building | Beauty Observed

Inspired by our recent trip to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ed gave some of my photos an artistic, stylized effect.

My top five favorite places in the whole wide world are:

My home
Church
The Library (or bookstore) I know, that should really count as two.
The Cleveland Museum of Art (who doesn’t seem to have an instagram account like the Metropolitan Museum of Art does. <insert sad face here.>
My garden

We never went to the museum when I was growing up. I think my real introduction to art was through public school art class. I loved art class! Also, I would get stacks and stacks of art books from the library. (How fun? Getting books about art from one of my favorite places.)

Without a doubt, I’ve learned more about art from books and videos by Sister Wendy Beckett than any other source. Several years ago, my family watched every one of her BBC videos that we could get from the library. Fortunately, all these years later, they are still in publication. I have the DVDs on reserve and I’m looking forward to watching them again with N and J. Some of her videos and TV interviews are available on YouTube.

We asked Amy what she wanted to do while she was home for the summer. Without hesitation she told us she wanted to go to the Cleveland Museum of Art, so we took a little family trip to Cleveland last weekend. I didn’t take my camera because I wanted to be in the moment and enjoy the art and my family’s enjoyment of the museum. We had such a lovely day, capped off with a nice dinner out!

I highly recommend finding an art museum and visiting with your family! Don’t worry about the ages of your children – the first time N visited the museum, he was still in his stroller. It’s never too early to teach your children about respecting and enjoying art. Currently, my family consists of our 23 year old daughter, our 14 year old daughter, and our 13 year old son. Each of us found at least one thing that we could feast on with our eyes and tuck away in our hearts to be remembered on another day.