'All the Beauty in the World': Patrick Bringley reflects on a decade of observations as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

This Saturday, the WFDD Book Club will discuss All the Beauty in the World. Meetings are at Scuppernong Books and Book Ferret at 11:00 a.m.

WFDD Editorial Director Bethany Chafin recently spoke with author Patrick Bringley about his memoir that documents 10 years as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. 

Interview Highlights

On his method for approaching art:

"Art is very often asking us to look at something beautiful or sad or elemental or mysterious and dwell in it. You know, really kind of be haunted by it, in a way. And the first step to do that, I think, is to get off the train of your regular thoughts, and don't be thinking any thoughts, ideally. And look at it and let your eyes feast on it and see if you're feeling anything. Pick out the details. Pick out its sort of wholeness, its overall kind of effect and impression. And then there's always time later to think your thoughts and to, you know, make an assessment or think about what you learned in a distant art history class or something like that. But that shouldn't be your first instinct. Your first instinct is just encounter it as, you know, something that you can commune with."

On a vibrant group of fellow museum guards:

"There are about 500 guards who work at the Met. When it's open, there are 200-some guards on the floor. New York City is such an incredibly diverse place. I mean, 40 percent of New York City is foreign-born, and I guess 50 or 60 percent of the guards are foreign-born. And it makes for this incredible collection of people, because they've lived all different lives, and they've come to it from all different angles. I mean, that's a nice thing about being a museum guard — people don't set out in life to become a museum guard. So the people who are there have taken all different paths."

On observing people as well as art:

"It is fun, because on a busy, busy day, you know, 30,000 people can come into the Met. So if you just keep your eyes open, you're going to see, you know, some real oddballs and sort of delightful characters.

I always liked people who were fully baffled by the Met, like who did not know where they were, had never been to the Met, maybe never been to any big city art museum before, because those people were the ones most likely to talk to me as a guard, because they were all spun around. They sort of knew they had to talk to somebody. And they would sometimes ask amusing questions, like, 'Do you guys have dinosaurs in here?' or things like that. But also they'd be ready to have just these big old, wide conversations."

On his new one-man play:

"There's something that lends itself to a one-man play in this story about a sort of lonesome figure, like a museum guard, and in some ways, the theater can be made to feel very much like an art gallery. ... Theater, like an art gallery, is kind of sacred, set apart, sort of a place that's kind of quiet and beautiful and has a certain kind of ring around it, sort of magical kind of ring around it."