Ticket to: The Met

Last weekend I went to The Met for a birthday luncheon at the Dining Room and a stop to see The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism exhibit. I have three highlights I want to share, one about ticketing, two about art.

1. Long gone are the days of the small metal tag that folded over your collar. We’re now wearing scannable QR codes.

2. As I entered the exhibit, the first thing I saw was a book of Langston Hughes poetry, and it was open to the page “One-Way Ticket” (1949), a collaboration with the artist Jacob Lawrence, he recapitulated the theme with poetry that stresses the nationwide reach of the migration into cities other than Harlem.

One-Way Ticket

By Langston Hughes

“I pick up my life

And take it with me

And I put it down in

Chicago, Detroit,

Buffalo, Scranton,

Any place that is North and East—

And not Dixie.

I pick up my life

And take it on the train

To Los Angeles, Bakersfield,

Seattle, Oakland, Salt Lake,

Any place that is

North and West—

And not South.

I am fed up

With Jim Crow laws,

People who are cruel

And afraid,

Who lynch and run,

Who are scared of me

And me of them.

I pick up my life

And take it away

On a one-way ticket—

Gone up North,

Gone out West,

Gone!”

3. I discovered and fell in love with the work of Archibald J. Motley, Jr. who worked in oil on canvas using vibrant colors that bring the paintings to life.