The Solace Project #28
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Dear Friends,<br/><br/>I write from Bentonville, Arkansas, near <a href="https://crystalbridges.org/">Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art</a>, where I will be living and learning for the next three weeks as the leader of the <a href="https://crystalbridges.org/reports-and-research/tyson-scholars/tyson-think-tank/">Tyson Think Tank</a>. Last week, I said I would tell you all about my trip down here, a road trip through the midwest, literally from the Great Lakes to the midcountry heartland. Yet now that I’m here, I’d rather tell you what I’m doing today and tomorrow than what I did yesterday. Plus I realize that it’s nearly impossible to write while driving, very dangerous, and I have not yet bonded with Siri in a way that would allow me to talk to her for more than a 30 second note. She keeps asking me to repeat myself. Perhaps a reminder to speak clearly, kindly, and less.  <br/><br/>My time here is about listening. And looking. My path to Crystal Bridges parallels the start of these musings, last winter when I trained my focus on art and nature and solace.  I thought of how incredible it would be to focus on one work of art for an extended period, in an environment that allowed me to spend time in nature. That sounds simple, right, but very different, indeed, from the way I’ve studied in the past, nose in a book, eyes on a screen, back to the work of art, talking to colleagues, and then, ta da, a paper or a talk or a lecture conveying what I had learned. Telling.  <br/><br/>For the next three weeks, I am going to spend a lot of time with Copley’s 1765 portrait of Frances Deering Atkinson, I mean a lot of time, looking and asking people here--staff, visitors, others--to help me understand the picture.  And then I’m going to walk and run outdoors, contemplative time to digest the thoughts and actually allow myself to embrace all that I will learn.  I am so certain that the value proposition of museums is human wellbeing that I am will
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serenaM
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