Not for the weak or the timid....The art world....

I never in my life thought I would be standing in line to see an art exhibit. But there I stood in 27 degree weather waiting to be admitted to Salvador Dali's exhibit. This was the last night of a five month run at the High museum of art and everyone waited till the last night to go.

The line to get in at 10:30 pm when we showed up was about 200 people or so. And it got longer while we shivered. My knowledge of art extends to the famous "Dogs playing poker"painting. Which is actually titled "A friend in need". Drop that little trivia tidbit and see if the ladies aren't just lining up to fill your dance card. Knowledge is damn sexy. And that is all the art I know.

So in the interest of expanding my horizons and keeping a promise to my wife, we joined the wine and cheese crowd in midtown Atlanta. (Side note: Does being a fan of art require wearing a stupid hat?) And then after 30 minutes of getting really cold Scarlett had had enough. She was not willing to wait another hour to see the melting clocks. (Found that one on the Internet) Being of hearty northern stock I could have stayed outside another 3 or 4 minutes at least. So we ran toward the nearest heated lobby we could find to warm up before heading to the car. So the correct description of the night would be we went downtown to see a sidewalk.

What caught my eye more than anything was the art people who were there. The real art people. They seemed to be enjoying the wait and the weather. We even saw a man scalp tickets to the exhibit. First time I have been a witness to that. He got $40 to get two people in without waiting in line. I have bought tickets from a scalper for every event you can think of but not an art exhibit. Maybe I had these folks all wrong. Do they chest bump when they see a real cool painting? Do they have saying's like "Roll Dali"? Do they have big foam paint brush's that they wear on their fingers? Jersey's with their favorite artists name on the back? Do they do the wave when they hear about the next artist coming to town?

What about the gallery's themselves? Do they get to draft the exhibits? Is the Louvre pompous and arrogant when dealing with lesser museums? Probably. Anybody up for cheerleaders? The Louvre cheerleaders would probably have more hair under their arms than I do. That isn't going to work but you see where I'm going. If art were more like sports more people would get interested in it. All we need to do is figure out how to keep score. Because I saw the equivalent of the Lambeau Field crowd last night. The art crowd is tough enough for sports. They are just so above it all I dn't think they would be up for it. Except the hats of course.

Till next......