I’ve forgotten how much I like Kristy and Alex. We had a fantastic day with them Friday just talking about music and books and politics and art and religion and life in general.
Mark and I slept in a little Friday morning. Our bodies hadn’t quite unwound after twelve hours in a car, and we’d gotten to bed much later than is normal for us. It worked out fine, though, because we didn’t have to meet Kristy and her two-year-old son, Grant, at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art until 10. We had arranged to meet at the giant Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen Shuttlecock sculpture. None of us realized, though, that there are four giant shuttlecocks in the sculpture garden, three on one side of the building and one on the other. While Mark and I waited at the solitary shuttlecock, Kristy and Grant waited amonths the three. It’s a good thing I finally got a texting plan! I texted Kristy, we figured out our mistake, and joined up.
Here are a couple shots from the garden. (No shuttlecock, though; I’m not a huge fan of pop-art, so I didn’t bother.) I especially like the headless men in the Standing Figures (Thirty Figures) work by Magdalena Abakanowicz.
The Nelson-Atkins doesn’t appear to be the main museum in Kansas City, but what a wonderful museum it is. Architecturally, it combines a neoclassical building with a thoroughly contemporary addition. The collection itself is fantastic. It’s much better than the collection at the Columbus Museum of Art (in my opinion). Their artifacts from Southeast and Western Asia alone are amazing. I could have spent an hour in every room in the place. At one point, I walked by a display of water colors—also not a favorite of mine—and at the last one thought to myself, “Ooh, I like that one.” It was an Andrew Wyeth.
Obviously, I didn’t take photos inside the museum, but you can check out their online collection at the link above.
Alex didn’t join us at 10 because he got called into a meeting at work, but once he got out of that, he met us at the museum. Grant, of course, was tickled to see Dad.
Mark and I need to run off to Gillian’s and Matt’s wedding, so I can see I won’t finish this entry today. I’ll wrap it up on Sunday.
With Alex making us a complete set, we spent a little more time in the sculpture garden at the museum, then we went off to lunch at an Irish pub in the Country Club Plaza district. Grant ate a little bit of his mom’s fish and chips (the face he made when he got a hair in one bite was hilarious) and most of Mark’s strawberries and decided he’d had his fill of activity. While Kristy took him home for a nap and to pick up their older son, Conor, from summer school, Alex took Mark and me on a tour of the Hallmark corporate headquarters.
Alex is currently a packaging writer at Hallmark, but he’s been with the he company for about four years and has done a number of things for them in that time. He’s been very happy there and couldn’t say enough about how lucky he is to have a job he likes so much at a company that treats its employees well.
The headquarters is full of writers and illustrators, and many of the cubicles are decorated to reflect that. Lots of Star Wars and superhero figurines, lots of stuffed animals, lots of writerly quotes and bits of wisdom posted about. The corporate cafeteria is lighted by chandeliers that are comprised of clusters of large, gold crowns. It has a Disney-esque quality to it in some ways, but perhaps a little faded.
The building is also filled with art. The Hall family collects and has donated a lot of art, and some of their collection is displayed in the headquarters. I found it to be surreal walking down a mundane hallway with fluorescent lighting and a chipped parquet floor only to pass by a ceramic platter made by Picasso.
Several people suggested we visit the National World War I Museum and Memorial, which includes the Liberty Memorial and it’s tower. I’ll start there with my next post.