Galleries have always felt like my version of wandering. 

Growing up in LA, a lot of Saturdays were spent downtown, bouncing between galleries and museums like it was the most normal thing in the world. It wasn’t always planned out perfectly. Sometimes it was just going to get coffee, walk, step into a space, see what’s there, repeat. And that’s what I grew up loving. You’re moving through the city, then suddenly you’re in an entirely new world in a place where you are allowed to slow down and just look. 

What I remember most is how unpredictable it was. Sometimes I’d walk into a gallery and feel nothing, like I could appreciate what I was seeing, but it didn’t really pull me in. And then in the next room, there’d be one piece that caught my attention immediately. Not because I fully understood what it was trying to say, but because that’s kind of the beauty of it. It meets you where you are and speaks in a language you understand. Sometimes what grabs you is the uncertainty. You stand there staring, letting it shift in your mind, wondering if it will start to say something different the longer you sit with it. And honestly, you end up liking that feeling of not knowing right away, and not needing to.

 I think galleries taught me how to be okay with confusion. In school, you’re trained to get the answer, to be right, to have the explanation ready. In a gallery, no one is grading you. You can change your mind mid-thought. You can dislike something and still respect it. You can be moved by something and still be unable to define it in words. It is freeing to have free range. 

And the more I went, the more I started noticing how much “looking” is a skill. Like really looking, seeing things, and not just glancing and moving on. You start paying attention to the small stuff like texture, scale, the way the light hits a surface, the way the room was curated; everything is intentional. You begin thinking of the story behind it. Even the silence matters. The whole experience teaches you patience in a way that doesn’t feel forced. It’s like your brain naturally slows down because it has to. That is something I really appreciate in such a fast-paced life. 

Now, when I go to galleries, I go in trying to catch myself reacting. What do I notice first? What do I avoid looking at? What keeps pulling my eyes back? I’ve learned that my first reaction usually tells me more than whatever I come up with after I’ve thought it over. And honestly, it’s one place where I feel like you can be judgment-free. Everything is what you make of it.