Meet Louisa Lam, Senior Security Guard at The Met

The Met's Immaterial podcast, Ron Amato's Artists of Provincetown, Alyssa Wang and the Boston Festival Orchestra

It’s Sunday, and I’m taking the day off. Heather Cox Richardson typically takes the Lord’s Day off from her Substack, Letters From An American, and if it’s good enough for HCR, it’s good enough for me.

I don’t know about you, but the heat is really getting to me. Between working like a madman for my show in November, Am I Talking Or Do I Just Think I’m Talking? (I mean, I could just be thinking really loud) at Atlantic Works Gallery, working on AWG’s summer show, Roots of Passage: Artists Examine Immigration, which just opened, and all of its moving parts including the August 3 Community Day and, don’t ask me how this happened, but, a workshop I’m leading at the end of July with 40 3rd to 6th graders on telling stories with text and images, co-curating a show at CliipArt Gallery in October, not to mention getting to the gym to make sure I stay alive, I could use the day off.

So, before hopping on the Red Line (here’s hoping it works and there’s AC) to hear The Firebird with the Boston Festival Orchestra conducted by Alyssa Wang (if you’re in Boston and haven’t seen either the orchestra or Alyssa Wang conduct, give yourself a treat and do it), I’m going to empty the pockets of my mind with an upcoming story and a little video treat.

Artists of Provincetown

I’m not sure when I’m going to get to it, but photographer Ron Amato has a new book out, Artists of Provincetown, which caught my eye for a number of reasons that I hope to get into with a longer Substack. He got the idea for his book from an earlier project by photographer Norma Holt. Both projects are powerful, I think for different reasons. I messaged Amato, hoping to talk to him about his work and process, but so far he hasn’t responded, but I’m still crossing my fingers. His images are arresting and powerful, and in the meantime, I’m thinking of driving the 112 miles to P’town in my truck with no air conditioning to see the exhibition of his work at PAAM before it closes. The life of an itinerant arts writer is not pretty, and at $75 plus postage for this book, this artist/writer can’t even consider it as a tax deduction.

Meet Louisa Lam, Senior Security Guard at The Met

A little earlier this month the Met posted on Instagram a video from its podcast, Immaterial. Some of you might have heard me IRL relate from time to time that my mother, Alice Anne, was a devout Catholic, and always could find peace in a church. As hard as I might, the only place I can find what I imagine is that kind of peace is when I’m surround by art. Maybe that’s how I knew I was born to be an artist.

A few months ago Sue and I were in Baltimore and one evening we pretty much had the Baltimore Museum of Art to ourselves, and I can’t tell you what the experience of having all of those incredible pieces to ourselves was like, especially the Matisse’s that particular museum displays. Wandering from gallery to gallery, as if we were the residents of our own private mansion, the church-like stillness, the magnificence of the paintings stand out when crowds of people are not diluting the experience. Louisa Lam is a guard at the Met, and listening to her experience working there gives you an glimpse of the peace that art can bestow on your everyday life.

Here’s Meet Louisa Lam, Senior Security Guard at The Met, from the Met’s Immaterial podcast. Stay cool and safe.