Museum trip, day 2

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I went back to the Momentary for Kristine Potter's Dark Waters show the second morning in Bentonville. I really just wanted to sit and absorb it. Sketches from photos are never going to be fantastic, but looking at something in a detailed enough way to draw it helps me see it and remember it better. The most successful sketch is the one of The Balladeer where I backed up and got the setting as well, with those shadows slanting along the wall beside him. It was fun to do. I also did a sketch of the pair of photos of Naomi Wise's two gravestones (she was "Omi Wise" in the ballad). Amazing that you can visit that spot centuries later.

I had a whole plan to eat lunch at a fancy pizza food truck halfway along the walk up to Crystal Bridges, but they weren't open, sadly, during their posted hours. So I ended up with a wrap from a market and an outdoor table, which wasn't bad. There's a TON of construction everywhere in Bentonville, and you do get the feeling that the corporations behind the town are pushing development big time, but they are including a bike trail up the middle of town, lots of mountain bike trails, and lots of pedestrian amenities, which make it a pleasant town to be on foot.

In the same spirit as sketching the photos, I did a sketch of the Mark Rothko at Crystal Bridges. I couldn't get the colors just right in the pencils I had (they want you to sketch in pencil instead of paint), but I've enjoyed sketching him in the past as well. There are such subtle edges and textures and overlaps that it's easy to skim over unless I really slow down. Truthfully I might have sketched the gorgeous Hopper skyline across water, but there was nowhere to sit, and it's a crazy busy museum. One of their best features is lots of truly comfortable benches and even sofas, and there was a sofa in front of the Rothko, so that won out.

After revisiting all my favorites from the day before to spend more time, I toured the Frank Lloyd Wright house that's been moved to the property. It's a small family home, so I'm not sure it's really typical of his work, but it was fun to see one in person. I loved the huge high windows of the main room, but he seemed intent on making an extra large contrast with that space and had dark, low, heavy ceilings and very narrow passages everywhere else. The rest of the downstairs (upstairs is off limits with too delicate a staircase for all the traffic) felt like a below decks in a boat. It's not a house I would want to live in, but it was fun to see. It was a gorgeous day that I had spent largely indoors, so I sat out along the forested art trail after and sketched the house from a bench below it. Such a lovely day.