It’s no secret that art is a huge part of my life. Imagining a world without art, for me, is like imagining a world without food or water. I need it to survive. Although I wasn’t necessarily surrounded by artists and creatives as a child, I knew from a very young age that color, texture, pattern and design were all something that intrigued me. A “regular” kid saw a candy cane as just that…candy. I saw the bold red competing with the neutral white in a diagonal swirl that had me wondering how I could use that in a drawing or painting.

As I grew up, and the world became a bigger place than just my home in Tennessee, I discovered the joy of art museums. These were huge buildings, sometimes a work of art themselves, where you could wander around and look at art for hours. Paintings and sculpture. Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Modernism….all the “isms”.

There are the big ones, The Louvre, the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And in countless cities across the country, and around the world, there are smaller museums and galleries that host world-renowned artists’ displays as well as talented local artists’ work.

It’s difficult to pick a favorite, but if I had to, it would be the Prado in Madrid. Museo Nacional del Prado. Boasting one of the world’s largest collections of European art, I was lucky to have visited this awe-inspiring place multiple times while visiting Madrid. One of my favorite artists, Francisco Goya, is well represented here, and the museum houses over twenty thousand (20,000) drawings, paintings, prints and sculptures. I would be happy getting lost in here for days!

Whether you love art intensely, as I do, or just have a mild appreciation for it, I highly recommend you visit an art museum, while traveling or nearby your home. It’s an experience unlike any other!