Dallas Museum of Art Uncrated

If you have visited the Dallas Museum of Art recently, you may have noticed our newest (and youngest) tour guides! Teen Tour Guides is a program run in partnership with middle schools in DISD. During the last school year, 8th grade art students from Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women’s Leadership School visited the DMA 10 times. By the end of the year, students had created their own tour stops for 6th graders at their school, who visit the Museum annually on a field trip! 

First, the 8th grade students learned how to look at art and how to identify different ways that museums share information and engage visitors in the galleries. Students participated in group discussions and scavenger hunts designed to introduce the girls to the Museum’s permanent collection.  

Then, students shifted from formulating their own opinions about art to learning how to convey information about art to others. Rangel students focused on museum labels and audience. The teens were given a shoe box and a different prompt—to write a wall label for a kindergartener, middle schooler, teacher, or grandparent. Opening their shoe box revealed the artwork that would be the subject of their labels. 

Students from Irma Lerma Rangel creating a museum label for a plastic banana. 

One by one, students revealed the contents of their shoe box. Students were shocked to see they all had the same “artwork”—a plastic banana taped to the shoe box! The banana was based on Maurizio Cattelan’s artwork Comedian, which sold for $6.2 million in 2024. This activity allowed students to consider the question “what is artwork?,” and see the many ways in which one thing can be interpreted or taught to different people and across audiences. 

Teen Tour Guides have a unique insight—they know their peers and what they’re interested in. Even if that’s describing a banana as “skibidi yellow.” 

In the spring, students spent three visits developing and practicing their tours. In pairs, students chose a work of art to focus on. They practiced their tour stops and interactive gallery teaching activities for staff and docents. For many of these students, it was their first experience with public speaking.  

Finally it came time for Rangel 6th graders to tour the DMA. The Teen Tour Guides spoke with confidence, asked engaging questions, helped the younger students develop their own personal insights into the art, and even persevered through quiet audiences. One group of tour guides even brought prizes to encourage students to talk and be active participants on their tours! 

^{8th grade Teen Tour Guides presenting their tour stops for 6th graders at their school.} 

A special program highlight is our Teen Tour Guides even participated in a workshop with exhibiting artist Cecily Brown.  She gave a tour of her exhibition and talked with the students about careers in the arts. Students learned about her mantra of embracing mistakes, practicing with consistency, and trusting your gut. They carried these lessons with them as they developed their tour stops. Cecily made it a mission to have one-on-one time to draw with every student. 

^{Cecily Brown getting hands on with Teen Tour Guides in her exhibition “Themes and Variations.”} 

As a previous McDermott Intern for School Programs, my favorite program was Teen Tour Guides. I loved getting to see students try something outside their comfort zone and think about education in new and creative ways. It was also inspiring to see so many volunteers and staff across many departments come together to provide a comfortable and encouraging space where students could practice. By the end of the program, students were accomplished tour guides.  

DMA docents, you’ve got competition! 

Abby Drake is the 2024–2025 McDermott Intern for School Programs. 

Sometimes the more you love museums, the less time you spend in their galleries. I’ve yet to have a proper visit to the American Museum of Natural History’s incredible halls filled with asteroids, insects, and dinosaurs, but I have spent half a day in its textiles study room, deep in the labyrinth of its collections storage. Mary Lou Murillo, Senior Museum Specialist in Textiles at the AMNH, kindly received Michelle Rich, The Ellen and Harry S. Parker III Associate Curator of Indigenous American Art at the DMA; Astrid Runggaldier, Associate Professor of Instruction, Art History, at UT Austin; and me for a research visit last May. Our goal was to get up close and personal with two Peruvian artworks that closely resemble works in the DMA’s collection: one a colonial-era Passion cloth from the Chachapoyas region (Fig. 1) and the other a fragment of a giant ancient cloth called the Prisoner Textile (Fig. 2). 

