Rodin — Joan Z Rough

Up to our armpits in work, and always catching up on one thing or another, we decided to get out of here for the day last Saturday. Due to Bill’s recovery from knee surgery and the preceding months of pain and staying put, we haven’t been anywhere that takes being on our feet for a long time. Now that spring is on it’s way and Bill is feeling good we decided to take ourselves on a little adventure.

Our destination was Richmond, only an hour away. With the end of the Rodin exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, in just a week, we decided to make a day of it and included time for a luscious lunch with a friend we haven’t seen in a couple of years. I was excited days ahead of time, eager to let everything I had to do go, breaking the ties that bind me to my desk.

I’m a home body at heart and have gotten more so over the past few years. But after a year of being tied down I’m ready to travel. Bill will be going on one of his greatly missed theatre binges later this month to New York City, where he’ll get to see seven on and Off-Broadways shows in four short days and nights. Don’t ask. I don’t know how he does it. I can’t take sitting in the dark for that long.

I’ll stay put until May and then head off to Chicago for Book Expo America, an event I promised myself I’d never attend. But it’s about getting used to the fact that I have a book coming out in September and learning how the world of publishing works. I’ll get to meet the team of great women at She Writes Press who are my partners in getting my book out, and other SWP authors whose books will also be released in the fall. I’ve heard that Book Expo is a real zoo with crowds belly-button to belly-button. But hey, you only get to live once. So why not. I’ll be taking a gallon of Rescue Remedy with me to soothe my anxiety in big crowds and plan on spending only a few hours at a time, navigating the sea of publishers, authors, and other publishing resources. I also plan on visiting with friends I haven’t seen in way too many years and take in some exhibits at The Art Institute of Chicago to muster up inspiration for my next visual art masterpieces :-)! And we’re planning more travel/vacation time during the summer.

But back to the Rodin exhibit. We are so lucky to have a museum that brings in exhibitions of this caliber so close to home. Though I’ve been really busy and thought I didn’t have time to see it, I’m so glad I took the time. I learned so much about Rodin, including the fact that he never got to see any of his sculptures cast in bronze. That didn’t happen until after he died. I also didn’t realize that he had a kind of factory going on with 50 studio assistants who did a lot of the work. His sculptures of feet and hands are amazing. There is such detail in the musculature of every body part he worked on. The attached photos don’t really do the work justice but they can give you an idea of what I mean.