One Morning

One of my first jobs ever after college was working as a museum guard at the Art Institute of Chicago. I used to love to get there early before the museum opened and just study the paintings in whatever collection I was assigned to protect that day. Van Gogh's "Bedroom in Arles," (1889) hangs in the Potter Palmer collection there. One morning, while looking very closely at this work, I noticed that a little flake of cobalt green paint had fallen onto the gilt frame beneath the painting. Bedroom in Arles was in need of conservation, but then lots of artworks are, all the time, so museums prioritize which ones get fixed, and when. The triage order is compounded by the fact that certain works - like ANY of Van Gogh's - do the heavy lifting in terms of museum ticket sales. They don't get to spend a lot of time squirreled away in conservation labs getting spruced up. The decision to remove a popular painting from public view is as much a business consideration as it is one of preservation.

On the morning that I found that flake of paint I was utterly alone. I looked at it for a while and tried to find the place on the painting where it had come free. There were several other flakes just waiting to drift off, given the exact right gust of air or too-close wave of a hand. Of course I knew to not touch the painting. The discipline of not touching art was, after all, my job to enforce. Still I couldn't help but think I could very easily moisten the tip of my finger, lean in, and own a little piece of Van Gogh - just like that. There was something utterly narcotic about the possibility. It was then I noticed the flake was composed of two different colors, a green, and a yellow. Now it contained an echo of Vincent's creative process. A green decision and a yellow decision had been made by a master. Was I meant to have it? Had Van Gogh "gifted" a piece of his art to me from beyond the grave? I spent several minutes considering it, but primary-school morality prevailed, and I left it alone.

In subsequent days I mostly forgot about my secret flake of Van Gogh. But occasionally I'd find myself back in that gallery, and I'd go visit it. Just to check on it. To make sure it was still there. It always was.

Eventually I moved on to other jobs, and years later, after I was well-embedded in my advertising career, I found myself back at the Art Institute to attend some private Ad industry event for which the museum had been rented. The galleries were kept open for us to wander, but most folks didn't venture too far from the free catered food and drink, or the people they were desperate to schmooze. As the evening ground along I felt a nagging urge to disengage from the Ad world and disappear into the galleries. It had been a long time since I'd looked at art.

By the time I made it into the Palmer collection I had remembered the Van Gogh, and my flake of paint. Of course it wouldn't be there, but when in fact it wasn't, I felt just a little betrayed. The Van Gogh had been restored. It was brilliant! It had moved on. For a second I felt something had been withdrawn from me, some phantom possibility. Of what? Minor theft? Some imaginary relationship with a dead artist? Then good.

The truth is, my days at the museum were filled with excruciating boredom and aching feet. Mostly I just stood around and offered directions. It was a crap job with occasional moments of transcendence, but almost nothing in between. Looking back though, it was that half hour before the museum opened, when I was alone with whatever artwork needed watching over, that the world of art was most likely to open up amazing revelations. I can tell you there's nothing like having a major collection completely to yourself, if only for a few minutes each day. I feel lucky about that. I'm only now able to fully realize how important those mornings were, even if I never did end up with a souvenir.