_{^{Figure 1. Lenten Curtain, 18th century. Unknown Chachapoya artist(s). Chachapoyas region, Peru. Cotton and dyes. 40.1/2291. Courtesy of the Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History.}} 

_{^{Figure 2. Prisoner Textile, about 1300–1401. Unknown Chimú artists. North Coast, Peru. Cotton and dyes. 41.2/710. Courtesy of the Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History.}} 

Michelle and I had been eyeing Passion cloths and Prisoner Textile fragments for two reasons. The first was that in early 2025, the DMA accepted the gift of a Passion cloth (Fig. 3), joining a very similar example already in the collection (Fig. 4). The other reason was the development of the DMA’s newest exhibition, Creatures and Captives: Painted Textiles of the Ancient Andes, on view September 21, 2025, to February 22, 2026. The exhibition highlights the DMA’s robust collection of dye-painted Andean textiles and brings together two fragments of the monumental Prisoner Textile, one from the DMA (Fig. 5) and the other from the Menil Collection in Houston. 

^{_{Figure 4. Passion Cloth with Crucifixion, probably 18th century. Unknown Chachapoya artist(s). Chachapoyas region, Peru. Cotton and dyes. Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Duncan E. Boeckman, 1990.149.FA.}} 

After finding the correct entrance, snapping a photo for our visitor name tags, and spending a moment with a bronze Teddy Roosevelt in the lobby, we were joined by Mary Lou. She led us past the Cretaceous plants, the Museum’s graduate school classrooms, and the ceramic antiquities, which were too numerous to be anywhere but in storage cabinets. We arrived at the textile study space, where the Passion cloth and Prisoner Textile were laid out for viewing.  

As soon as our laptops and notebooks were ready, we dove into the work we’d planned: noticing. It seems like a strange task, just noticing—but such is art history. Artworks and artifacts are historical documents, ones that need patience, close attention, and context to be read. Bit by bit, as we looked and noticed and jotted notes, the textiles told us some of their stories (Fig. 6 and 7). On the Passion cloth, we saw evidence that Indigenous Chachapoya hands had woven the fabric and painted the biblical scene. Three panels of plain-weave cotton textile measuring 29 inches each were sewn together to make the approximately 7-by-7-foot curtain, hinting at the width of the 18th-century weaver’s loom. The zigzagging geometric borders painted on either side of the Crucifixion resemble elements of the two curtains in Dallas. Historian Maya Stanfield-Mazzi argues this motif is a continuation of ancient, sacred geometry seen on Chachapoya art and architecture (2021). 

_{^{Figure 6. Michelle Rich, Hayden Juroska, and Mary Lou Murillo study the AMNH’s Lenten curtain (40.1/2291). Photo by Astrid Runggaldier.}} 

_{^{Figure 7. Astrid Runggaldier and Michelle Rich point out details of the AMNH’s Prisoner Textile fragment (41.2/710). Photo by the author.}} 

Examining the AMNH’s Prisoner Textile fragment, we saw the work of many Chimú hands. While it was once speculated that the designs were stamped on, closer looking finds that indigo dye was used to draw the outlines of the snakes, foxes, and prisoners before they were painted in with the rest of the natural colors. This must have been a fairly quick job done by multiple artists, given some of the mistakes made. One painter may have been overzealous with their work on a line of two-headed snakes, not noticing that they had sketched in indigo one serpent too many (Fig. 8). What resulted was just one head of the snake and part of its neck dyed brown, with the rest of the body a ghostly remnant under the linear border. 

^{Figure 8. Detail of the AMNH’s Prisoner Textile fragment (41.2/710). Photo by the author.} 

We spent hours in that textile study room. In telling us their stories, the two artworks also helped us better understand their counterparts at the Dallas Museum of Art. As we exited down the grand steps of the historic museum, we buzzed with new knowledge and the realization that our dry eyes hadn’t blinked all that much that morning. It’s a great privilege to spend time with old textiles—not only because they spend most of their time hidden away from potential light damage, but also because they have managed to stand the test of time over hundreds of years. Creatures and Captives: Painted Textiles of the Ancient Andes is on view in the DMA’s third floor textile gallery, where visitors can spend as much time noticing as they like. 

