Building Back Muscle Memory at the Crocker Art Museum

Art can be hard. It requires us to work. It demands attention and thought and all that stuff that we usually hate to do, especially when there are so many outlets more than willing to spoon feed us and sponge bathe us.

We get lazy. Indolence. Idleness.

We grow flacid in the absence of art and get to the point where it simply annoys us.

But it's like riding a bike. Those muscles are there and they want to be used.

And thus was my workout at the CrockerMuseum.

I had been to the Crocker awhile back, before it had expanded into what it is today, and I remember it being full of fusty, thick, and tired, a bowl of Jello congealing in the fridge. Wan. Waaaaa. Woof.

I was more impressed with the mansion than the collection. There was so much pretty wood.

Then I went back this weekend and found myself literally tap-dancing in the hallways. There is art is Sacramento. There is a lot of fantastic art in Sacramento. There is a lot of fantastic art in Sacramento at the Crocker Museum.

And it's everywhere. The place seems to go on and on and on.

And it's not just the recent exhibitions either (to be honest, the Mel Ramos collection seemed like a an Ebay page instead of a museum show – but the Red Hot and Blown Contemporary Glass Collection was pretty jaw-dropping and carried with it one of the more suggestive names for an exhibit I have come across in a museum). The place is thick with aesthetic explosions and the fine sediment of alluvial creation.

It's was such a blissful treat to wander in out of the heat into this dream-time. Ten dollars bought me a slough off of my slogging sensibility and inspired me to gird my loins in creativity. It sent me dancing cheek to cheek with possibilities and colors and forms and heroics.

Now I know that there is a place of rejuvenation only an hour away. The Mythical land of Bimini is approachable by automobile and provides convenient parking. I Ponce de Leon (constantly on, the fountain of youth not Robotron).

A corrective, a curative, a recuperative – The Crocker.