Hola, Pablo

(Don Dale photo, 2011)

The big Pablo Picasso exhibition opens to the public today at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. And -- just in time -- the museum has erected a sign in its front yard that identifies what the building is.

That'll certainly be helpful to the thousands of out-of-town visitors who are excepted to come to Richmond to see the exhibition, which will be shown nowhere else east of the Rocky Mountains.

Because of silly neighborhood association objections, the sign is only about half as tall as the museum's original plan called for, but it gets most of the job done: "Here we are," it says to those passing by on the Boulevard. (VMFA says it expects 200,000 visitors to the Picasso exhibition before it closes May 15.)

Critics might say that eliminating the changing video screen that was planned for the top of the sign makes it look ... well ... stubby. But the important fact is that it identifies the museum.

You can read more about the controversy that accompanied the public announcement of the original proposal by clicking here.

Regular readers of this blog will no doubt be delighted that I won't be writing about the [expletive deleted] VMFA sign for a while, at least. Next time, I'll probably write something about Cassie's progress.

Cats are inherently more interesting than signs. To me, anyway.