Matilda June: A Month of British Libraries: Collage College

Day 2, a Monday in London, and though I was awakened by my AirBnB host after I'd fallen into the deep and dreamless sleep of the 24-hour-travel-weary, today was a good day.

My aim was to visit the Tate museums, since I hadn't made it to them the last time I was here. A train ride, a bridge-crossing (the Thames! There you are!), and a walk along the river, I found it, and my hunger. I'm ashamed to say that I went to Starbucks.

But you know what? I still did something that a lot of people wouldn't/won't/haven't/willn't do in their lives: I tried something new. I got a latte (the usual), and a vegan breakfast wrap, which was amazing, and which is not available in any Starbucks I've entered in Missippippi (Sophie Blackall accidentally called it that in a speech, and I will forever spell it that way). I listened to a British dad tell his sons that this was THE LAST sweet they were getting for the day, because they'd had too much (it was about 10 am). I soaked it up alongside caffeine.

The Tate Modern is an enormous building, all steel and concrete, but there's something very warm about it: the sloping walkways, the wooden accents, the strange decor in the various lobbies. I loved it instantly, and hallelujah, it's free.

I get museum overload. I especially get museum overload when everything around me is "modern art," which I often don't know how to appreciate. I ask myself questions, like you're supposed to, and like the little reminders to school children on the walls told me to, but it takes a toll. What I realized, though, is that I honestly love a collage.

I found a few in particular that made me feel something deeply, and that seems to be a fair measure of "good art." I'll paste a few photos of what I loved best: you can listen to one of them.

First up, a wall-size collage by Ellen Gallagher called "Bird in Hand." I loved that it was a life-sized pirate, and that his leg absorbed some of the sea life he may have encountered.