My Museum Addiction

I love visiting museums. It's a hobby. I get excited just thinking about seeing new works of art and visiting "old friends". And when I have finished enjoying the exhibits, I am drawn like a moth to a flame to the gift shop and bookstore.

But I have an addiction, a museum addiction...I collection exhibition catalogs. There I said it! I collect those heavy, glossy image, long essay-filled tomes the way a boy (or grown man) collects baseball cards! It's an addiction - a very heavy one if you have ever tried to lift a box full of them. (My husband always hates when we move because somehow he's always left carrying those heavy, back-breaking boxes.)

I just can't help myself, I want to enjoy the exhibition again and again, long after they are gone. I want, no I need, to revisit the image and relive the stories the curators have woven.

Let me share with you how bad my addiction is. Last month I was fortunate to spend some time in London. While there I tried to get into the Damien Hirst exhibition at the Tate Modern. Unfortunately everyone in London had the same idea. Needless to say I couldn't get a ticket. So what did I do? You guessed it, I marched myself right into the gift shop and bought the catalog, all 5 lbs. of it!  (I then had to carry it the rest of the trip as a reminder of my habit.)

So, now you know my art addiction - what's yours?  Share some of your "art addictions" - your favorite work of art, the best exhibit you've seen, or your favorite museum to visit.