Miracles Happen

 

Despite this Dean Gallery sculpture's proclamation that "There Will Be No Miracles Here", finding the aforementioned gallery was an actual miracle.  

Although I've lived in Edinburgh for almost two years now, I rarely venture outside of the university bubble. Then again, a lot of this city is centered literally around the university, so you can't really blame me for that. Nevertheless, there are areas of town with nary a library addled and over-caffeinated student to be found and every so often, it's nice to remind yourself that said world exists, especially when you're right about to graduate and enter it. 

Roughly two miles from the university, the Village of Dean is one of those areas. A former grain milling hamlet for over 800 years (how often do I get to write that? Sometimes I love living in Europe.), it's now a place where people shell out serious dough (sorry, couldn't resist a bread pun) to live in one of the quaint converted mills and home to The National Galleries of Scotland modern art museums, fittingly called Modern 1 and Modern 2 (or the Dean Gallery.) 

A few weeks ago, my friend Sophia and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather to make the trek out to the one museum I hadn't been to in this city and because what better way to spoil the sun than by seeing depressing modern art? In all honesty, I don't know how to handle this abundance of sunshine. Reading books in my flat has been traded for barbeques on the Meadows, but I can only cope with so much sun stroke. So a few hours sojourn in an air conditioned art gallery is a welcome escape. (And city secret, no one is in the museums when the weather is perfect.) There's an Edvard Munch exhibition on at The Dean Gallery right now and what better way to temper the pleasant weather than by looking at prints reflecting anxiety?

 However, finding the museum was almost more confusing than interpreting modern art. Four years of university has taught me how to read secondary criticism, but not maps. Sophia and I just assumed the way would be obvious once we got past Prince's Street, but when what should've been a ten minute walk turned into twenty, we realized how wrong we were. Medieval villages may be cute, but they are impossible to navigate. No wonder why it was called The Dark Ages. After stopping a few locals who had no idea there even was a museum in the area, we stumbled upon a friendly English couple. They turned out to be tourists, but this was to our benefit because they had a map on them and therefore a better understanding of the area than we did. They chided us for not having a map of our own, we claimed we were "locals." It was a bit embarrassing, but we turned a corner, literally, and there was the Dean Gallery. Of course, we came back through an entirely different route than the one we came in with. I was convinced that finding the gallery was a one time event, after all, miracles don't happen every day.

 

The next day I triumphantly reported to another friend who had been urging me all along to go to the museums that I could check off The Modern Art Museum from my Edinburgh bucketlist and told her how great the Munch exhibition was (it's on until Autumn, so I recommend you go if you get a chance and are better at directions). Then, she informed me that The Dean Gallery was one of two museums and we had missed the main one. Suddenly, it dawned on me why all the signs called it "Modern 2", so much for my close reading skills.

 

So Sophia and I went back yesterday to finally see Modern 1, with written directions. This time we got there without a wrong turn and I took the time to admire the picturesque architecture on the way over. It ended up being more aesthetically pleasing than the actual art housed in Modern 1. Nevertheless, I can say I've been to BOTH modern art museums now.

If you've read my recent posts, I get lost quite a bit. However, as the installation at Modern 1 says, "Everything is going to be alright."