On Monday, I spent the day in New York City while my son and husband went to a play. The most amazing way, if you are ever for a loss of things to do in Manhattan (as if that were possible), is to spend those precious minutes at MOMA.

There was so much to see but I just followed the ergonomic lines of the setup and found my way to one of my favorite exhibits Post War Architectural Design. I just love the lines of the furniture and household items. I even loved the bubble helicopter that was perilously hanging in a narrow open hall.

I wish I had taken a photo of the first iPod. It looked much like the first cellphone (remember seeing your first cellphone carried by a Japanese tourist seemingly talking into a small microwave?). I chuckled. But here was a simple wall placement of 50s images that I am going to replicate in my house.

If I could truly redesign my entire house, I would make it minimalist. One thing you realize at an exhibit like this is that the clean lines never go out of style. My “shabby chic” phase just grates on me now and I can’t wait until we finish all of the rooms we’ve been working on the last 6 months.

Another really cool thing to see was the actual vignettes of rooms. It really gave me a lot of ideas on how to place key pieces. I particularly loved this huge surfboard hanging from a wall. It had such clean lines and the glossy finish of the surfboard had its own beautiful statement to make. The red chair was particularly gorgeous.

Of course, there is not a proper modern exhibit without the classic Andy Warhol soup cans flanking a whole wall. I still remember seeing Warhol every night during the 80s at clubs like the Palladium and Area. In fact at one Area theme, Andy was sitting in a store window (the entrance to the club was a huge hall of windowed closures) on one of the dozen Brillo boxes. It was really him - he was one of the exhibits. In another “room” behind glass was Keith Haring painting the clausterphobic white walls with his cartoon “people.” It was amazing.

These days I live in Springs, in East Hampton. Our claims to fame are not the annoying Jerry Seinfelds and Paris Hiltons, but the amazing artists that once lived and worked out here. At Moma I saw two glorious pieces by two of our town mascots: Jackson Pollock (the patron saint of Springs) and Willem deKooning (solid runner-up). One special exhibit were the mammoth-sized Richard Serra sculptures. There were curated a garden with them and also a second-floor showcase. They were huge and all-enveloping. Walking in between these curvy walls was like floating in solidified golden bronzed waves. In some of them, you felt as if you were in a magnificent coffin, while in others you were floating freely in space. The postcard pictured here does NOT do them justice. They are simply stunning. There are, of course, plenty of earlier masters at MOMA. I relished the Van Gogh, Picasso and Magritte. I couldn’t help but realize that all the people trying to get a good look at “Starry Night” were looking at the work of such a sad lonely man. To think the actual hands of Van Gogh had made that lovely painting in such a beautiful place as Provence, France, was inspiring. I wondered if he could see the madness of his success, posthumously. If he were happy or bothered by it. I couldn’t get very close to any VG works - they had the most rabid tourists all around. But I got the shot you see above.

I was talking to Kurt the other day as we were watching a special on modern artists. I realized that my favorite painter was
Francis Bacon. His work is so disturbing and real that I was thrilled to see this at MOMA. You can’t take your eyes off of it - it’s like looking at a train wreck littered with open-wounded bodies.

Anyway, that was my day at MOMA. If ever you’ve been, you understand the special quality of this museum. It’s one of the things I miss about living in the City. But nevertheless, I feel fortunate to be only 2 1/2 hours drive from it.

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