Like many kids her age, Test Subject V really enjoys stuff that is illuminated and high-contrast. She’s positively in love with the Tiffany-style chandelier in our living room. So last week, I took her to our local museum, Salem’s own Peabody Essex Museum, and we visited Anila Quayyam Agha’s All The Flowers Are For Me, a piece that is basically a room filled with the light and shadows from a giant lamp.
It’s hard to tell from this picture, but as soon as we entered the room, Test Subject V’s eyes glazed over and she went into the sort of near-hypnotic state that infants sometimes enter at the slightest provocation.
We walked in circles around the room several times, and it occurred to me that what I was seeing was my daughter demonstrably being affected by a work of art. How cool is that? To be able to be there, to see it in her face. Stay at home dadding is hard sometimes, but stuff like that—wow. It’s such an awesome privilege.
I think I’ll take her back again soon. I wanna see it again.
