A story in Wired a few months ago gave me an idea. The story was something about renting out valuable artwork so that moderately wealthy people can have Picassoes (Picassi?) in their home for a month or so. Why couldn’t our library let us check out art? They already provide art in the form of books, magazines, movies, and music. Why not visual art like sculpture, paintings and photography? Ideally, local art. One could argue that it’s too valuable, but it is local art. Also, they currently let people check out RocketBooks, so they apparently don’t have a problem with people checking out things worth a few hundred bucks.
Anyhow, I’ve bounced this idea off of a few people in the art community (I didn’t know a one of them), and they all reacted to me as if I’d asked if I could borrow their wife, if only for a few days. I haven’t said anything to the library, mostly because it makes more sense for this to come from the art community. It’s just that the art community doesn’t seem interested. And it’s a shame, because most every non-artist that I’ve mentioned this to thinks that it’s a grand idea.
I’ll push it a little bit longer before I get sick of it. But I still think it’s a good idea.