I Like Art Galleries

I am a really big fan of art galleries.  They are relaxing places.  They are quiet.  They are dark.  They are cold.  I usually have a favorite piece of art, or two at each of the museums that I frequent.  Sometimes, it's something that I have seen in an exhibit.  

Some of my favorites........

At the St. Louis Art Museum I like the Thomas Hart Benton painting "Cradling Wheat".  The shapes in his pictures are always interesting, lots of curved lines.  Always a lot of greens and browns.  Plus, he's a Missouri native and his paintings are plenty of other places around the state.  You can't run a history museum in Missouri if you do not have a Benton painting.  Not sure it's a law, but it feels that way.  

The Duke Nasher Art Museum has some Kehinde Wiley paintings.  When I worked in Durham, we used to take our students on field trips to this museum.  My students were convinced that this was supposed to be Big Boi from OutKast.   

Maybe.  

Could be.  

The North Carolina Art Museum is in Raleigh.  There are some nice permanent pieces there and the museum itself is nice to visit, but I really like the exhibits that go through that museum.  My favorite was a group of Monet paintings that came there about ten years ago.  Nice time....

Even if his paintings are repetitive.  Haystacks, water lilies, some rock formation in France.  It's all good.  

Baseball cards have art too.  Some of it is really good, some of it is not so good.  Picked up two new cards from Topps Gallery a week or two ago.  It has taken me a week or so to catch up on scanning new cards.  

In my opinion, this is a pretty nice art card.  

The paintings on the Gallery cards do not necessarily have to be perfect to win my praise, but the right details have to be there.  When I think of Anthony Banda, I think of sport goggles and tattoos.  The artist of the card got the style and brand of the goggles perfect and the tattoos are pretty close.  The tattoos on his glove arm are some combination of stars and maybe clouds?  There are for sure stars.  

I am not sure how many autographs of Banda I have picked up over the past year, but it is probably in double digits at this point.  I like this card without the autograph, I might have to go find a couple of the different colored versions of this one.  

Next, some art work that deserves a little bit of criticism.  Here is the card....

So, let's start off by stating something positive.  The Cardinals hat and uniform are pretty good.  Now, let's talk about Miles Mikolas.  When I think of Miles Mikolas, I think he has a lot of hair, sometimes he has facial hair, and he's a bit of a free spirit.  On this card, I think he looks like Tom Selleck in Mr. Baseball.  

I am almost sure that Miles Mikolas is a lot more of a free spirit than Tom Selleck.  Tom Selleck is well-groomed like that mustache on the Miles Mikolas card.  Wasn't Tom Selleck in the Army?  Precise hair, precise mustache.  Miles Mikolas has free flowing hair.  It would not have a definite stopping point like the picture.  I haven't brushed my hair in twenty years, I know when someone does not brush their hair.  Miles Mikolas does not brush his hair.   Let's look at how Miles Mikolas rolls.....

Miles Mikolas has a mustache?  Not after the game.  Is that a bolo tie?  Philip Rivers is jealous.  The hair is not neat and it's not brushed.  More hair not brushed.....

and finally, more fashion statement.....

Again, bolo tie, belt buckle, sunglasses, unbrushed hair.  

Free Miles.