, I went out to see what golden-hour photos I could find. There was nothing dramatic, but the rose garden Capitol Park was filled with color and I could not help myself. Click. Click. Click. Each flower turned out to be its own piece of art.
I ended my evening walk on a more somber note. Next to the rose garden is the California Viet Nam Memorial. With the US now at war in the Middle East, a war as useless and futile as that in Southeast Asia a half-century ago, I wondered how much we have learned. We need no more black stone walls engraved with young names.
Thursday, what will we see? Unknown.
Stay tuned,
John and Marianne