Hayden Juroska is the Research Assistant for Indigenous American Art at the Dallas Museum of Art. 

____________________________

Citations and Further Reading 

Davis, Paul R., Kari Dodson, Susan E. Bergh, and Andrew James Hamilton, dirs. In Dialogue: On the Chimú Prisoner Textile. The Menil Collection, 2021. 55:19. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k703JmRoBzc 

Hamilton, Andrew James. “New Horizons in Andean Art History.” Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 75/76 (2016): 42–101. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45283274  

Stanfield-Mazzi, Maya. “Weapons and Phantasms: The Painted Cloths of Chachapoyas and Peruvian Independence.” Age of Revolutions, January 10, 2022. https://ageofrevolutions.com/2022/01/10/weapons-and-phantasms-the-painted-cloths-of-chachapoyas-and-peruvian-independence/ 

Stanfield-Mazzi, Maya. Clothing the New World Church: Liturgical Textiles of Spanish America, 1520–1820. University of Notre Dame Press, 2021. https://search.worldcat.org/title/1236266146  

This summer I worked as the IFPDA Foundation Summer Intern for Prints and Drawings. During this time, I catalogued the DMA’s Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) print collection, which includes 42 prints. Cataloguing has consisted of taking measurements, updating titles and mediums in TMS, determining a print’s state, and identifying watermarks.  

Rembrandt van Rijn was a Dutch artist who is known for his dramatic paintings and innovative etchings, with subject matter varying from biblical stories, self-portraits, landscapes, and more.  

Rembrandt primarily printed etchings. The etching process begins with covering a warm metal plate, often copper, with a ground, such as wax. Next, the artist uses a needle to etch in the wax where they want ink to be held. The plate is then submerged in an acid bath, which eats away at the exposed metal. Once the desired depth of line is achieved, the plate is removed. Wax is taken off, ink is rubbed into the lines, excess ink is wiped away, and finally, damp paper is set atop the plate and run through the printing press. Since the artist makes their marks in soft wax, etchings often replicate the free, sketchy effect of paper drawings.  

Rembrandt frequently reprinted his prints and would sometimes adjust the copperplates. Each change in a plate marks a new print iteration and is then deemed a new print state. Since Rembrandt’s copperplates continued to circulate after his death, people continued to alter his plates and create posthumous states. However, a print’s state does not necessarily guarantee whether it is lifetime or posthumous. Since a print’s state does not provide certainty about its printing date, researchers study the paper to glean more information.  

A paper’s watermark can sometimes determine its origin. Watermarks are symbols found in paper that represent a specific paper mill. To create a watermark, paper makers start with a paper mold made of a wire grid and wooden frame. Then they create a unique wire design and sew it into the mold. The mold would then be submerged in a vat of diluted fibrous pulp. When lifted, water would drain and leave a layer of pulp. Wires from the mold have the thinnest coating of pulp and create thin impressions in the paper. Upon first glance, wire marks are not visible until a light is shone through the paper.  

Out of the 42 Rembrandt prints in the DMA’s collection, I identified 12 watermarks. There are around 50 various watermarks plus their variants or subvariants found in Rembrandt’s prints that are catalogued in Erik Hinterding’s Rembrandt as an Etcher. While it was relatively easy to identify the type of watermarks found in the DMA’s collection, determining their variants and subvariants proved to be more difficult. 

Student at a Table by Candlelight has a Pro Patria watermark, which indicates the print is posthumous because Pro Patria watermarks date to the start of the 18th century (Fig. 1). Hinterding does not list Student at a Table by Candlelight on Pro Patria paper, making the DMA’s print the first known impression of this print to be found on this paper.  

