Recently, to celebrate the launch of MIA Stories, our crack social-media team put together a bit of a New Yorker-style caption contest on Twitter and Facebook for a few artworks around here that are just begging for thought bubbles. We got plenty, including at least one haiku. Here, a few of our favorites.
Douglas Volk’s After the Reception depicts a bride on her wedding day. What’s on her mind?
Douglas Volk (American, 1856 – 1935), After the Reception, 1887, oil on canvas. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. E.J. Phelps, 23.42. More: http://ow.ly/oM0W7.
Benjamin Joseph Kowalsky: Neither of us knew how to take this dress off.
Rebecca Zins: This makes me think of the bittersweet quality of momentous occasions, where something (like a wedding) is built up as being so monumental, yet it happens, it’s fleeting, and then you’re left with sore feet and perhaps a bit of a sad feeling that something you’ve looked forward to for such a long time is already over.
Nancy Anderson: “Now what?”
Clutching the now wilted blooms
Rests for a moment
Gazes wistfully into space
Caption this! The title of this work is Courtesan Plucking Daruma’s Beard. What do you think they’re saying?
Inoue Setsuzan, Japanese, Courtesan Plucking Daruma’s Beard, Early 19th century, Ink and color on paper, Gift from The Clark Center for Japanese Arts & Culture 2013.29.149
Christopher Kim Thomas: When did you eat okra?
Alison Price Art: “Darling…with a little trim and a fixie, you will be so very ready for the Greenway”
Olivia Olivares: “So then Hitoshi told Masafume that he was going to smack him into tomorrow if he didn’t stay away from Kumiko, but Kumiko told me that she wasn’t with either of those fools, which I already knew because Sachiko told me she saw her with Takeshi getting some froyo, know what I’m saying?
How did Walt Kuhn’s “Sandy” become a clown?
Walt Kuhn (United States), Sandy, 1946, oil on canvas. The John R. Van Derlip Fund 61.6. More: http://ow.ly/oXAoa.
Olivia Olivares: “Put the clown suit on, she said. The kids’ll love it, she said. How was I supposed to know that the little critters were afraid of clowns? That stampede is not my fault!”
Keri Huber: This is what happens when you wait 30 minutes before the Halloween party to buy a costume. “But I don’t wanna be a clown!”
Kim Huskinson: “Sandford ‘Sandy’ Bigglesworth III, son of Sandford Bigglesworth Jr., and scion to the the Bigglesworth neck wear empire, always longed for a life of excitement beyond the lawn parties and charity galas that permeated his Upper East Side upbringing. He pictured himself—his true self—as a Real Man, and Real Men did not wear white gloves and ascots to attend lawn parties with dull but marriageable young ladies with no interest in him beyond the size of his inheritance. No, Real Men wore sturdy pants and scuffed boots, smoked entire cigarettes without ever once using their hands, and drank whiskey with tattooed women who liked to laugh, and weren’t afraid to show their legs.
Imagine his disappointment then, when—having left home to pursue a lifestyle of Real Manhood in a traveling carnival—he was made to don a clown suit in lieu of the mechanics overalls he’d been dreaming of, because, in fact, he did not actually know how to fix anything, and standing around in a suit was the only thing he was good for.”
See all the fantastic responses on our Facebook page.