September 3, 2003: This Time It Worked

So on Sunday, we took a second try at our Visit Art Museum roll. This time we made it to the San Antonio Museum of Art and its Dale Chihuly exhibition. I put off this report in order to add Mia Sherman's photos - thanks, Mia!

Anyway. Whoooooo. I am still getting mental images of a few of the installations, especially the "Macchia Forest" (more than a dozen huge glass bowls, irregularly shaped and brilliantly colored, each with a spotlight shining inside it so the whole bowl seemed to glow) and the "Niijima Floats" (variously colored or iridescent spheres, inspired by the glass net-floats the Japanese use). But there's no way I could tell you what I liked most. There was just too much wonderful stuff there.

The rest of the museum was worth the visit, too. Several parts of the permanent exhibit were very impressive. The exception was the modern art collection. Now, there is such a thing as good modern art. But this museum doesn't have any. Their art collection isn't modern, and their modern collection isn't art. A lot of it, in fact, elicits the "Whoever made this thing KNEW he was kidding, but the buyer didn't" giggle.

We asked a museum staffer for a lunch recommendation, and were sent to the Liberty Bar. The building looks VERY MUCH like it's going to fall down RIGHT NOW. But the food was excellent . . . gourmet recipes, reasonably priced, with good service. We may drive the hour+ back to San Antonio just to eat there again; it was that good.

After the meal, some of us went home, and I went back to the museum and looked at the Chihuly glass again . . .
-- Steve Jackson

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