Slipping and Sliding

I felt slightly frazzled as I half walked half ran into the museum, 10 minutes late because of a slight slow down with my mother wanting to vote. However, I made it with nothing severely amiss other than my nerves, and soon calmed down with a walk through the museum, still empty 45 minutes before opening time. My quest, which I had started yesterday before becoming slightly turned around, was to find all 20 objects and study them for five minutes in a purely visual context, unaffected by any former researchor insights of others. Of course, this was slightly difficult since I had read about all of them on the museum database, but I sweat I tried my best to find objectivity. 

After spending  an hour up there, I went back down to he curatorial offices, sat typing up my no test or a while, and then headed over to the weekly curatorial meeting. After feeling slightly like a lost puppy yet again (a state I've been experiencing slightly too often for my liking these days, but I guess that's what comes with trying something new, right?), I finally found my way to the Red Room where the meeting was to be held. As I eased open the heavy wooden door, its hinges sighing slightly, I looked up to see every set of eyes in the entire curatorial staff trained upon me. Suffice it to say I had mysteriously become five minutes late while wandering, and now managed to make quite an entrance as the new, and probably apparently slightly daft, intern. However, they welcomed me in and I pulled up a chair, introducing myself as an intern from MV before sitting back to hear about what was going on in their world this week. Although much of it was very administorial, and so interesting but not quite fascinating, the most important piece of the meeting to me was the first discussion in which they were brainstorming for a new series they're thinking about called (I think) Encounters, in which different pieces of art that have at least one thing in common are juxtapositioned to exemplify the differences  and similarities in art across the world and across cultures. 

After attending the meeting, I went back to my office and started work on my notes  again. Adam stopped by briefly to check in, but due to what appears to be an overwhelmingly schedule, did not stay much longer than it took to ensure I was still on my way and had not entirely screwed up. The rest of my day was spent with these notes, helping the curator of paper objects with a task, and then wandering the museum looking for more potential objects for the trade timeline I am working on in the exhibit. 

My major lesson from today may be that I strongly dislike being late, but more so I was able to begin to explore the process of research a little bit more, alongside some further exposure to other art forms, mainly paper. The object I research for that was a Qu'ran with a lacquered cover, which I discovered pictured the gul-o bulbul theme of a nightingale and rose, or the "perfect" lover and beloved. Turns out the Prophet Muhammad is often pictures as a rose, which is why this design make sense, so look I'm learning something new everyday! Or at least that's the goal. Tomorrow I will begin more intense research on the objects I choose so that ought to be fairly exciting. My one thought from walking through the empty museum today was not that of awe though, I just admit, but rather an inspiration that it would be thrilling to slide down its long expanses of polished wood flooring in stocking feet. But don't worry, I'm pretty sure I can convince myself that is one experiment that can remain a hypothetical.