Art! (in Houston)

Drummer boy on top of museum

Giant Jack

Yard Art

Light Art

Car Art, Museum

Today we drove from New Orleans to Houston, Texas. The only reason we planned on coming to Houston in the first place was to visit the Art Car Museum. We couldn't find the exact location on our GPS, so we found a nearby location, and just decided to search for it. It took us a long time, but we finally found it. (Actually, I, Mara, found the metal, artsy building.) We parked our car at the Citco next door, walked up to the fence surrounding it (quite odd...) and saw a sign hung on the fence. Closed for Installation, it read. Wow. Sad. But don't worry, we had other places to visit. First, we visited the Rothko Chapel. When we first entered the room, it looked... boring. It was a room, surrounded by what seemed to be all black canvases, and rows of brown benches. There were people meditating, looking around, sitting. Then, after sitting for a while, you realized how peaceful it was. And, the black paintings, weren't just black. They were navy, brown, purple and red. After sitting for a while, we drove to a museum which claimed to be the Menil Collection. I thought it was the metal collection. And what's a menil? Not a what, a who. We're pretty sure it was someone who gave all the art for the next two museums we were visiting. I guess. (I still have no idea who he is!) The first museum, wasn't the Menil Collection, frankly I have no idea what it was, but it was cool. The first room was large, and almost empty, with windows on the ceiling, revealing the light blue sky, with perfect clouds. Then if you looked out the front doors, it looked like it was night, because they were tinted black. Along the walls were rainbow colored fluorescent lights. In another room were white lights made into designs. Not as interesting. But we stayed in the rainbow room for a long time. Next we visited the real Menil Collection. It was an odd one. At the entrance, there was a drummer boy sitting on the roof, occasionally tapping at his drum. There were a lot of interesting paintings and sculptures, a lot of boring ancient stuff, and the freaky stuff. When we first walked in the building, we didn't see the fake kid sitting up there, so we weren't prepared for what we were about to see. The first thing was a dead horse. It wasn't a painting, it was a sculpture. It wasn't real, but I sure thought it was. It was just lying on the ground with a sign sticking out of it saying some word we didn't understand. I think it meant "glue". After walking through more paintings and mirrors with pictures in them, we came upon a room with dead bodies in it. It looked just like bodies covered in sheets, curled in different positions. They were made out of white marble. There was also arms sticking out from walls, small suited men lying in bed, and cheese that grew hair. The most startling of all was put in the center of an ancient Egypt blah blah blah exhibit. It was a girl hanging from the wall, tied up and stabbed. Very lifelike. Cheery, huh? While we were leaving, I noticed some ditches in the middle of the lawn. They were twisting into different shapes. It was lawn art! After walking in the lawn art for a while, we walked over to the Byzantine Chapel. It was surrounded by a lovely moat and a mini waterfall. On the inside were clear, thick, plexiglass panels and frescos that came over from the ground to the ceiling. Around it were pictures of God, Jesus, and other lord-y stuff. It was pretty, though. All of these museums and chapels were surrounding a park where there were lots of people doing lots of things. People sitting in trees, playing ball, doing yoga and people doing karate like stuff with bendy poles. I really have no idea what that one karate person was doing. We stopped by a book store and visited a giant jack. Then we drove to our Super 8 where I am only allowed to go to the pool after I finish this post. So excuse me, but I must go swim. And visit our past two posts filled with Graceland and New Orleans pictures!