rebeccmeister | I heart Henry Art

Yesterday's dissatisfaction has dissolved after a day of quietude; I spent a quiet morning thinking, and then donned shoes and jacket to take a walk in the Arboretum near my house. I had hoped to walk out to Foster Island, to watch the boats go past and think about rowing, but the path was closed, so I had to take a different route. That familiar trail, which I trod so much growing up, was just as I left it. As I left, I walked along the Montlake Cut, reading old familiar rowing slogans while I walked up to and across the Montlake Bridge. It's a drawbridge and is charmingly captivating. From there, I walked across the University of Washington and stopped for coffee at Cafe Allegro; then it was time to meet AKW at the Henry Art Gallery.

The current exhibit doesn't stand out too much; AKW liked an installation piece called Tall Ships; my favorite was called Descending. It was a video installation without sound, played on a wall in a darkened room; a slow revelation of abstracted buildings. But as usual, upon leaving, I felt a certain sense of elevation and enlightenment; hallmarks of a good museum. The Henry is just the right size for an art museum. I'm reminded, too, of a poem I wrote about the museum several years ago, when I was in Boston and homesick. Here you are:

Henry Art Museum, Seattle, WA

I am the woman who looks,
The bent, peering head,
attached to curving torso,
attached to slouched shoulders and hands in jeans pockets,
attached to silent feet.

That ogling museum tourist
Peering at images that burn my eyes—
--for how can I apprehend
Braille names written in gray sand?

I am lost for an hour
In twelve identical bobbing heads on twelve screens,
One after another
turning sideways, tilting the head upward,
holding still
as the camera scans and records their faces
Behind me I hear them speak
of how others see them—
the white businessman in the suit has no face
While the snaky laugh and stories of a
heavy-voiced drag queen with thick, golden curls
Are stamped in my mind for eternity.

And then, an exhibit from China—
films of
blood dripping;
pigs fucking;
a honey-and-fly-covered, latrine-sitting man
Images that leave me burned and wondering—
If this is still art,
Is the man who lies naked
in a chain hammock, blood dripping,
any more rational than me?

I am left blackened, like the thousand-copied characters
of a legend that promises—
if you finish me I will come true.
A flat ghost hand projected on the table
that copies and copies and copies the legend until
all that remains is the black square in my mind
with edges defined by feathery remnants of dreams;
some dream

and then
I am stilled and chilled
in the cloud-cathedral spun of transparent tiles of hair
and all that I will say of China
when asked—[no one asks]—
is that I saw
two tiny mechanical seagulls
flapping above mounds of sand.
two seagulls heading towards
the exhibit at hand.

I step away from China’s indelible, eternal pain
and I break a beam of light,
engaging a flowing, falling image
of fluorescent knots
that course and jump
like water flowing past a boat,
that stream downward
and show me that I am free, I sway art—
Now I only wonder—
do they turn it off at night
to save electricity?

I leave the museum; I return to the street
I return to school books and
public buses and
rainy days and
the slap-slap of sandals on sidewalks.
But in quiet moments of dissatisfaction
I talk to a giggling, hissing man
wearing pearls and lipstick.