Walk to the Walters

While I was at the Walters Art Museum today, a man walked up to me in a gallery and asked, "What's your favorite?" It was a really general question, but I assumed he meant an art piece. I replied that I liked the Baroque paintings, at least much more than the Renaissance ones, which was the gallery we were standing in.

I also told him I was writing a paper for class.

For the next seven minutes he nearly wrote a five-page paper for me on this marvelous, Russian Faberge'  egg that was apparently housed on the floor below where I was standing. I had to see it, he said. After he told me his closing remarks on the matter, he said "I mean, I just made most of that up, but you know. You can fill in the rest." He also told me his name; I think it was Rick or Andy, but I can't remember for sure.

I'm not sure why sometimes people will introduce themselves when they and I know our paths will never cross again. Conversations with strangers should be memorable, but in the vague way that you think it might not have happened, because there isn't a label on them like a name swap.

Going to art museums alone makes me more alert and willing to talk to people. I could have spent all day at the Walters, but my visit was chopped down to an hour of sketching paintings with the occasional child's small voice behind me, telling their parent what I was doing, and then the mother or father saying "yes, she's practicing." Then to me as they usher their child forward- "That's some nice work, Miss." I could draw for hours there, because new people are constantly milling about, and sometimes I'll talk to them for a moment.