Hello and welcome. I’m Diane Tucker. I was seven years old the first time I visited the Detroit Institute of Arts. Walking beside my grandmother, I whispered, “I wish I could live here.” We were standing in the courtyard gallery that is home to Diego Rivera’s renowned Detroit Industry Murals. At the far end of that palatial space, I spied a marble staircaseāand imagined it led straight to my bedroom.
As I’ve grown older, I occasionally feel less at home in art museums. Their vastness can be overwhelming, like a Gothic cathedral. Oddly enough, I react this way despite having led over 300 gallery talks at the magnificent National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Studies show that visiting an art museum elevates the feel-good chemical dopamine and lowers the stress hormone cortisol. Still, itās the stories that draw me back. They remind me that Iām part of something bigger.
For years I’ve earned a living writing and producing stories….about Henry Ford’s iconic River Rouge Complex (Discovery Channel), a grandmother fighting ISIS (National Geographic Explorer), America’s historic 2008 presidential election (Huffington Post), and more. So when the head of MIT’s AI lab told me a big advantage we have over computers is the ability to tell our own stories, I knew he was right, even though I know nothing about computer algorithms.
Great works of art tell deeply human stories. I’m excited to share these…
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