Archive Page 43

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »

Membership Miles

Published September 2, 2011 Members Closed
Tags: , ,

At the Dallas Museum of Art we are often asked, “Why should I join?” A membership allows you to enjoy all that the Museum has to offer all year long, while supporting your local arts. There are many reasons to be a member at the DMA, and one of the exciting perks this year will be tickets to the upcoming exhibition The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk.

Because it’s hard for us to pick our favorites, we invited a few members to share their thoughts on what makes being a DMA member special. Do you see your favorite listed below? If not, we would love to hear from you!

• Free admission
• Supporting the Museum’s collection
• “It’s a place that I can take my grandson to; it’s fun for both of us.”—Shari, member since 2006
• Free lectures
• “The discounts to Arts & Letters Live. We loved David Sedaris.”—Kenneth,  member since 1996
• “Free parking and access to jazz programs”—Stockton, member since 2009
• Discounts in the Museum Store and on dining (the store discount is most popular with children under 10, who can always find something they can’t leave without)
• Reciprocal membership to over 500 museums
• Subscription to the Dallas Museum of Art Magazine
• “I know about things before they happen and stay in tune with new things in Dallas”—Liz, member since 2008

Wendi Kavanaugh is the Membership Outreach Manager at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Creativity: My first encounters and my first discoveries

Published August 31, 2011 Artist Encounters , Center for Creative Connections , Thursday Night Live Closed
Tags: , ,

Magdalena Grohman leading a class in the Center for Creative Connections

Magdalena Grohman is a creativity expert who spends the occasional Thursday evening at the DMA helping inspire visitors participating in Thursday Night Live’s Artistic Encounters. But how did Magdalena discover her own creativity? She shared that journey with us below.

I received one of my very first lessons about creativity in elementary school. I was made to believe that creativity was only for those artistically or musically talented. You were born with it or you were not. I did not possess these talents, but at the same time I enjoyed writing in my diary, sketching (especially different layouts and arrangements for my dream room), creating collages, and so on. But that wasn’t considered creative. Only art, only music, and only if you were naturally talented.

The cracks in this belief system started to appear in high school when I met students and teachers who encouraged creative expression through other domains such as dance, movement, and theater. Suddenly, I realized I could express myself, share my state of mind, tell a story, and provoke others to think in new, creative ways. The true breakthrough came when a group of professors from Jagiellonian University in Krakow came to my high school to lead a workshop that taught creative thinking. With the workshops came a new wave of thinking about creativity and my first and foremost discovery about it: creativity was in everyone and could be enhanced.

This meant you could be CREATIVE in any number of ways, be it telling stories, designing birthday cards, finding new ways to teach, writing a song, formulating hypotheses, communicating diagnosis . . . the list goes on. This also meant that you could nurture creative potential at any stage in life. “But,” the professors warned, “You need to put some work into it.” What they meant was that creativity could be honed and developed by shaping core attitudes about creativity such as open-mindedness, self-discipline, and perseverance.

So, the first step to increase your creative potential is to liberate yourself from any belief system that is detrimental to creativity. The second step is to nurture positive attitudes toward creativity. These include (according to creativity researchers and educators) sticking to your creative endeavor no matter what and being open-minded, observant, curious, and self-disciplined. With this in mind, you will see that the next steps are much, much easier.

Take the next step tomorrow night when Magdalena will lead Thursday Night Live Artistic Encounters: Think Creatively with Tom Cox and Peter Goldstein at 6:30 p.m. in the Center for Creative Connections.

Shelagh Jessop is the Center for Creative Connections Coordinator at the Dallas Museum of Art

Connect: Teachers, Technology, and Art

Published August 24, 2011 Collections , Education Closed
Tags: , ,

In September, the DMA will wrap up a two-year project called Connect: Teachers, Technology, and Art that focuses on the redesign and enhancement of web-based teaching materials available to K-12 educators on the DMA website. The end result of this project, which has been made possible by a generous grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), will be a dynamic new model for the internal development and external presentation of online teaching materials.