^{Figure 1 Student at a Table by Candlelight, about 1642. Rembrandt van Rijn. Etching. Dallas Museum of Art, bequest of Rozwell Sam Adams in memory of Herndon Kimball Adams and Loither Iler Adams, 2001.18. Photo taken of verso by Kevin Huston, 2025.} 

The Rising of Lazarus: The Larger Plate has a Basilisk watermark. The Rising of Lazarus sometimes appears on Basilisk B.c., but based on the illustrations below, I determined that the DMA’s impression is Basilisk B.d. (Fig. 2, 3, and 4, respectively). This Basilisk likely confirms that this impression is a lifetime print. 

^{Figure 2 
The Rising of Lazarus: The Larger Plate, about 1632. Rembrandt van Rijn. Etching and engraving. Dallas Museum of Art, anonymous gift, 1990.102. Photo taken and edited by Kevin Huston, 2025.} 

^{Figure 3 
Basilisk B.c. watermark. Image via Watermark Project, Erik Hinterding, Rembrandt as an Etcher, 2006, II, 69.} 

_{Figure 4 
Basilisk B.d. watermark. Image via Watermark Project, Sound and Vision Publishers BV.} 

^{Figure 5 Bearded Man, in a Furred Oriental Cap and Robe, 1631. Rembrandt van Rijn. Etching and engraving. Dallas Museum of Art, bequest of Calvin J. Holmes, 1971.85. Photo taken by Kevin Huston, 2025.} 

For this last print, Bearded Man, in a Furred Oriental Cap and Robe, I had to get creative (Fig. 5). I knew it was a Foolscap with Five-Pointed Collar, but I was stuck between variants K.e.a. and K.f.a. I digitally traced over the DMA’s watermark and overlaid it with examples of K.e.a. and K.f.a. (Fig. 6, 7, and 8, respectively). I determined our print was variant K.f.a. by the crooked middle point. However, since K.e.a. and K.f.a. are so similar, it is possible that they are twinmarks, meaning one design was created for two separate molds. 

My time cataloguing these prints has deepened my appreciation for the scholars and curators who dedicate their careers to researching artists such as Rembrandt. I am very grateful for this internship and am looking forward to using my new cataloguing skills in the future. 

Kevin Huston was the IFPDA Foundation Summer Intern for Prints and Drawings at the Dallas Museum of Art. 

The DMA’s current exhibition Frida: Beyond the Myth/Más allá del mito, on view through February 23, 2025, gives us an exciting opportunity to see ancient Mesoamerican objects in a new light, as a modernizing Mexico might have seen them. More than just an artist, Frida Kahlo was a political revolutionary and a passionate Mexican nationalist—she famously claimed to be born when the Revolution began in 1910, although she was actually born in 1907. She was also a collector of Mexican antiquities along with her husband, Diego Rivera, a practice that informed her own art and gave her even more tools with which to shape her image and identity as a Mexican modernist. The DMA stewards around 475 ancient objects from the cultural region called Mesoamerica, which includes most of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of El Salvador and Honduras. Let’s take a closer look at three highlights from the DMA’s collection to explore Frida Kahlo’s relationship with Mexico’s ancient past. 

^{Seated Figure in Ritual Pose, 900–400 BCE. Olmec. San Martín Texmelucan, Puebla, Mexico. Serpentine and red pigment. Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mrs. Eugene McDermott, The Roberta Coke Camp Fund, and The Art Museum League Fund, 1983.50; Frida with Idol, 1939. Nickolas Muray. Photograph. © Nickolas Muray Photo Archives.} 

The first object, an Olmec figurine carved from a jade-like stone called serpentine, was created sometime between 900 and 400 BCE and found in the state of Puebla. He sits proudly with one arm around his right knee and looks back at us with an intensity that communicates his power. His intentionally elongated skull and the downturned, jaguar-like shape of his mouth also convey his elite status. The figurine pairs with a beautiful photograph by Nickolas Muray of Frida Kahlo posing with another greenstone Olmec figurine. Dressed in a huipil (a typical Mesoamerican blouse), Mexican silver, and an iconic floral updo, she holds the green figurine with reverence. The photograph was likely taken at the Casa Azul, Kahlo and Rivera’s home in Coyoacán, where Mexican antiquities abounded and are still on display today.  

