A man named Patrick Bringley published a memoir earlier this year called All the Beauty in the World. When his brother died from cancer, Bringley quit his job in media and became a museum guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Americas’ largest museum. He wanted to stand still in the most beautiful place he knew. He stood still there for 10 years.
I loved Bringley’s book. It taught me how to get more out of museums, how to pay attention, and how to think differently about time. Since I read it (and — disclosure — began to date someone who loves to draw), I started to want to see better. You know when you start to learn about wine, and suddenly you care where a wine is from? I wanted that, but for art, and also for life. So we started drawing: at museums, we drew the art. This is even more fun with children, so we brought my sisters’ kids along. We drove to the Bruce Museum in Connecticut, sprawled out on the floor with pencils and markers, and drew until it got dark.
At one point my niece Scarlett turned to my boyfriend Larry. They were drawing a Lois Dodd night painting, a peaceful view of a barn at night. “Why are you in such a hurry?” she asked him, as she steadily filled her barn with dark grey. “Maybe you should slow down.”