Museum of Art

This week I went to the BYU Museum of Art and look at the art work of Walter Wick. I had already been there before with my family, but I didn't really take a very good look at all of the interesting things there. When I first walked into the gallery area downstairs I almost turned back and decided to go a different time because it was so noisy. There were a whole bunch of kids crying and just so many people crammed into the relatively small space that it was a little bit overwhelming. I assume that some exhibitions wouldn't be like that, but then I realized that for me it added to the experience. It was actually really great to hear all of the kids exclaiming over different paintings and the things they could discover in them. Admittedly I could have done without the crying. It was also nice that section that housed Wick's work wasn't terribly spread out.

It was interesting to see the contrast between his misty water pictures and the pictures that showcased some of his I Spy sorts of things. I really liked both of them. One of the pictures was of a abandoned soccer field in a water saturated field. At first when I looked at it I say just that. Then I read the sign by it and looked at it with a completely new perspective. I could really see how the reflection or the goal post and the goal post itself formed a rectangle that seemed to cut a section out of the picture. It was sort of an eye illusion. The other pictures were equally thought provoking. They had fairly similar subject matter and would probably have looked like the same colors of squares from far back, but up close each of them was unique.

Another section in the exhibition I really liked was a group of pictures that were from his science book. They were pictures of snowflakes, a pin floating on water, an egg balanced on the edge of a bottle with two forks sticking out of it, a water droplet hitting the table and a few others. I didn't know that snowflakes were really shaped quite exquisitely. I mean, it's hard to imagine that such tiny, puffy things could be so intricate on a more microscopic level. The egg balancing on a bottle was an interesting picture because it made me want to go home and attempt to perform the seemingly impossible task. This group of pictures was so interesting because I know they were photographs, and they looked real but then again they didn't. It's sort of like the pictures of Mt. Timpanogus that are so pretty they don't seem like they can be real.

I really like the beauty and the beast picture and the sand castle picture inside the other section of Walter Wicks' work. The beauty and the beast picture was really pretty and the other was creative with figure action nights and other toys dotting a sandcastle in different knightly positions. Not only did Wicks have to take a great picture for much of his artwork, he also had to set up the intricate (yes I know that I have used that word twice, but it really fits in both cases) scenes to take the pictures of. Beside one picture there was an explanation of how he had to use salad tongs to situate the different animals in a triangle-shaped mirror room. He used common household things to create many of his pictures: salt shakers, pie tins, dials for stoves, baseballs, jar lids, etc, etc, etc. It was super fun to discover the different things that the plaques near each picture said to look for. I don't remember ever owning a real I Spy book, but sometimes we would get them from the library when I was a kid. I have to admit it's pretty frustrating when you can't find something. I didn't have a whole lot of time in the museum because I had to get someplace else, but I could probably have spent a couple more hours trying to find the different items in each picture.