Hello, and welcome. I’m Diane Tucker. The first time I visited an art museum I was seven years old. I said to my grandmother, “I want to live here!” We were inside the Detroit Institute of Arts, surrounded by The Detroit Industry Murals, floor-to-ceiling frescoes full of people, nature, and technology. I saw a palatial staircase at the far end of this colorful courtyard gallery and pretended it led to my bedroom.
As the years went by I became less comfortable in art museums. I thought they were dazzling, but a little intimidating, like a Gothic cathedral. Sometimes I still feel that way even though I’ve led more than 300 public gallery talks at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
All the same, I keep visiting art museums, especially for the stories.
For years I’ve earned a living writing and producing stories — about the environmental redesign of Henry Ford’s iconic River Rouge Plant (Discovery Channel), about a grandmother fighting ISIS (National Geographic Explorer), about America’s historic 2008 presidential election (Huffington Post), and more. So when the head of MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab told me that one big advantage we humans have over computers is the ability to tell our own stories, I knew he was right, even though I know zero about computer coding.
Great paintings tell stories. I hope you enjoy these….
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(Super excited to Make the list)
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The Shy Museumgoer 