Archive for August, 2015

The African Gallery, Through Time

With the newly renovated and reinstalled Arts of Africa Gallery set to open next month, it is an ideal time to take a look back at some previous installations of African art at the DMA.

African Gallery at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Fair Park, in 1972.

African Gallery at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Fair Park, in 1972.

African Gallery installation at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Fair Park, in 1978.

African Gallery at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Fair Park, in 1978.

African gallery at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Fair Park, in 1979.

African Gallery at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Fair Park, in 1979.

African gallery at the Dallas Museum of Art in 1989.

African Gallery at the Dallas Museum of Art, downtown, in 1989.

African gallery at the Dallas Museum of Art, in 1992.

African Gallery at the Dallas Museum of Art in 1992.

African gallery at the Dallas Museum of Art, in 1996. This image was taken after the big renovation and reinstallation of the third floor galleries, The Arts of Africa, Asian and the Pacific in 1996, that last major renovation of the African gallery.

African Gallery at the Dallas Museum of Art in 1996. This image was taken after the major renovation and reinstallation of the third floor galleries, The Arts of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, in 1996, the last major renovation of the African Gallery.

It is interesting to see how the installations have changed over time from dark-colored galleries, to white walls, and back to deeper colors, and from primarily cases of three-dimensional objects set in the walls to primarily vitrines so you can see all sides of the object.

Hillary Bober is the Archivist at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Friday Photos: Summer Progress

This summer, visitors to the Center for Creative Connections have participated in a communal drawing activity called Community at LARGE. Individual visitors enlarged one small portion of Progress Suite by Luis Jimenez and added their drawing to a large gridded wall, so that collectively they have created an enlarged reproduction of the original lithograph. Initially, it was exciting to watch as the blank wall slowly filled up with drawings and the image became recognizable. But now that each square has been drawn, the fun part has been watching as the drawing changes from day-to-day with the addition of new visitor contributions.

Here are a few short flipagrams of the evolution of my favorite squares.

 

 

 

Stop by the Center for Creative Connections during your next visit to the Dallas Museum of Art to make your own contribution to our communal drawing. Look for more photos of this project on Instagram and Twitter with #DMAlivingdrawing.

Jessica Fuentes
C3 Gallery Manager

Top Dog

Today Uncrated celebrates man’s best friend during National Dog Day. Below are some of our favorite pooches in the DMA’s collection. Visit these artistic canines in the Museum’s galleries, which are always included in the DMA’s free general admission, and see if you can spot a few other pups in works throughout the collection.

Nicolas Mignard, The Shepherd Faustulus Bringing Romulus and Remus to His Wife, 1654, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Algur H. Meadows and the Meadows Foundation, Incorporated 1970.25

Nicolas Mignard, The Shepherd Faustulus Bringing Romulus and Remus to His Wife, 1654, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Algur H. Meadows and the Meadows Foundation, Incorporated, 1970.25

Mythical aso (one of a pair), Kayan people, 19th century, wood (kayu tapang or Koompassia: Excelsa), Dallas Museum of Art, The Roberta Coke Camp Fund and the Museum League Purchase Fund 1995.34.2

Mythical aso (one of a pair), Malaysia, Borneo, Kayan people, 19th century, wood, Dallas Museum of Art, The Roberta Coke Camp Fund and the Museum League Purchase Fund, 1995.34.2

John White Alexander, Miss Dorothy Quincy Roosevelt (later Mrs. Langdon Geer), 1901-1902, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the Pauline Allen Gill Foundation in memory of Pauline Gill Sullivan 2007.36

John White Alexander, Miss Dorothy Quincy Roosevelt (later Mrs. Langdon Geer), 1901-02, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the Pauline Allen Gill Foundation in memory of Pauline Gill Sullivan, 2007.36

Ralph Earl, Captain John Pratt (1753-1824), 1792, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the Pauline Allen Gill Foundation 1990.146.1

Ralph Earl, Captain John Pratt, 1792, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the Pauline Allen Gill Foundation, 1990.146.1

Get this Family Gallery Guide, and others, online or on your next visit to the DMA.

Kimberly Daniell is the Manager of Communications and Public Affairs at the DMA.

 

All in the Family: A Community Partnership with the South Dallas Cultural Center

Families from the South Dallas Cultural Center are regulars here at the DMA. For six months out of the year, a small group come to the Museum every second Sunday of the month to explore and make artworks together. Below are images of our Museum adventures from this past group:

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In July, we capped off another wonderful year of our Second Sunday partnership with an exhibition of our creations at the South Dallas Cultural Center.

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Also on display at the Center was a street art project created in collaboration with a group of teens at the Center’s summer program.

Thank you, South Dallas families, for another wonderful partnership! We look forward to the creativity our next group will bring!

