On the significant one’s first full day home, I had grand plans for a grown-up program for the two of us that included culture, potentially an early cocktail or two, and some time “hangin’ around the house,” ahem.

My plans were squashed by a kid and her daddy, both of whom had grand plans for a hookie day hanging out together doing the sorts of things all 5 year olds long to do with daddies, and that daddies long to take part of.

At the point at which Chuck E Cheese was mentioned â€" despite the fact that I could have considered the venue culture and an early cocktail (er, beer), I took the coward’s way out and said, “erm, sorry, I have to go to the museum to check out the new show, for work.”

So it came to pass, that I passed my afternoon in the Tacoma Art Museum, alone in the galleries (I think two other people might have wandered through as I browsed, though they could have been apparitions.)

I love shows that stun you with newness and hipness, yet contain an abundance of smart.  Therefore, I loved “Sparkle and Fade,” but I have to admit there were moments that had me going, “guh?”

The main guh?, for me, was helped along by the gumball machine full of meds in close proximity: the assume vivid astro focus film loop “Pills and Cigarettes,” and “Freebird,” with its sort of "Yellow Submarine"-esque aesthetic had me scratching my head while longing for a teeny piece of paper to lick (perhaps then, I’d “get it,”) all the while sucking me in, and leaving me feeling discombobulated and sort of… altered.

Another “guh?,”  the mirrored non-room, Kathryn Van Dyke’s “Knowing You, Knowing Me” had me feeling headachey and fractured, though reading that the intent of the piece was to do just that (or at least make me draw correlations with the piece, and the many pieces of my psyche)  made me feel appeased.

Other works made me nod, smile, and appreciate them, like Jeffrey Simmons’ “Amass” and “Flux,” as well as Verena Sieber Fuchs’ “Toxicomanie (Drug Addiction)”, a lei made of the blister packaging of drugs; Marc Swanson’s “Fits and Starts” deer made me happy, the same way Oliver Herring’s “Big Round Flat” made me sad â€" it was fleeting beauty, caught in a moment, it was work to create the beauty, and it was appreciated.

And then, my “A HA!” moments, the moments with the pieces that spoke to me and my experience in this moment in time.

Andy Warhol’s “Myths” delighted me; to have this juxtaposition of Warhol portraits ranging from the Wicked Witch, to Santa Claus, to Uncle Sam, to Howdy Doody, which so fits my feelings about certain political happenings in the world, all tied in to the theme of myth â€" ahhhhh.  Add sparkle? Aaaaaahhhhh.

Capturing the same note of the sublimely screwed up, Alice Wheeler’s photograph of pageantry gone horribly awry in “Rhinestones and Machine Guns” tickled me uncomfortably; to note it was in Tacoma, to note it was only a year ago. Ooooooh.

Lastly, and I suspect the reason I cut my visit to the museum shorter than I’d ordinarily have done, James Rosenquist’s “Gift Wrapped Doll #14,” a large oil on canvas that brought to mind the state of my wee one’s toys, with their semi-obscured beauty and purity, skewed by packaging now that replicate bondage or some bizarre death ritual (have you tried to unwrap any craptacular kid toys lately? If you thought CDs were rough, go ahead, buy a Barbie: I dare you.)

Reading the painting “symbolizes his hopes and fears for his daughter’s future,” I recognized the deep down gut twank that meant the painting affected me the same way, and I recognized that I needed to spend family time as a unit, whether I liked what the unit was choosing to do or not.
And I had a fabulous day, watching my man teach our daughter how to ride a bike on two wheels, and playing Go Fish as a threesome, hearing our kid call us “Shawn, and Jess” as she selected which of us to choose a card from, and hearing her glee-filled giggles pierce the air as she won yet another game (why yes, we sort of helped, but we couldn’t help but, since she had all her cards turned up, blithely believing we’d do as she said when she said, “OK now.  Don’t look!”)

Like some museum shows, some days just sparkle with luminescence; they live in memories, but flee as the next life event draws attention to a different course.

Mmmmmmm. â€" Jessica Corey-Butler