Made it to the Met Saturday.

I wanted to meet Alice Neel.

A slightly surreal scene.

Long lines of masked

New Yorkers and others

Enduring the pandemic;

Looking for hope and inspiration.

It was worth the wait.

First, the line led

Through a row of Rodin statues.

Wow. 

And then,

An amazing collection 

Of paintings.

Honest, but not cynical;

Humanistic, but not sentimental.

Alice painted so many different kinds of people:

Black, white, Latino

Poor, working, middle class, rich.

Her art is 

Infused with socialism;

The belief that we can live

Together as sisters and brothers

Free of exploitation, racism, and sexism.

Alice Neel;

This daughter of a

straight laced middle class

family in suburban Pennsylvania,

her father an accountant for the Pennsylvania RR.

She found her way to Greenwich village in 1927

With her husband Cuban artist Carlos Enriquez.

Carlos soon returned to Cuba, 

Leaving Alice to consort with

Artists, radicals, ordinary folk

Until she died in 1984.

This small white woman

With a big heart and a sharp eye

Breaking boundaries

Shows us what our species can do.

Leaving us with hope and  

sadness to yearn and

work for a better world.

April 18, 2021