Tea at the Museum

"Art is the Queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world."

That's where I would like to be on this dreary day... wandering hallways resplendent with art. Basking in an environment which celebrates the art of cultures from around the globe.
Museum moments I have known and loved:

• A day in NYC at the Met: immense; diverse; revered; amazing. 
• Or amidst billowing clouds and elongated landscapes in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Rembrandt's rich, dark backgrounds... did he use mommia* as a pigment to create that warm depth?
  
• Ayutalla, Thailand... Ancient temples, sculpture and wandering elephants.
• Golden Buddhas in Bangkok.
• The endless hallways of the Louvre...  There is NEVER enough time in the Louvre.
• The Gold Museum in Lima with it's wild, adjacent Erotic Ceramic Art museum. Where one can  find thousand year old vessels made to look like corn or bats, and others of 
  

  Ceramic mice on a Mochica vessel
  llamas, mice and/or humans making love?  Mice doing a piggyback rodent dance. All exquisitely painted with engobes, burnished and fired in pit fires with perfect control.
• Robert Irwin's Orb in the Chicago Art Institute, my first encounter was in 1977 on a cross country trip. Still vivid, a round glowing orb on the wall exuding light.
• Boston's MFA, The Guitar Show
• Shuffling through the sycamore leaves from Reading Terminal to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Marcel Duchamps' room amazed me. The impressionists.
  

As a young teen I used to get on a bus in Towson, Maryland  to ride to the Washington DC mall and wander alone in the National Gallery for the entire day, before catching the bus back.  Such freedom. Such inspiration and validation.