^{Seated Warrior, 300 BCE–300 CE. Jalisco. Ceramic and pigment. Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Everett Rassiga, 1958.42; Sobreviviente (Survivor), 1938. Frida Kahlo. Oil on tinplate with original tinplate frame. Colección Pérez Simón, Mexico.} 

Next is a seated warrior figure from what is now the state of Jalisco. What may look like a barrel around his torso is an ancient form of armor, possibly made out of woven reeds and cotton to soften an enemy’s blow. This ceramic figure is from West Mexico, an archaeological region that was home to a constellation of different yet related cultures that reached their peak of art production between 300 BCE and 300 CE. Sculptures like this one are found in shaft tombs, a common form of burial in ancient West Mexico that allowed mourners to bury their ancestors deep in the ground below the foundations of their homes. Kahlo and Rivera had a major influence on the collection of ancient West Mexican sculpture. It was only in the 1930s, when the couple began to collect objects like these, that they gained fame and value on the antiquities market. Another West Mexican warrior can be seen in Kahlo’s 1938 Sobreviviente (Survivor), a painting you can see in Frida Kahlo: Beyond the Myth/Más allá del mito. To Kahlo, this figure (which was probably in her and Rivera’s collection) was a survivor of both the sands of time and the violence of colonialism. Perhaps it also inspired strength within her to survive her own hardships. 

^{Wall Panel Depicting Ix K’an Bolon (“Lady-Yellow-Nine”) in Ritual Dress, about 692 CE. Maya. Pomoná, Tabasco, Mexico. Limestone, stucco, and pigment. Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of Mr. and Mrs. James H. Clark, 1968.39.FA; Frida Kahlo with Cigarette and White Dress, Coyoacán, Mexico City, 1929. Guillermo Dávila. Photograph; gelatin silver print. Private collection.} 

The final ancient figure to be highlighted here is Ix K’an Bolon (“Lady-Yellow-Nine”), an ancient Maya queen who reigned alongside her husband at the site of Pomoná in what is now the state of Tabasco. On this carved monument, Ix K’an Bolon stands holding a large scepter with the head of K’awiil, a Maya god associated with lightning and divine rulership. She also wears an abundance of items made from carved jade, a stone that symbolizes not just the wealth of its owner but also the life and spirit of all things. Between her elaborate headdress, giant collar necklace, and beaded, net-like skirt, she likely wears around 25 pounds of jade. Heavy is the head that wears the crown!  

While Frida Kahlo did not interact as much with Maya culture as she did with Aztec or Zapotec traditions, she and Ix K’an Bolon share a practice of projecting strength and solidity through portraiture. Much like Kahlo’s painted self-portraits, photographs like Guillermo Dávila’s (pictured above) show us precisely the image of Kahlo that she wanted to project: a self-assured and influential woman, something divine to be reckoned with. Kahlo even wore necklaces of ancient jade beads in this photograph to tap into the same symbolic power that Ix K’an Bolon had wielded over a thousand years earlier. 

Mesoamerican peoples and the objects they created—like the DMA’s Olmec figurine, Jalisco warrior, and monument depicting Ix K’an Bolon—have constantly transformed in the last millennium. They’ve seen the rise and fall of civilizations, the Spanish invasion, and the formation of modern states. Frida Kahlo was an active participant and dissident in Mexico’s modernism, and in the process she created new chapters in the lives of antiquities like the ones she and Diego Rivera collected. Though this is just one of the many lenses through which to see Mesoamerican antiquities in the DMA’s galleries, Frida Kahlo: Beyond the Myth/Más allá del mito presents a unique opportunity to find striking connections between the ancient and the modern. 

Hayden Juroska is the 2024–2025 McDermott Intern for Indigenous American Art at the Dallas Museum of Art. 

