Amy Miller, our shop manager at the Georgia Museum of Art, kicks off our “After Hours: Staff Favorites Outside the Museum” by sharing a childhood favorite of hers that helped ignite and sustain her passion for visual-arts museums.
“Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away. That is, running away in the heat of anger with a knapsack on her back. She didn’t like discomfort; even picnics were untidy and inconvenient: all those insects and the sun melting the icing on the cupcakes. Therefore, she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from somewhere but would be running to somewhere. To a large place, a comfortable place, an indoor place, and preferably a beautiful place. And that’s why she decided upon the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.”
I can still remember the first thrill that came from this opening paragraph of E.L. Konigsburg’s classic children’s novel “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.” This was my kind of adventure! Meticulously planned and researched but filled with the excitement of sneakily living among great art treasures and artifacts while putting one over on the adults. Claudia and her little brother Jamie (brought along for his immense personal fortune of $24.43) take up residence in the Met for a week – sleeping in an enormous Tudor canopy bed, bathing in the restaurant’s fountain and even helping to solve an art history mystery. Absolute heaven.
Now that it’s been my job to spend my days in an incredible museum, the thrill of the Kincaid children’s adventure hasn’t lessened. While I wouldn’t recommend running away to live in the Georgia Museum of Art (we don’t have any historical beds set up for sleeping, and bathing in our sculpture garden’s water feature would be pretty uncomfortable), I don’t hesitate in going back for a re-read of “The Mixed-Up Files.” Spending time with the Hermione-ish Claudia and her exasperated brother will always be a joyful way to experience an art museum, especially at a time when we can’t go out to do it in person.
