Ah, Art. Ah, New York City. NYC is a veritable cauldron of seething humanity, and since there is no art without human agency, the city is a great place to go for an artistic retreat. We spent the weekend mostly taking in bits of Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum. The strangest effect of thinking about the visit as an Artistic Retreat was that I saw everything as a potential sketch subject. People lounging in the park, horse carriages, street vendors, architecture, even the food. Although I didn't end up drawing any of these things, I saw them differently simply because I considered drawing them. But, although it would have been kind of an ironic artsy thing to do an artistic retreat without actually creating any physical artifacts, I did finally draw some of my favorite pieces from the Metropolitan Museum.