Sofia Penny Curatorial Intern in the Asian art department at the Dallas Museum of Art

Tanaka Y?, Tsutsumimono (“Wrapped Item”), 2022. Glazed stoneware, 24 3/8 x 18 1/2 x 19 in. Dallas Museum of Art, Cecil and Ida Green Acquisition Fund, Susan Mead Contemporary Art Acquisition Fund, and Discretionary Decorative Arts Fund. 2023.71.

New to the Dallas Museum of Art collection, Tsutsumimono (“Wrapped Item”) by Tanaka Y? carries a deep history of the art of Japanese wrapping and connects viewers to its contemporary traditions. This ceramic glazed stoneware, measuring 24 3/8 x 18 1/2 x 19 inches, commands attention through Tanaka’s bold use of color. The work exudes a tangible presence, enhanced by the interplay of color and size. It contrasts weights—where a seemingly concealed object anchors against the light, fluid, and malleable imitation of fabric. The idea of fabric is communicated through the undulating forms that appear to ripple, roll, and curve, falling into the object, all working to conceal its form and essence from the viewer. The consistency of the clay further emphasizes the textile-like quality in its uniformity and texture. The sculpture captivates its audience as they navigate the work, allowing their imaginations to grapple with and attempt to unravel its mysterious nature.

Building on this interplay of material and illusion, contemporary third-generation Japanese ceramic artist Tanaka Y? creates clay objects resembling vessels wrapped in the traditional wrapping cloth, furoshiki. Furoshiki is a single fabric used to transport clothes, gifts, or other goods. Furoshiki enjoyed wide usage for over 1,200 years, continuing until the end of the Edo period (1615-1868 CE). The custom originates from the Nara period (710-784 CE), when it safeguarded the valuables of emperors. The oldest known wrapping cloth from the Nara period is preserved at the Shosoin, a wooden storage house at the Todaiji Temple in Nara. During the Heian period (794-1185 CE), furoshiki was used to wrap and carry clothes for the nobility. In the Muromachi period (1338-1573 CE), Shogun Ashikaga built a great steam bathhouse where noble guests used silk cloths with their family crests to keep their clothes separate while bathing. In the Edo period, public bathhouses (sento) became widespread, and furoshiki was used as a mat while undressing and as a wrapping cloth to carry clothes. The name furoshiki combines two words: “furo,” meaning “bath,” and “shiki,” meaning “to spread.” Before furoshiki became associated with public baths, people called it hirazutsumi, meaning “flat folded bundle.” Eventually, furoshiki became essential for merchants to transport their goods and served a functional role for the working class during the Edo period. Initially used to carry clothes, furoshiki evolved to wrap almost anything, symbolizing respect for others on gift-giving occasions and imbuing special meanings to the wrapping materials and the wrapped goods. Modern furoshiki are made from various materials, including silk, cotton, and synthetic fibers, with designs varying depending on their use. The most commonly used furoshiki are squares measuring 27 3/5 or 35 2/5 inches wide. While many people regard furoshikias unique to Japanese culture, similar traditions exist in other countries, such as Korea, where a patchwork wrapping cloth called bojagi has been utilized for centuries.

Modern furoshiki, Photo by Katorisi, 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furoshiki#/media/File:Traditional_Japanese_wrapping_cloth,huroshiki,katori-city,japan.JPG

Furoshiki is a versatile medium for utility and personal expression and a sustainable alternative to plastic waste. After World War II, its usage declined with the rise of plastic shopping bags. However, with growing environmental awareness, furoshiki has regained popularity—compact when folded and reusable, furoshiki is an eco-friendly and convenient wrapping cloth. In 2006, Japanese Minister of the Environment Yuriko Koike introduced the Mottainai Furoshiki campaign, which loosely translates as “use a furoshiki to avoid waste,” to promote its use. Its adoption is believed to help reduce household waste from plastic bags.

