02 THE QUEST: 50 Museums in 50 States

SYNOPSIS. In which the author considers the nature of a quest that is too large from some, yet too small for others. In which a wife offers her skepticism. A home base is discussed, also prone to matters of scale. Where a foreshadowing of hatred is revealed.

A SMALL MATTER OF SCALE

I’m going to start small on this site. Fifty museums in fifty states over two years. At minimum fifty major artworks from all media and time periods.

My wife doesn’t think that is starting small, but then I told her my original plan was to visit the major museums in every country in the world and then she agreed that this scale was smaller. We have a two and a half year old, so we’ll see how crazy we are for trying this.

To ease ourselves into it, we’ll begin with our present home base as our epicenter—Chicago and Kansas City—yes, that’s a big home base. (See? I have problems with scale.) We’ll likely visit several museums in each state just to get our feet wet and learn how much tolerance we have for road trips and museum visits. If you know of any awesome playgrounds or kids entertainments nearby, please, for the love of all that is good and decent in this world, tell me about them (with cross-streets if possible).

I’ll gradually refine my writing style to be as clear and concise as possible. I tend to be a little long-winded. I also hope to convince the authorities at the museums to grant me the digital rights to reproduce artworks on this site, even if only in details. I’m going to do everything I can to make this quest as useful as possible to anybody interested in learning how to like art or rekindle their own interests.

In the spirit of fairness, I’ll make sure to include artists I hate. 

Yes, I totally just used that tasty, tasty word. Hate. It's like potato chips. 

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