On Wednesday, I tagged along with my husband for a work trip up to Boston for the day. Before moving to Virginia, we lived in Massachusetts for a little over four years, and I hadn’t been back to the city (or seen our former co-workers) since we moved five and a half years ago. It was a long, 19-hour day from the time we woke up to the time we returned home and got right in bed, but having the chance to explore Boston again and visit with some old friends made the exhaustion totally worth it. (Plus, I got 18,000 steps and 8 miles of walking in, totally smoking my mom.)

One of the things I wanted to do (while Jon was in his meeting) was visit an art museum, so I hopped on the T and made my way to the Museum of Fine Arts. Funny how when you live in or near a city, you don’t seem to do the things you always say you want to do. Or maybe it was my terrible work schedule that prevented that. Regardless, I was here and ready to be enlightened, so after buying a ticket (and being asked by the cashier which college I was a student at – score!) I got started.

I didn’t bring my camera on this trip, though I did snap pictures on my iPhone of certain pieces of art that I found to be moving or interesting. And here’s what the point of my blog post today is: I went into this museum experience with the idea that I wanted to look at the art as an artist. I wanted to really observe what techniques and styles were used. I wanted to figure out what I liked and didn’t like, and how that relates to my own art as a photographer. I wanted to learn more about what went into creating a piece, and what the story was behind it. Here’s what I learned:

• I love impressionism for its use of color, the fact that it was worked en plein air, the way it uses purples and blues and grays to bring out shadows instead of using black, the way it is worked so quickly to capture a single, ordinary and fleeting moment in time, and how it was used as a way to compete with the burgeoning art of photography at the time.
• The fashion illustrations of Kenneth Paul Block are so iconic, and yet up close they are so simple. He used anything from pencil to crayon and watercolor to marker to create his art. His figures are sketched, his paint spills out of the lines, and yet these so-called imperfections add to the overall look of his pieces. I thought about how much overthinking I do when creating art – whether it’s photography or drawing – and this exhibit showed me an alternative way of approaching art: don’t think, just do.
• Artists’ styles often change with time. Some artists work in several mediums through their lives, or even all at once. Rodin was not only a prolific sculptor, but he was also a talented painter. Picasso painted in many styles throughout his life, and while he is most known for his surrealist paintings, he also produced realistic portraits and even took up writing and sculpting. These days it’s drilled into our heads that we must be consistent (see my post on that topic here) and maintain brand recognition. Maybe it’s my 2016 word of the year speaking (rebellion), but I can’t keep up with that. I’ve already been seeing a change in my work lately, with my interest in overexposure and pastels waning in favor of side lighting and bold color. I still produce photos in both styles, and sometimes even play with artificial lighting; it keeps my work interesting and makes the process fun for me. And if the artists of the past are any indication, this is a perfectly okay way of creating.
• While deep down I am always attracted to brightly colored, cheerful works of art (see: impressionism; most of my photos from 2015), I am also loving moodier works of art that include light as a subject. In the painting The Guitar Player by Joseph DeCamp, the woman playing the guitar is obviously the main subject. But light is just as much a player as the guitarist herself: notice how it draws your eyes right to her face as she focuses on her hand placement upon the fret. Many paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries featured dark backgrounds with light focused on the subject’s front or side, mostly in the way of portraits and still life. The light plays as much of a role in the painting as does the subject. This is true in photography as well: I can make a decent photo in even light, or I can allow light to enter my frame from a specific angle and see how it plays up my subject. What details does it highlight or diminish? What affect does light have on the color?
  
• Contemporary art seems, at first glance, to be the work of a child. Splattered paint on canvas. Nails hammered into boards at various angles. Pieces of garbage salvaged to become a wall hanging. Geometric shapes painted in neon colors. The uninformed say “I could make something like that!” and yet they don’t. Contemporary art makes the viewer think. The artist almost always creates with a meaning or inspiration in mind, something deeper than the art’s appearance. Most of the time (for me, anyway) the meaning isn’t apparent until after I read about the piece, and only then do I get what the artist was trying to say. In Josiah McElheny’s piece Endlessly Repeating 20th Century Modernism, pieces of hand-blown glass are positioned in a mirrored cube, their reflections repeating to infinity. From the placard description: “McElheny reveals what a world purged of human presence and individuality looks like. Devoid of life, it brims only with beautiful objects whose original (…) details are echoed today in endless mass production. That attempts to depict the capitalist notion that all objects are eternally repeatable, that everything can be remanufactured endlessly without regard to era, geography, or culture.” Art isn’t always pretty; sometimes it exists to make a statement on society and to create conversation within ourselves or with our peers.

My day at the museum was spent wisely, taking in art from both famous painters and unknown artists. Being able to get up close to a Monet or a Van Gogh and see the individual brush strokes is powerful, as are the thoughts provoked from some of the contemporary pieces. I feel invigorated and refreshed, inspired to create in new ways. I suppose sometimes getting out of your own head and viewing the art of others is the best way to reignite the passion for creation within your soul.

You can these works of art (and so, so many more!) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.