[from 12 march 2025]

recently, my best friend Claire and I visited the Toledo Museum o’Fart¹ “to see the art,” as Claire succinctly put it. the TMA is one of the best “hidden gem” museums in the US, with a sizeable collection across decades and artistic eras. I’m a little biased since I live pretty close to it (I’m 25 minutes from everywhere!) but I’ve also been to a few museums in a 2-hour driving radius and the TMA has everything I could want, plus it’s free².

once Claire and I settled on the date and time for our visit, I texted her back:

me: “Claire, I have a challenge for us tomorrow at the museum o’fart. Please don’t let me forget to tell you about it.”
Claire: “Intriguing!”
me: “It’s Very Important, by which I mean Deeply Silly™”
Claire: “It sounds perfect.”

the challenge was this: we each had to choose three pieces of art and then come up with an idea for a saleable item based on those pieces that could be offered in the gift shop. this challenge was inspired by the fact that neither of us were very impressed with the commemorative gifts from when the TMA had a Caravaggio exhibit last year (nail polish? a watercolor set?! c’mon, son), so we spent a lot of time roasting the TMA marketing team in private. we both figured we could do so much better, so I thought – let’s put this theory to the test.

we decided to hash out the ground rules for this challenge over a working lunch at the TMA Café, which is one of the best places to eat in Toledo, a hidden gem within a hidden gem. I told Claire that I thought we were much better at smart marketing, or as I decided to call it, “smarketing,” for brevity’s sake. she congratulated me on the portmanteau. I continued that we should probably choose more than three pieces of art, but we should keep our ideas to ourselves and then choose at the end of the day the best three ideas each of us came up with. that would give us six great ideas, minimum. she then asked me if I had been in charge of marketing – sorry, smarketing – for the Caravaggio exhibit, what would I have done? I responded, “simple. a letter opener that’s a replica of the sword he allegedly killed that guy³ with before going on the lam and dying of tetanus or whatever.” Claire was visibly impressed with this idea, which presented the concept of a tchotchke both useful and artistic. I asked Claire what she would have come up with and she thought for a moment before answering, “okay, this is going to sound silly, but…playing cards, for The Cardsharps.”

“oh no,” I replied, “that’s actually a great idea.” we then talked about how you need to have as many low-dollar items as high, because it gives people a range of products to buy and not everyone can afford a miniature sword to open their junk mail (sorry, direct smarketing) with, if they even do that.

as we finalized the challenge guidelines over sandwiches (spaghetti squash panini for Claire, apricot chicken curry for me), we congratulated ourselves for how incredibly smart we are, much like the congenial goofy gophers from the old Looney Tunes cartoons. shortly thereafter, we were off, cruising through the galleries and taking frantic notes, often marveling at our own sheer brilliance while enjoying the art. I now feel compelled to share some of our concepts with you, dear reader, but please – do not steal our amazing ideas:

Lot and His Daughters (c. 1636-1638), Artemisia Gentileschi – Himalayan salt lamp in the shape of Lot’s wife (Claire):

Wings of the Wullersleben Triptych (c. 1503), Valentin Lendenstreich – flask in the shape of the headless martyr (me):

Another Chance (c. 1944), Jack B. Yeats – paddleboard (Claire):

The Feast of Herod (c. 1656-1661), Mattia Preti – silver serving platter (Claire), antacids (me):

Fortune Teller with Soldiers (c. 1620), Valentin de Boulogne – chain wallet (me):

The Adoration of the Magi (c. 1655-1660), Bartolomé Esteban Murillo – bris kit (Claire):

this was where I had to stop Claire for a moment, because I legitimately thought she said “brisket” and I could not imagine what delicious, tender meat had to immediately do with bringing gifts to the Christ Child. to be fair, at that point I had developed an unfortunate migraine that was severely threatening to blow my forehead clean off and bring about the violent and explosive return of the apricot chicken curry sandwich I had enjoyed⁴. she said it slower, and once my addled brain wrapped itself around the concept of the TMA selling a bris kit in the gift shop, I wondered out loud why the mohel wouldn’t just bring one himself, but then quickly answered my own question with “for commemorative reasons. duh.”

Portrait Bust of a Flavian Matron (c. 90 CE), unknown – pencil holder (me):

The Liberation of Saint Peter (c. 1660-1665), Luca Giordano – sleepytime tea (Claire):

Woman Haunted by the Passage of the Bird-Dragonfly Omen of Bad News (c. 1938), Joan Miró – stuffed toys (me):

when I explained this particular idea to Claire, I emphatically added, “you know, for kids!” if you’re not familiar with the story behind this piece, it was dedicated by Miró to the three children of his art dealer Pierre Matisse (son of Henri) and was originally hung in their nursery. which, y’know, sounds totally normal until you look at this thing.

Portrait of a Freedom Fighter (c. 1984), Julian Schnabel – ceramic repair kit (Claire), chinaware set (me):

we had several other ideas, but if I shared them all with you, you’d probably get bored real fast / annoyed with how awesome we are. that said, if anyone from the TMA is reading this, please hire us, if you think you can afford us.

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footnotes:

1. one time, I called the TMA that in an instagram post that I tagged them in without thinking about it, and they still liked and shared the post to their stories, so I’m taking that as tacit acceptance on their part. ↩︎
2. for the record: Detroit Institute of Art – far too big for a single-day trip; Cleveland Museum of Art – bitchin’ armory exhibit, kind of confusing to navigate; Dayton Art Institute – second only to TMA in terms of size, art, and setting, but also the farthest away. ↩︎
3. Ranuccio Tomassoni, although the details are unclear if it was actually a sword duel or a fistfight. if it was indeed a fistfight, then I would change my answer to sex toy. obviously. ↩︎
4. cit. Warren Zevon. ↩︎