Sketchbook VI

You may notice this sketchbook post is empty, there's a good reason for that.

Today I went down to the Denver Art Museum with two goals in mind. 1. See the King Tut exhibit and 2. sketch some people for life drawing practice. Seemed like a good plan, go to a cultural learning center full of interesting people and works of art to become a little cultured and do a little light practicing of my own art. WRONG!

Things started a little odd when I was stopped before entering the exhibit and was told my messenger bag was too big and I looked a little too much like a tomb robber. I was asked to check my bag in a locker back downstairs. Ooookay I can do that. I check my bag, grabbing just a pen & sketchbook. Run back upstairs and they let me in ... the first person I see is someone with a bag at least as big as mine. Oh well, I'm in, woohoo!

So I go through the line and get into the exhibit, the doors shut behind us. I wander around just looking for a minute, pen & sketchpad in hand. Soon a guard comes up to me and tells me that I'm not allowed to use a pen and asks if I have a pencil since I look like the type of person who would draw mustaches on priceless works of art (guilty as charged there). "Why yes, yes I do ... it's in the bag I just had to check though." Since I can't leave the exhibit now he gives me a stubby pencil used to keep score in golf. I'm allowed to keep my pen though. Again ... odd.

So there I was walking around with my stubby pencil and sketchpad and I turn a corner and see a wall graphic of an old photograph of an archeologist. He has an interesting pose so I decide to start my day by sketching him quickly. I draw a little circle for his head and am about to continue when another guard walks up to me and informs me that sketching is not allowed. I admit I was a bit dumbfounded here at this point. I just sorta look at him, look at my sketchbook, and look back at him. Really? I can't sketch? I can take notes, I can jot ideas, I can even write out a grocery shopping list, but I can't sketch. So in addition to being a tomb robber and a mustache drawer, I'm also a master forger who's going to make money passing off pencil drawings as centuries old Egyptian relics and artifacts on the black market.

At this point I resign myself to the fact that the very polite DAM folks were going to see to it that no unauthorized creativity took place while they were on duty. I gave up, turned over my pencil, unchecked my bag, went back to my car, paid my parking fee and drove home. Best part of the morning? Parking only cost me $1 buck since I was only in there about 27 minutes total.