Visiting Picasso at the SAM

The Picasso Exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum will soon be drawing to a close, so we figured we'd better get moving. We bought our tickets on line, with an assigned time of 1:40 this afternoon. We headed for the light rail, which would deposit us a block from the museum, at 12:30. Unfortunately, just as we took our seats on the train, it was announced that there had been an emergency on the line in the SODO (south of downtown) district, and the trains would not be running until further notice. We were directed to the #124 bus to take us downtown. So we waited about 20 minutes for the bus, which then proceeded to make every stop along the way. In the interim, we found out that a pedestrian had been hit by a train. Who knew how long the trains would be out of service. Finally we arrived at our destination, at 2:00. But we were pretty sure we could plead our case about being late, and get in anyway. Hammering Man was doing his thing. The place was very crowded. We had audio guides that helped us to know what we are seeing, once we waited our turn to get close enough. We had been to the Picasso Museum in Paris, from where these works are on loan, but there were pieces here we did not see in Paris. It was a very good showing of his work in various stages. Of course you might be tempted to think he was a little nuts sometimes, and while he apparently loved his various women, who in turn influenced his art, he certainly did not always portray them in a flattering style. No photos were allowed in the Picasso Exhibit, but one could take photos elsewhere. Tom wondered if this is where our garden glass art might be taking us, but I don't think we'd ever drink that much wine.

If you think Picasso was a bit nuts, you would have to wonder at some of the modern installations we now call "art".

Upon leaving the museum we headed a few blocks north to a favorite Starbucks, across from The Market, for a chance to sit down and refuel.

I had an ice water, a latte and a double chocolate brownie. Yum.

We hoped we had waited long enough, so we headed back uptown to the transit tunnel to catch the light rail home.

The old Woolworth Building offers a contrast in style to the modern sky scrapers.

We were in luck, and got the train back home.

Not so lucky was the pedestrian, who is in critical condition at Harborview.