- The thick woman with dark hair (at times badly bleached blond hair), red lips, and a floral dress.
This is her basic uniform. She may accessorize this look in a variety of ways. She may wear anything from Doc Martin's and gothic jewelry, a vintage oversized ill fitting coat and sneakers, and even at times sandals and costume jewelry. The choice of accessories is primarily based on the time of year and type of museum setting.
- The overwhelmingly lesbian couple.
You can easily spot these gal pals by there pride pins, stickers, a one crew hair cut.
- The foreign couple.
Black, White, Asian or Hispanic they're smiling and ready for some culture. They all seem to have on some sort of I heart N.Y. gear and are well equipped with a map, dictionary and camera. They smile happily at everything they see and hear as if they don’t have one of these at home.
- The tight pants crew
Way before the hipsters movement infiltrated our consciousness and migrated to
- The field trip
What do grade school administrators and Selfhelp Senior Centers coordinators have in common? They're always shoving a collection of their participants into a bus and bring them to a museum.
3 comments:
I think that this piece is very observational and you pay close attention to the things around you. I have been to many museums and I don't think I would have put as much work into watching the people around me and putting them into categories. I liked reading this piece because it made me laugh, and I think that it is well written.
Interesting project, Joanne. Is this a comprehensive list? Just as an aspiring painter will go to a museum to do sketches of great works of art, I think it's a great exercise for writers to go to a museum and observe the people and write about them in order to improve your descriptive skills. The difficult thing in this exercise is to avoid descriptions that are formulaic and to find language that is both original and accurate. The details you've included are spot on for the most part but there are a few elements that I question, such as the foreign couple carrying a dictionary. Maybe this is true of Americans in other countries, but not often of tourists in New York, I think.
Thanks for the comments guys. I really enjoyed the feedback. I go to museums often, I am always interested in viewing different work from different artist in different periods so that I can improve on my work. This piece just came out me walking up to people thinking that I saw them and spoke to them a few weeks ago at some other gallery. It was never the same people. I began paying closer attention to the art of the people who enjoy art. It always seemed to be the same 5. It was just a funny little thing that happened. I started making list similar to this for every other place that I frequent. I think everyone should do this exercise. Its always fun to people watch.
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