Amy Copeland
Manager of Go van Gogh and Community Teaching Programs

School’s in Session

School is back in session in DFW and at the DMA. You may have heard about the establishment of the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas last fall and the downtown campus at the DMA. Dr. Kimberly L. Jones, the DMA’s Ellen and Harry S. Parker III Assistant Curator of the Arts of the Americas, will lead one of the Institute’s first seminars this fall on Inca art inside the Museum galleries, and ahead of the completion of the construction of the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History’s space at the DMA. Check out the progress below on the the new downtown campus in the Museum’s building.

Kimberly Daniell is the Manager of Communications and Public Affairs at the DMA.

Friday Photos: Breaking Bread

Vincent Van Gogh, Sheaves of Wheat, July 1890, Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection

Vincent Van Gogh, Sheaves of Wheat, July 1890, Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection

Bread and butter is my go-to snack. So this summer, when I saw a Bread & Rolls class at El Centro’s Food & Hospitality Institute, I decided to take my museum educator hat off for a couple hours each week and jump into the world of bread-baking.

The course outline reminded me of walking through the DMA’s encyclopedic collection—we traveled the wide world of bread, from Indian Aloo Paratha to proper English crumpets, from French Gibassier to Chinese custard buns.

Classes began with measuring different combinations of flour, water, salt, and yeast. We watched ingredients form dough in the mixers (very satisfying), added flavorful mix-ins (when the recipe calls for garlic, always add a little more), and shaped dough into rolls and loaves of all sizes. We ooh-ed and ahh-ed over great-looking dough, hung out in front of ovens to watch the magic of oven spring, and along the way we (or at least I!) learned some life lessons, like: when your right arm is in a cast because you decided to have a clumsy life moment, you can still roll out dough like a boss. You just have to bug friends in your class to get your bread out of the oven for you later. ☺ (THANKS GUYS!)

Below are some of our delicious summer creations:

Glutenly,

Amy Copeland
Manager of Go van Gogh and Community Teaching Programs

Speakeasy Star

This Friday we’re traveling through the 20th century during Late Night with a different decade highlighted every hour. We asked one of our favorite costume gurus, Breanna Cooke (you may remember the amazing Greek Hero look she created inspired by The Body Beautiful), for tips on how to dress for a time traveling evening.

The evening kicks off with a tribute to the 1920s-30s, so here’s how you can make a flapper headband and then put together an outfit.

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What you’ll need for the headband:

  • Long piece of sequined elastic, or stretch fabric, or other headband
  • Craft foam or a large button
  • Hot glue
  • Duct tape (optional)
  • Feathers
  • Bits of lace, ribbon, fringe
  • Rhinestones, buttons, brooches, or even pieces from broken earrings

3

  1. Make a headband
    Measure a piece of elastic or fabric to fit around your head. Then use hot glue, tape, or needle and thread to attach the ends together. If you’re taping or gluing it together, overlap the two ends. Don’t worry about the seam—you’ll glue your embellishment on top of it.

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  1. Make an embellishment
    Using a small circle of craft foam (or a large button) as a base, start gluing rhinestones, sequins, and buttons on top. Get creative and use what you have lying around at home. Then glue some feathers or fringe to the back of your craft foam base.

 

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  1. Put it together
    Using hot glue, attach your embellishment to your headband. Be sure to stick it on top of the seam to hide it.

Ideas to complete the outfit

  • Gloves
  • Feather boa
  • Long string of pearls (Hint: Mardi Gras beads work great! If you don’t have the right color, just paint them with spray paint or acrylic paints)
  • Sleeveless dress
  • Black fishnet stockings

For the gentlemen
It’s still hot in Texas, but a suit is a great accompaniment to your flapper friends. Find a bow tie, grab your fedora, shine your shoes, and we’ll see you at the DMA!

Once you have your costumes complete, come kick up your heels with the Matt Tolentino Band, who will be performing songs from the roaring 20s and 30s at 6:00 p.m. Check out the full night’s lineup online at DMA.org.

Breanna Cooke is a Graphic Designer, Costume Creator, and Body Painter living in Dallas. To see more of her work, visit breannacooke.com. Check out progress photos of her latest projects on Facebook.

Summing Up

Today’s post is coming to you from the beyond…

… beyond the internship, that is, as my last day as the McDermott Education Intern for Family and Access Teaching was this past Friday. While cleaning out my desk, wrapping up remaining projects, and getting those last few classes in, I had the opportunity to take stock of everything that went into the 49.5 weeks I spent at the Museum. Of course, what began as idle curiosity (I wonder how many Arturo Letters I’ve actually answered…) became a challenge to see if I could do the math on the past year. Here’s what I have:

  • 200+ Arturo Letters received without an address to respond to
  • 150+ classes co-taught
  • 50+ art projects tested
  • 31 parent handouts designed
  • 20 gallery activity sheets created
  • 12 books checked out from (and returned to) the Mayer Library
  • 10 school tours given
  • 10 blog posts written (including this one and one on the DMA Uncrated blog)
  • 7 fellow McDermott Interns befriended
  • 1 fantastic replacement intern hired (watch out for Emily come September!) and
  • 1 FAST (Family, Access, Schools and Teachers) team that made all the difference

Though each statistic helped me grow (yes, even the 9,145 Family Guides), this list doesn’t come close to conveying the impact these 346 days spent as a McDermott Intern have had on me. At every turn, someone in the Museum was there with a smile or encouraging word. I got to know the museum of my childhood in an entirely new light. I learned as much from the audiences I worked with as they (hopefully) learned from me. I made true friends and recognized a career I have a real passion for. I also got very good at unjamming printers (yes, because of the 9,145 Family Guides).