There are thirty units in total on the DMA’s teaching resources website, exploring every genre of art in our expansive collection. Over the past two years, DMA staff have been working specifically on redesigning units for African and South Asian art.

Vishnu as Varaha, India, Madhya Pradesh, 10th century, sandstone, gift of David T. Owsley via the Alvin and Lucy Owsley Foundation and the Alconda-Owsley Foundation, E. E. Fogelson and Greer Garson Fogelson Fund, General Acquisitions Fund, Wendover Fund, and gift of Alta Brenner in memory of her daughter Andrea Bernice Brenner-McMullen, 2002.25

The completed project will present over sixty artworks from the collection. Teachers will have the option to sort artworks according to religion, geography, time period, themes, and other categories.

Here’s what our teaching resource website looked like before:

 And here’s the template that will launch this fall:

We are very excited to launch this new content next month, and are extraordinary thankful for the many teachers in our community who have helped informed our work along the way. This grant truly has allowed us to transform the way we communicate with and educate our audiences.

For more information, check out our sister blog for educators.

Anne Palamara is Director of Foundation and Government Relations at the Dallas Museum of Art

Joyeux Anniversaire Coco Chanel

Published August 8, 2011 Collections Closed
Tags: , , ,

You may know that one of the most popular areas of the Museum is the Reves Collection, housed on our third level in a partial re-creation of the Villa La Pausa, the home of Wendy and Emery Reves in the south of France.

But what you may not know is that La Pausa was formerly owned by the designer Coco Chanel and was originally built for her in 1927. Wendy and Emery Reves bought it in the early fifties, and for almost eighty years the villa welcomed high-profile guests such as the Duke of Westminster, Luchino Visconti, Jean Cocteau, Greta Garbo, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Somerset Maugham, and Graham Sutherland.

In honor of Chanel’s birthday on Friday (she would have been 128), we gathered a few photos to share of Chanel’s life at La Pausa.

Coco Chanel at La Pausa, 1938

Coco Chanel (in front of window) in the dining room at La Pausa, 1938

The La Pausa dining room in the Reves Collection

Staff Profile: In the Sound Booth

Published August 3, 2011 Behind-the-Scenes , Staff Closed
Tags: , , , , ,

Uncrated tracked down Corbett Sparks, one of the DMA’s multimedia technicians, to talk about his job at the Museum. Corbett can frequently be spotted behind the sound board during Thursday Night Live and Late Nights in the Atrium and is also the “great Oz” in the Horchow Auditorium control booth.

Describe your job in fifty words or less.
I am a multimedia technician, which means I take care of any audio/video needs that come up at the Museum. I am also in charge of editing and cataloguing all recorded audio.

What might an average day entail?
I really don’t have average days—I don’t even have a regular schedule! The only consistent part of my week is Thursday night, where I run sound for jazz (Thursday Night Live). I also take care of all the atrium performances for Late Nights on the third Friday of every month. Other days I might be setting up a laptop and projector for a meeting or running the sound and light boards for a lecture in the Horchow Auditorium.

How would you describe the best part of your job and its biggest challenges?
Meeting the artists and performers that come through here and making sure their lecture/show goes off the way they want is my favorite part of this job. I am a people-pleaser and enjoy exceeding their expectations. My biggest challenge might be dealing with all the people that get me confused with the other tech, JD. We kind of look alike.

Growing up, what type of career did you envision yourself in? Did you think you’d work in an art museum?
I always knew I would work in a creative field. When I was younger, I wanted to either be a fine artist or movie director. That being said, I still don’t know if I am grown up yet.

