Expectations have gotten me in lots of trouble.  Like the party that I expected to be over the top fun, but instead I fell asleep in my wine glass while trying to carry on a conversation with the really boring hostess.  Or, the man that I knew was going to be solid as a rock, but turned out to actually be living under one.  There are high expectations—the scary kind, and low expectations, the rewarding kind.

When I headed to Bentonville, Arkansas last week to nose around the new Crystal Bridges museum designed by architect Moshe Safdie, I had no real expectations.  It shouldn’t take me long to get in and get out, I thought.  I would breeze in, take a quick spin around the galleries, (they couldn’t be that big), and head home.  It would be nice, of course, but I am an art museum junky of sorts.  During a very different time in my life I had flown to Bilbao, Spain to experience Frank Gehry’s contribution to the Guggenheim collection, and to London to see the Tate Modern, skillfully crafted by Herzog and Demuron.  For this experience I was thinking “quaint”.

Sure I had read articles on how great it was, I had watched CBS Sunday Morning and absorbed the compelling interview with Alice Walton, (a truely Aging But DANGEROUS woman).  It was getting good hype, but it was in Bentonville, Arkansas…how really great could it be?

What I found in the hills of Arkansas was spectacular!  Nestled in a beautiful valley sits a real jewel of a structure, and it is meticulously filled with a wonderful art collection.  I was delighted and surprised to experience this unpredicted discovery.

Speaking not as an art critic, but as an admirer of beauty, composition, color, contrast, form and texture, I felt very satisfied when I left Crystal Bridges.  Like I had just had a fabulous meal and I was full and content with the world.

Everything about the experience hung together for me.  Including some practical details like having type large enough on the information tag so that you can read an artists name from 5 feet away without binoculars.  And the building finishes; you may not be able to touch the art but you MUST stroke the concrete pillars that exist throughout.  They feel like velvet.  I truly moaned every time I felt one, (which was slightly embarrassing, but I couldn’t help myself.)

An Aging But DANGEROUS sojourn to Bentonville, is highly recommended, it’s what we are all about…taking full advantage of the beauty that always surrounds us if we only take time to stop and look.

My expectations were exceeded!  Next time I will plan to spend several hours there.  But be assured that my expectations will be very high, but in this scenario nothing is scary.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7387308n&tag=mncol;lst;1
http://crystalbridges.org/