I first went to The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens with Sarah Cain.
It feels meaningful to return to it now, as she is featured in this week’s Journal—an article that reflects on going back to Berkeley and, more broadly, on taking stock of a life and career shaped over time. The Huntington holds that same quality for me. It is a place where past and present seem to sit alongside one another, without urgency.
On this most recent visit, I found myself standing in front of a large painting by Sam Francis. It stopped me—not only for what it is, but for what it carries. Sam Francis was the first artist whose studio I ever visited, when I was working at the Smith Andersen Gallery the summer after my freshman year of college. That experience marked a beginning. Seeing his work again here, years later, brought that moment back with a clarity that felt almost physical.
The Huntington has a way of doing that—of connecting experiences across time without announcing it.
We moved through the gardens slowly. The rose garden was in peak bloom, expansive and fragrant, impossible to take in all at once. Later, we had tea, a pause within the day that felt both structured and unhurried. There is something about that ritual—the attention to detail, the pacing—that mirrors the larger experience of being there.
What stays with me is not any one element, but the way it all comes together. The art, the gardens, the architecture, the time it takes to move through it. It is a place that invites you to look, but also to reflect on how you’ve been looking all along.