What is your favorite work in the Museum’s collections?
Bill Viola’s, The Crossing. He was an early inspiration for me as an artist. My first introduction to his work was actually at the DMA. That piece was called The Sleep of Reason:

“A black-and-white monitor on a wooden chest shows a close-up view of a person sleeping. At random intervals, the lights cut out and the room is plunged into total darkness. Large color moving images momentarily appear on three walls and a loud disturbing sound of moaning and roaring fills the space — fires burn out of control through city buildings, fierce attack dogs lunge at the camera, violent ocean waves crash into shore, a provoked owl flies into a bright light. Just as suddenly, the images vanish, the lights come back on, and the room returns to normal.”

This piece opened my high school eyes to what art could be—not just paintings and sculpture, but concepts and the use of technology to get those ideas across.

Is there a past exhibition that stands out in your mind as a favorite, or is there a particular upcoming show you’re looking forward to seeing?
I really enjoyed Fast Forward. I am also definitely looking forward to the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition. I am intrigued by the use of the “Tony Ousler”-ish  projections on the mannequins and the general atmosphere surrounding them. Looks like fun!

Remembering Nancy Hamon

Published August 1, 2011 Dallas , DFW Closed
Tags: ,

Nancy Hamon was an extraordinary benefactor of our city’s most important cultural and educational institutions, and she was a beloved member of our Dallas Museum of Art family for more than 50 years. Her support touched all aspects of the Museum and helped the DMA grow into the institution of international prominence that it is today. Her legacy lives on, in particular, through the DMA’s Hamon Building, which contributes greatly to the life and personality of our Museum and the City. Nancy’s “joie de vivre,” style, and panache defined her life and her tremendous philanthropy.

Nancy Hamon and Dallas Mayor Annette Strauss use special shovels to break ground in 1991 for the Museum’s new Nancy and Jake L. Hamon Building. Standing by are Chairman Irvin Levy and Dr. John W, Tatum, Sr., pastor of the St. Paul United Methodist Church, who gave a blessing on the occasion.

Two for the Road

Published July 8, 2011 Behind-the-Scenes , Collections , Curatorial , DFW , European Art , Guest Blog Post 4 Comments
Tags: , , , , , ,

Uncrated recently took a “field trip” to Fort Worth to visit the Kimbell Art Museum’s  presentation of Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910–1912, for which the DMA loaned its 1912 Braque painting Still Life with Bottles and Glasses. Before the exhibition opened, the Kimbell’s director of conservation, Claire Barry, took a look at our “gem of a painting” and offered us this guest post on the experience.

Georges Braque, "Still Life with Bottles and Glasses", 1912, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., given in honor of Deedie Rose and J. E. R. Chilton

X-ray of George Braque's "Still Life with Bottles and Glasses"

I was delighted to have the opportunity to examine Braque’s Still Life with Bottles and Glasses from the DMA in the Kimbell conservation studio. Fortunately, this gem of a painting is unlined, which is rare for a cubist painting from this period. As a result, the impastoed (thickly textured) surface has never been flattened through lining. As one of my teachers wisely advised, think about a painting as a sculpture in low relief. If you look at the Braque in this way, you quickly begin to appreciate the rich variety in the artist’s application of paint—from thin areas where the paint is more fluid to thicker areas of impasto where he applied paint with a heavily loaded brush. Then, in the upper left, you might notice that the paint has a crusty texture that seems totally unrelated to the composition. With the permission of the DMA curators, I x-rayed the painting, which quickly revealed that Braque completely reworked the composition of Still Life with Bottles and Glasses during the course of painting. The texture of the underlying paint layers, later covered over, can still be seen on the surface. I was fascinated to discover this, because between Picasso and Braque, I always believed that Picasso had a greater tendency to radically rework his paintings (as he did with the Kimbell’s Man with a Pipe). Braque painted the Kimbell’s Girl with a Cross without making a single revision.

