Half and half

On the same day as I made the portrait of Magnolia, the kids and I stopped at the Hammer for a little Saturday culture.  I wanted to see the Radical Women exhibit and I think the kids wanted to go to the book store and then maybe take a hot chocolate at the cafe which for a parent of three is total win-win.  


The exhibit was good, angst ridden for sure but it was good.  Ester and Ella both saw pieces they liked and of course Elliot could have given a shit less that we were there.  He just wanted to go have a hot chocolate.  He voiced his objection in ever single gallery in the museum by finding the closest bench and pretending to sleep on it.  If there were multiple benches in the room, he would try out each and every one of them in turn–lying down, pretending to sleep for a minute or two, waiting until I wasn’t looking and moving to the next.  Rinse and repeat.  I have pictures of Elliot pretending to sleep in maybe every museum I’ve ever taken him to.  Shit, I should make a book.   


It’s frustrating at times having a 15 year-old who has the capacity of a 3 year old and the temper of a 90 year old Italian.   It’s often very frustrating, but when it comes to this particular annoyance, pretending to sleep in art museums, I’ve seen enough adults do it to not give a rat’s ass about Elliot pretending to do it.  After a while even the girls were tired of radical women and their radical paintings and sketches sculptures and angst-ridden vhs tapes from 1978 where they continuously lick a frozen popsicle down to the stick in extreme close-up looping for hours,  so they went to sit down where Elliot had made his latest bed, lying face-down, arms folded under his head and his feet dangling off the end of the bench.  


I realized I needed a break too, so I joined them.  I spied a tiny bit of space on the bench and wedged myself between the girls.  That’s when I saw the pair of legs in the image, bifurcated at the thigh, wondering through a white space with no uppper-body–half human and half art.  It’s an interesting framing that I would never have seen if it weren’t for the silent protests of my miserable, art hating son, so way to go man.  It was totally worth every irritated stare from every childless patron at the museum that day.   


“Half and half” was shot on my Mamiiya 6MF at 50mm on Kodak Tri-X 400 pushed to 800 at the Icon.  



 

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