To sum up my sentiments at the end of this blog post–and the end of my internship–I figure it’s only appropriate to add one final figure to my list:

  • 1,000,000 thank you’s, best wishes, and see you soon’s –

Jennifer Sheppard
2014-2015 McDermott Intern for Family and Access Teaching

Pint-Size Sous Chefs

During this month’s Art Babies, our mini museum-goers joined a hungry caterpillar at an imaginary dinner party to explore the sense of taste. Armed with their very own—Museum staff approved!—silver spoons, they goo-ed and gah-ed over the shiny silver serveware on Level 4. Their appetites primed with art, we then headed to the Art Studio, which was transformed into a smorgasbord of color, texture, and even flavor! Our petite Picassos used vibrant food puree “paint” to create their own masterpieces, taste-testing encouraged. Class ended with a colorful, baby-approved snack of blueberry carrot oat mini muffins, which you can try out at home:

Blueberry Carrot Oat Mini Muffins
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1 cup rolled oats
½ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
2 eggs, room temperature
½ cup sugar
6 oz vanilla Greek yogurt, room temperature
½ cup carrot puree
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 375° F.

Line mini muffin pan with paper liners or spray with non-stick cooking spray. In large mixing bowl, stir together oats, both flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In medium bowl, whisk eggs and sugar until pale and frothy. Add yogurt, carrot puree, vegetable oil, and vanilla, whisking until fully combined and smooth. Add carrot mixture to flour mixture and stir with rubber spatula until flour is mostly incorporated. Gently fold blueberries into batter with a few revolutions, just enough to incorporate remaining flour and distribute berries evenly throughout.

Divide batter into muffin cups, using a tablespoon scoop to fill them almost to the top. Bake about 10 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Note: A regular muffin pan can be used instead, increasing the baking time to 20 minutes.

Tickets for our fall classes go on sale September 3—we hope to see you then!

Sarah Coffey is the Education Coordinator at the DMA.

Our Portal Into Publishing

View from Macmillan Children's Publishing Group located in the famous Flatiron Bldg

View from Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group located in the famous Flatiron Building

The annual DMA Arts & Letters Live planning trip to New York provides the foundation for each season of the DMA’s literary and performing arts series. During more than 30 meetings in five days at the end of July, Carolyn Bess and I learned which authors are generating a lot of buzz for their new books, and who will be on tour during our 25th anniversary season. These meetings provide a portal into the publishing world not yet revealed to the media or to the public. Here begins the dialogue regarding the authors and books publishers want to catapult into public conversation. We share statistics and successes from our recent events as we attempt to woo such “wish list” writers as Donna Tartt, Bill Bryson, and Nick Hornby. Authors often tour to a predetermined number of cities and only for a short time following their book release date, so there can be significant competition when it comes to securing them for Arts & Letters Live. We seek to balance the type of books, speakers, and performances we feature in each season to construct a mix of literary and historical fiction, poetry, memoir, nonfiction, pop culture, and emerging authors.

Though our meeting schedule certainly kept us busy, we managed to squeeze a few excellent cultural outings into our visit. The Tony Award-winning Broadway musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s acclaimed illustrated memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic was excellent and would fit nicely into our Artful Musings category (if only Alison weren’t in such high demand these days!). We enjoyed seeing Gerald Murphy’s Cocktail on view in the glorious new Renzo Piano building of the Whitney Museum of American Art as we look forward to hosting Liza Klaussmann tomorrow night at the DMA for her new fictional account of Sara and Gerald Murphy in Villa America. On a Friday evening visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we joined the Museum Hack tour for what their brochure terms “a highly interactive, subversive, fun, non-traditional museum tour.” Their strategy did not disappoint. During our three-hour tour, we learned obscure and whimsical tidbits about a select number of pieces in the Met’s collection and wandered the galleries after hours, inciting childhood fantasies of spending the night in the Met like Claudia in E. L. Konigsburg’s iconic novel, The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

One of the things that impressed me most during these meetings was the number of times publishers commented on the excellent reputation of the Dallas Museum of Art and Arts & Letters Live. After working on events with publicists all year via phone and e-mail, it is gratifying to meet with them in person and to hear how much they appreciate the quality of events that we host at the DMA. The professional relationships built and fostered during this New York trip are a key component to Arts & Letters Live’s success.

Michelle Witcher is the Program Manager, Arts & Letters Live, at the DMA.


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