Pablo Picasso, Man with a Pipe, 1911, oil on canvas, Kimbell Art Museum. Photo © MegaVision. © 2011 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Georges Braque, Girl with a Cross, 1911, oil on canvas, Kimbell Art Museum. Photo © MegaVision. © 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

I was fortunate to be able to examine the two Braques, the DMA’s and the Kimbell’s, side by side in the conservation studio. Like the DMA painting, the Kimbell’s Girl with a Cross is unlined and preserved in pristine condition. In fact, it has never been varnished and retains the matte surface that the cubists intended. Both Picasso and Braque were adamant that their paintings should never be varnished. The DMA’s Braque, however, had been varnished at some point, and the varnish layer imparted a glossier surface than Braque had in mind. The unifying effect of the varnish also masked the subtle differences in surface gloss and texture that Braque created. In preparation for the exhibition, the DMA gave me permission to remove the varnish layer from Still Life with Bottles and Glasses. The fact that visitors to the exhibition can now see two unlined, unvarnished cubist paintings by Braque is really something exceptional. When you see the surfaces of these paintings, you can feel confident that this is very close to how they appeared when they left Braque’s easel some one hundred years ago.

Braque’s Still Life with Bottles and Glasses (1912) was sent to the Kimbell for spectral-image photography during the early stages of planning the exhibition Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910–1912. These photographs are among the many incredible high-resolution digital images that can be explored with the iPad application iCubist in the Kimbell exhibition. If you want to experience the details in cubist paintings, brushstroke for brushstroke (the way I examine paintings in my job as a paintings conservator), I really recommend that you check out the iPads at the Kimbell. To my knowledge, this is the first time such images have been made available to the public in such an interactive way in a museum exhibition. The goal is to enrich the experience of seeing the real paintings, for which there is absolutely no substitute. My hope is that the iPad application may encourage visitors to spend even more time in the exhibition. Unlike the Acoustiguide, you cannot look at a painting and the iPad app simultaneously. So perhaps this will encourage visitors to look at the paintings first, then explore the iPad, and then return to the paintings for a second look, with greater understanding and appreciation.

Guest blogger Claire Barry is the director of conservation at the Kimbell Art Museum.

The Dallas Museum of Art offers Dallas kids’ activities

Published July 7, 2011 Acess Programs , Art Beyond Sight , Education , First Tuesday , Late Nights Closed
Tags: ,

The Dallas Museum of Art is a wonderful place for families to share experiences together and offers more than 700 programs for children and their families every year.  From a 2-year-old visiting the museum for the first time, or a 75-year-old showing his grandkids his favorite work of art, to a visitor with autism learning that she too can appreciate the Museum – we have something for everyone at the DMA. And if you’re under 12, you can always visit the Museum for Free! Watch the video below to see all of the different ways you can experience the DMA as a family.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n3KF_5eN1U?hl=en&fs=1]

Living the Dream

Published July 6, 2011 Behind-the-Scenes , Staff 1 Comment
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Uncrated tracked down the DMA’s Chair of Collections and Exhibitions, Tamara Wootton-Bonner, to talk about her job at the Museum. Tamara has the large responsibility of overseeing the Museum’s exhibitions, publications, collections, libraries, archives, and digital imaging departments, and as you will read below, she knew early on that she wanted to work in a museum.


Describe your job in fifty words or less.
I’m the Chair of Collections and Exhibitions and I oversee the exhibitions, publications, collections management, libraries, archives, and digital imaging departments. My main job is to make sure that our exhibitions, publications, and other key projects happen successfully (and are on time and within budget) and to keep everyone happy.

What might an average day entail?
Meetings and e-mails! Besides that, I have to take on a variety of roles: in a single day I might have to be a cheerleader, mom, taskmaster, accountant, lawyer, writer, editor, project manager, critic, negotiator, facilitator, logistician, bad guy, and, if I’m lucky, I get to look at art. The greatest days are working with designers and artists . . . on exhibitions, publications, building projects, etc. But I also have fun managing budgets, negotiating contracts, solving problems, and planning for the future.

