Rapunzel wants to be an artist when she grows up. I think this is really really cool, of course. However, she thinks that she doesn’t need to go to college because “artists don’t need school,” she says. I may have said something stupid a long time ago about how colleges these days are just big businesses that take all your money and you really don’t need them to get a good job anymore. Me and my big fat mouth. So I decided I need to show her why college is so important, even if you want to be an artist.

I took Rapunzel to the Getty today. My idea was that I would show her all the different kinds of art and she’d get a taste for finding out the stories behind the pictures. Art history can be so fascinating. That is my one regret with my own college career. I didn’t major in art and I never studied art history. I feel I’m at a real disadvantage because I don’t know anything about cubism or impressionism or the arts and crafts period etc. etc. These are all just words to me that I know would be really useful if I only knew what they meant.

It turns out that I still don’t know much about art and I didn’t do a very good job of inspiring Rapunzel to get excited about it either. “It’s kinda boring,” she admitted to me in the most polite way she could. I had to agree with her in part. It’s not Disneyland. There aren’t any rides or anything. Still, I think for what it is, we had a pretty good time. One of these days I think we both need to go through the museum on a guided tour and really get to the bottom of it all. Why did Van Gogh cut his ear off anyway? Any kind of tour seemed out of the question with Baby Bug in tow. But maybe next time when she’s bigger.

We really enjoyed exploring the vast grounds and gardens. We even had a picnic lunch (that I packed) on the not-so-dry grass outside. I love the grounds at the Getty. I wrote about this a long time ago when Toby and I visited. (I have no idea where that link went.) The neat thing about the Getty is that every where you go, there is a new vista point with something interesting to look at and go see. There is always something new on the horizon to go explore. It was great fun for all of us.

I think the best part of the Getty for us was the Children’s Museum though. Mostly because I finally got to let Baby Bug out of the stroller and she was so happy to be able to wander around freely touching things. I think it was hard for her to be strapped in most of the day. Rapunzel really liked all the interactive displays and they both got a kick out of coloring their own masks. I’m really glad the Getty had a exhibit like that. Everywhere else we went, the guards were constantly telling us not to touch, not to take pictures and not to wade through the water. (Imagine that!) It can be tough for a “free spirit” when there are so many rules. I mean, the water is right there just begging to be walked in! Poor Rapunzel, she sort of “fell in by accident.”

When we got home, we were in the mood to make our own art. Rapunzel painted with acrylics and I made some “finger paint” for Baby Bug. I read somewhere that you can make kid-safe finger paint out of pudding with food coloring in it. It seemed like a great idea. Except I didn’t have any pudding on hand so I used some plain yogurt instead.

The only problem with the neat colored yogurt is that Baby Bug loves to eat yogurt, plain or otherwise. The first thing she did was take a big ol’ swipe of blue and shove it in her mouth. I tried to show her how fun it was to smear it on the paper but she was more interested in eating it. So much for finger painting. I decided to cut my losses and bring out some dinner for her to eat too.

You could say she made art out of dinner or dinner out of art, depending on how you look at it.