Disappointment.
Disappointment has got to be one of humanity's least favorite emotions. It's sort of an also-ran in the full range of human feelings. Disappointment didn't ever inspire reams of poetry, wars, or revolutions. No one ever wasted romantically away from disappointment. The most potent historical example of disappointment that I can think of is actually quite amusing. After years of preaching and living for the Second Coming as calculated by William Miller, his followers prepared themselves for the great event. Because they had both God and science on their side, they knew that they were to be elevated into heaven on April 3, 1843, to pass an eternity of happiness. With such a heady combination of righteousness and precision, what need would such folks have of worldly possessions? So in a highly optimistic demonstration of their convictions, they gave away their property and didn't bother to plant their crops. When the blessed day came and went, another prediction was calculated. That day passed. Third time is a charm, right? The sun rose and set on October 22, 1844 without any Savior dropping out of the sky. Many of the true believers then experienced what has come to be known as The Great Disappointment. Some of the kookier, more self-delusional folks convinced themselves that the date was correct, but that the prophesied event occurred in heaven and not on earth, hence the lack of angels and heavenly fireworks. These silly people went on to establish the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
My own recent experience with disappointment happened a few days ago. My wife, son, and I are visiting my parents in Washington State. With two blissful weeks to kill, we have plenty of time for kicking a bouncy ball around the kitchen to the amusement of our wee dude. We can wile away the hours playing cards. We can work on crossword puzzles until the clock on the wall starts chiming one or two. We can sit and drink tea and discuss family history as the wind and rain raise a ruckus outside.
The area where my parents live holds a lot of attractions for me, but most of these pale when compared to just spending time with my folks who I get to see once or twice a year. With my son growing so quickly and my parents so far away, family time has taken on an entirely new meaning and value.
Still, getting out of the house, bundling everyone up against the Northwest's winter weather, and giving our wee man another venue in which to toddle and giggle can be very rewarding. So, on our first day, we brainstormed a schedule of the things we had to do (open Christmas presents, etc.) and the things we wanted to do if we had the time, weather, and wherewithal.
One of the suggestions was a visit to Tacoma's new Museum of Glass. The last time we'd been in the area, we walked through a display of art glass in Tacoma's old Union Station. It was free, colorful, and fairly impressive.
There's something about the nature of working glass that interests me. The artist needs to manage heat, time, and gravity in a paradoxical dance of delicacy and brute force. Glass as a medium has a compelling weight and luminosity. Besides, I had read a feature in a travel magazine about the museum's recent opening and was interested.
It was with a certain anticipation that we all piled into the car and headed out. The museum's parking structure was more reasonably priced than I had expected and we found a space right next to the elevator. This was to be the highlight of our visit.
After paying $8 a head for my wife and myself, I lied about my parents' ages and saved $4. This was another important high point.
A quick pit stop at the toilets yielded the Education Gallery, which consisted of a utility hallway hung with a few pictures of the museum's other pieces in mid-assembly. Little did we know that this "gallery" was to be indicative of the rest of our experience.
We dove eagerly into the first gallery. It had that stereotypically open, concrete floored, white walled, modern art look. I trooped resolutely past a small canvas depicting melting Lincoln cents, a large canvas imprinted with a six-foot circle of model railroad track, and a vaguely glass-like sculpture of eight white, translucent fire extinguishers.
Undaunted, I pushed on to a fairly cool kinetic sculpture consisting of a 10-foot tall cylindrical frame rotating under strobe lights. Shapes attached in progressive spirals up the cylinder gave an effective illusion of movement up the piece. Dream bubbles popped out of sleeping heads to morph into wheels, then human figures that climb into bed. It reminded me of some of the crude animation you might see at Spike and Mike's Classic Festival of Animation.
"Cool, but where's the glass?" I wondered.
Finally, at the back of the first gallery, I found glass. I passed some interesting chunks, some rather trite collections of junk with breathless, masturbatory art student expositions, spelling out to the unwashed masses how multi-headed glass snowmen are a humorous juxtaposition that subverts the conventionally received notions of art, spacialities, and my dick.
The last work in the first gallery was an honest jaw-dropper. Impossibly fragile boxes constructed of a webwork of glass rod just hung in space. The lacy structures forced you to look closer and drew many whoas and wows as people came around a screening wall.
So much for the first gallery. It was now time to move on to the next gallery that must be stacked to the ceiling with the glass art we came to see.
We then learned that the first gallery is actually the only gallery. We were expected to wait in a long snaking queue for a glimpse of the glass artistes at work in front of the ovens.
Disgusted, we headed for the museum shop. Tucked in between the piles of generic museum crap and toys at bloated museum store prices, we found more glass art than displayed in their single gallery.
Even more disgusted, we stomped out to view the "Chihuly Bridge of Glass". As described on their website, "The bridge takes pedestrians through a tunnel of brilliant light and color created by Chihuly's glass forms." Again, more glass than we paid to see in the museum and this an almost desultory pile of glass crap that the Great Glass Artist Chihuly threw together from the crap lying around his studio.
If I had known more about Dale Chihuly and the cult of "art" that swirls around him that has erected the Museum of Glass to house his arrogance, I would have been a little better prepared for our disappointment.
After the fact, I've done a little surfing. One measure of this gentleman's titanic ego is the content of the META tag description in his site: "The Dale Chihuly site is the most comprehensive artist's site on the web." Maybe we can get ol' Dale to suck my ass too, because I've spent way too much time browsing comprehensive sites of artists who are successful, have amazing talent, and aren't such puffed up assholes as Mr. Chihuly. Take Michael Whelan's site for example.
It appears that Mr. Chihuly has devolved into the all-too-common famous, successful, and pretentious artist who is convinced that every heaping pile of redolent bowel movement he drops into the toilet is a boundary shattering work of art. The sad thing is that he knows that it's true because he just sold "Morning Grunt Pile With Peanut and Corn Chunks #5" to an ardent admirer for $140,000.
By the way, the admission to the Museum of Ass goes up to $10 a head after January 2nd. Everyone, quick! Line up, drop your drawers, and bend over! Dale Chihuly's new Anal Dildoes of Glass exhibition is opening soon!
Pakeha