Power and Pathos

A week ago I finally had the opportunity to see the new Getty Museum exhibition Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World. I was eager to see the exhibition in part because I was assigned to write a blog post for Art Muse LA on it, but also because Hellenistic bronzes are some of the most expressive and interesting works of art surviving from the ancient world. So I packed up the boys for the hour-long drive to the Getty Center, loaded them up in their double stroller, and trekked up the hill to see this once-in-a-lifetime gathering of Hellenistic bronzes. The boys were amazingly well behaved for most of my time in the galleries, allowing me to jot notes for my article in a palm-sized notebook, but by the last gallery I was juggling Connor on one hip and trying to take some final notes. A trip to the Getty Center is always worthwhile and it was a gorgeous day. Once my business with the bronzes was concluded, I took the boys out to the gardens where they walked around, finding snails and in general being little boys.

In a way, the field trip to the museum and taking notes on the exhibition was the easy part. The hard part was synthesizing all of the information in my head and that I had collected into a coherent, written form for my Art Muse LA article--all while a toddler whined and/or hung on me as I typed and someone was constantly yelling, "Mooommmyyyy!" Let's just say it was a challenge. Despite the typical motherhood obstacles--or perhaps because of them--I am particularly proud and pleased with the resulting article. You can read it here.