Jeri Klein

Last night, we attended the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. We had visited a few weeks earlier to preview the Frazetta gallery, but seeing the museum alive was something entirely different. The sheer human effort behind this place is overwhelming: thousands of hands, decisions and years of perseverance, all in service of the belief that the images that tell our stories deserve to be preserved, studied and honored. Mellody Hobson calls it “a museum of the people’s art,” and I understood the power of that more fully last night. Even the building embodies the idea. Architect Ma Yansong and George Lucas created something massive and futuristic that still feels organic, alive and connected to nature. We had seen the museum store designed a few weeks ago, before the merchandise was there. Seeing it finished and seeing the Frazetta merchandise we collaborated on, along with work from so many other artists, finally presented with the class, care and elegance it deserves was awe-inspiring. Naturally I thought about my grandfather throughout the night. He always wanted to be in California, and standing there, seeing some of his greatest paintings hanging in a museum of this magnitude, in California, felt surreal. It also felt hopeful: for physical art, for artists and for the children who will walk through these galleries and understand that images have carried our stories across generations. Nothing this meaningful is created by one person alone. Artists, architects, builders, curators, craftspeople and dreamers all contributed to something larger than themselves. But someone has to believe in the idea long enough to bring all those people together. George Lucas did. He held onto the vision and built a place for the storytellers. We’ll be grateful for the rest of our lives to have been part of this profound historical moment.