The furoshiki can transform into whatever the user needs it to be. Just as the fabric can be wrapped and used in countless ways, Tanaka reflects the versatility by appearing to conceal the objects within this work, Tsutsumimono, even though the sculpture is empty inside. This deliberate concealment encourages viewers to use their imagination and speculate about what might lie hidden beneath the fabric. The artist elevates an everyday object often overlooked. Tanaka centralizes the furoshiki in her work, blurring the distinction between object and vessel. The furoshikielevates whatever it envelops, prompting consideration of its fabric and traditional significance as art in its own right. Examining the deliberate folds and Tanaka’s signature knot that sinks into the object draws one into a vision of the physical process of how the object was folded. If one knows how, almost anything can be wrapped in furoshiki, regardless of size or shape, with ingenuity and the proper folding technique. Each stage, from crafting the fabric to folding it over the object and transporting it to its destination, embodies elements of artistry and performance. With this work Tanaka brings attention to the often overlooked details. The furoshiki aligns perfectly with the Japanese cultural tradition of meticulously wrapping even the most seemingly insignificant objects, a practice that continues to thrive in Japan today.

Still from Interiors: Mysteries in Clay by Tanaka Yu, 3:25 minutes. https://www.mirviss.com/artists/tanaka-yu

While Tsutsumimono may appear slab-built, Tanaka coil-builds her forms using Shigaraki-blended clay. This method provides superior porosity and plasticity, granting her greater artistic freedom. Additionally, Shigaraki clay further infuses her work with historical depth. Shigaraki, one of Japan’s Six Ancient Kilns, is among the oldest pottery-producing regions in the country. Located at a crossroads for transportation between Nara, Yamashiro in the central Kinai region, and the Tokai region (Nagoya area), Shigaraki has continuously produced pottery from the 13th century to the present. Throughout its 800-year-old tradition, Shigaraki has primarily focused on creating utilitarian vessels. While the forms have evolved and glazes have become increasingly refined, most Shigaraki products share a common characteristic: they are large, sturdy containers meant for storage or other practical functions. Shigaraki clay underscores a continuity with the past, creating a dialogue between traditional and contemporary Japanese art. By incorporating this clay into her art, Tanaka creates an intersection of utility and beauty, compelling attention to everyday materials.

The artist’s choice to use turmeric yellow is steeped in historical significance. In Japan, people have traditionally used ukon-nuno (turmeric cloth) to wrap antique crafts because they believe turmeric repels worms and insects. Tanaka uses this same deep yellow hue to wrap her ceramic work, paying homage to the tradition. For surface treatment, Tanaka smooths the surfaces with a sponge and then applies a thin layer of clay slip using either a brush or airbrush. To achieve its distinctive deep yellow color, she applies two coats of pigment before the initial firing, repeating this process up to four times until reaching the desired hue.

She cleverly manipulates and folds her clay to imitate a textile, creating her representation of furoshiki. By doing so, she mimics the traditional process of wrapping a furoshiki around an object, blending clay sculpting techniques with the art of fabric folding. This approach combines two histories of techniques while paying homage to the cultural significance of furoshiki.

Tanaka’s works are celebrated both within Japan and internationally. They have been exhibited in several institutions and museums, garnering significant accolades for a relatively young artist in the Japanese ceramic industry. As a Kyoto Saga University of Arts student, where she earned a B.F.A. in ceramics,Tanaka initially studied oil painting but soon switched to ceramics because she enjoyed the physical demands of working with clay. She then went on to earn an M.F.A. in ceramics from Kyoto City University of Arts. Tanaka currently lives and works in Kyoto.

It is essential to recognize the broader context of the Japanese ceramic field, which has historically been dominated by men. Like many other arts and crafts in Japan, the ceramics field was often passed down through male lineage within families. Men typically held the prestigious positions of master ceramists and were the primary figures recognized for their contributions to the art form. However, the landscape has been changing, particularly since the mid-20th century. Women have increasingly entered the field, gaining recognition and acclaim for their work. Despite ongoing challenges related to gender roles and societal expectations, female ceramists have made significant contributions and continue pushing the medium’s boundaries. Notable contemporary female ceramists, such as Tanaka Y?, reflect this shift and women’s growing presence and influence in the Japanese ceramic art field.

