I read about a new exhibit at the Clark over in Williamstown.  I often read about stuff like this and then I read how it’s over… oops!  So I decided I would go today, opening day, to this exhibit – just as a fun, different thing to do on what might hopefully be a nice day.  My thought was also to have a bit of early dinner afterwards somewhere along the line.

So off I went.  First off the Clark has always been elusive to me.  It’s not on the main drag it’s offa offa and signage isn’t their strong suit.  I found it despite a couple of detours along the way.  In I went.  The Clark vollies are very very enthusiastic and friendly, or at least they were today.  Very nice.

But…  I have nothing good to say about the exhibit “Dove/O’Keeffe:  Circles of Influence“.  Probably just me but I did go in with no pre-concieved notions about what I’d find there. I will say that I don’t like gushy verbage.  I didn’t like walking into this thing and having 99% of the attendees of the female sort.  Blah.  I took a deep breath which sounded way too loud in the reverent hush.  ick.

I walked around and looked at everything.  I tried to not rush and waited for something to speak to me.  The one piece I most liked was one by Arthur Dove:  a metal with chiffon and sand that was interesting in texture and grey-ness. There was another “assemblage” by him that I liked as well, called “Rain” as I recall.

I wish I understood better the point.  I’m sure it was supposed to be how these two artists riffed off each other and jiggled each other’s areas of exploration.  (See?  I could write great exhibit signage myself!)  But too many times the pieces shown side by side were so similar it just made me feel uncomfortable. It was weird.

After I’d looked at everything I left and marched myself right over to the permanent collections gallery where I enjoyed many Renoirs, Monets, Manet etc for the rest of my time there.  I always enjoy their older works too – they had some nice icon-type pieces on display as well.

Afterwards, when I paused to look at books on the way out to my car, a man came up to me and asked “do you have a soda machine or place I can get a drink and maybe something to eat?”  I was confused by this and probably said something scintillating like “pardon me?” So yet again I look like I work wherever I happen to be standing, lol.

My trip home was a bit long and wandering due to some more detours, a couple of closed restaurants and brain fade from hunger.  I finally had a lovely dinner on the porch of Lakeshore Inn in Averill Park – a perfect evening for it and a nice way to end the day.

As a side note:  Up until now I’ve been a pretty big proponent of wind technology as an alternate power source.  But now…. I encountered my first real-life wind turbine just west of the Mass. border from NY.  oh.my.gawd – huge.  How huge?  Makes the much argued and shouted about phone towers look like match sticks and near invisible little bits on the edges of the horizon.  This thing was surreal looking it was so immense.  Very very odd.