How would you describe the best part of your job and its biggest challenges?
The best part of my job is working with lots of wonderful, creative people. It’s exciting to see ideas come to life and to know that you’ve been a part of it—whether it’s an exhibition, a publication, or something else. I love to watch an exhibition come together or smell a new book hot off the press.

The biggest challenge can be trying to do too much with too little. We are an ambitious bunch around here and almost everyone is a perfectionist.

Growing up, what type of career did you envision yourself in? Did you think you’d work in an art museum?
As a child I wanted to be an artist. I used to draw and paint all the time. But by the time I graduated from high school I knew I wanted to work in a museum. I started as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and now . . . here I am.

What is your favorite work in the Museum’s collection?
I have several—Franz Kline’s Slate Cross, the Indonesian tau tau, and the Olmec jade mask are among my absolute favorites. But it changes every day. Tatsuo Miyajima’s Counter Ground and the James Lee Byars works in the Silence and Time exhibition, on view now, are amazing.

Is there a past exhibition that stands out in your mind as a favorite, or is there a particular upcoming show you’re looking forward to seeing?
That’s easy—The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier! It’s going to be phenomenal. We’ve never done a fashion exhibition, so it’s going to be a challenge. But it’s going to be an exciting challenge.

Dallas Museum of Art Points of Access

Published July 1, 2011 Acess Programs , Education Closed
Tags: , ,

Through Access Programs at the Dallas Museum of Art, visitors of all ages with special needs and their families can experience the Museum and spend time together. For instance, we host Art Beyond Sight programs in October that celebrate visual awareness, and four times a year we have Autism Awareness Family Celebrations.

Meaningful Moments is a monthly program at the DMA designed for someone with Alzheimer’s disease and a care partner–a devoted wife bringing her husband, a loving daughter attending with her mother, or an admiring husband bringing his wife, like John Rath, who brings his wife, Sue.

John and Sue attend the DMA program every month, including last week’s Storytelling in Art Meaningful Moments event. At every visit, they enjoy the gallery discussion and the opportunity to reminisce and share stories about their lives. Sue had a career with Susan Crane Packaging, where she designed wrapping paper that was sold at many stores, including Neiman Marcus, and John worked for thirty-seven years at Texas Instruments. Sue collects pins (always wearing a different one when she visits the Museum) and loves taking care of her plants in a back porch greenroom that her handyman husband John built just for her.

When the program moves to the studio for art-making, Sue’s artistic abilities shine as she is usually one of the last to finish her work of art. Many couples create art together during the studio time, but John prefers to admire Sue’s creations while providing support and encouragement. Clearly best friends, John and Sue have a love for one another that many dream about having.

I have been lucky to get to know this wonderful couple during Meaningful Moments throughout the year, and here is a bit more insight into the lives of John and Sue:

John and Sue, what three words would you use to describe one another?
Sue is loving, considerate, and creative. John is kind, friendly, and multitalented.

John, you and Sue have known each other for a long time (since childhood!). Will you share some favorite moments that you have had together over the years?
Riding our bicycles to Confirmation class at church together, our first date (a Boy Scout Christmas party), our wedding day, and honeymoon. Living in a number of different states and countries, some of them more than once, when I was traveling on military/government contracts for Texas Instruments. The birth of our daughter and son and their development through the years; both were achievers and kept us extremely busy with their activities. Everywhere we have lived, we’ve enjoyed the people we met and have taken advantage of the–if I may borrow a phrase–meaningful moments that were available.

What types of things do the two of you enjoy doing together?
We enjoy the Meaningful Moments program at the Dallas Museum of Art; spending quality time with family, extended family, and friends; camping, fishing, and most outdoor activities; playing games (cards, dominoes, Yahtzee, etc., especially with grandchildren); and working on creative projects together.

Why do you attend the Meaningful Moments program?
The Meaningful Moments program is an excellent extension of the informational and learning opportunities we have always enjoyed and try to take advantage of when possible. We always look forward to the monthly programs.

Amanda Blake is Manager of Family Experiences and Access Programs at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Archives

Categories