Tsutsumimono not only honors the rich history and cultural significance of furoshiki but also reimagines it through the medium of clay. Tanaka’s innovative approach and artistic craftsmanship bridge traditional Japanese practices with contemporary art, inviting viewers to engage with the work on multiple levels. As environmental consciousness grows, the revival offuroshiki underscores the importance of sustainable practices, making Tanaka’s creations both a nod to the past and a beacon for the future. Tsutsumimono is currently on view in the Japan gallery on the Level 3. Visit the Dallas Museum of Art to experience this remarkable artwork for yourself!

Sean Earley (1953–1992) was born in New Orleans and raised in Hurst, Texas. After studying at the University of Texas at Arlington and exhibiting in Dallas at galleries such as 500X, he moved to New York to pursue painting, making a living as an illustrator on the side. Earley went on to attain a residency at the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara, Italy, and gallery representation at Bridgewater Gallery, rising to relative success in his budding career through numerous group and solo shows. However, these professional achievements were followed by an HIV and consequential AIDS diagnosis, pushing Earley to amass his legacy through painting for the remainder of his life. He moved back to Texas in his final years to be near family and fell in love with his home state, creating artwork that focused on Texas iconography and narratives. Being a queer artist himself, Earley also assisted in the DMA’s first Day Without Art, a nationwide day of mourning and activism for the AIDS crisis in 1989. He died three years later, in June 1992, due to complications from AIDS. 

Earley’s work employs a distinctly medieval sense of depth and composition, stacking people against one another as their elongated, flat bodies and dreary faces set an uneasy pace. The medieval inspiration furthers the stagnant dread of his subjects in both historical associations and scenery. Intentionally combining postmodern ideation with an ever-present archaic angst, Earley’s subjects embody modern mundanity and other timeliness simultaneously. 

The Rapture reflects Earley’s deep sense of unnerving detail as people ascend into the heavens from tasks left unattended at particularly inconvenient times. Scenes such as people mid-drive in downtown Dallas alongside a dog being dragged up by its leash from its owner’s enrapturement mix discomfort into closure. The consequences of the rapture, a Christian end-time belief in which God will raise his believers into heaven, are as uniquely curious as they are unsettling. As someone who spent the majority of his life during the Cold War, Earley developed a fascination with the motionless angst of the time and the looming threat of nuclear war during an otherwise calm postwar American dream. Earley found what he called a “distant kinship” with medieval art, which was made by men caught in a similar perpetual fear, even if for different reasons. This is profoundly evident in The Rapture as Dallas residents move upward in the final moments of Earth, leaving behind their mortal lives in a vibrant yet devastating display. 

Situated in downtown Dallas’s converging highways, these enraptured Dallas residents above Dealey Plaza underscore an infamous part of the city’s history: the JFK assassination. Earley parallels the shock and fear of this historical event with the angst-ridden mundanity of postwar American life that was so prevalent for the Baby Boomer generation. The angst, melded into departures and closures, endings and beginnings, is met in equal part by Sean Earley’s uncanny sense of humor and playfulness. A vibrant, orderly Dallas is pulled at by its threads with a certain absurdity—as seen in a woman crashing through the ceiling of a building, the petrified and expressionless ascension of each person, and even the vibrant retrofuturistic cars—preluding a future not too far from the painting’s creation in 1982. Earley depicts the everyday fears of American life—and Dallas life, in particular—in a melting pot of emotions from all corners of suburbia using an unseen higher hand, and, to some extent, he plays God as he whisks his subjects upward across the wooden panel. 

Julia Garrett is the 2023–2024 McDermott Intern for Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art. 

Image: Sean Earley, The Rapture, 1982. Oil on wood, 49 3/4 × 49 1/4 × 1 1/2 in. (126.37 × 125.1 × 3.81 cm), Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Paul Bridgewater, 2022.90.5. © Estate of Sean Earley.