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Trade before Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Published April 21, 2011 Art & Teaching , Museum Insight , People , Resources , works of art Closed
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Have you ever wondered how goods and services, such as spices, fabrics, and art, traveled from one part of the world to another before the use of planes, trains, and automobiles?  The Silk Road provides a great insight for understanding early trading among different countries. It is the most well-known trading route of ancient Chinese civilization that was used during the first millennium B.C.E through the middle of the second millennium C.E under the Han Dynasty. The Silk Road was a transcontinental network of land and sea trade routes that spread across Eurasia from the Mediterranean to China and Japan. Domesticated horses and cattle as well as marine vessels were used as transportation to carry such goods and services along these routes.

Dr. Anne Bromberg, The Cecil and Ida Green Curator of Ancient and Asian Art, organized The Silk Road, an installation which illustrates how this great route of trading developed.  This exhibition also describes the spread of religions from India to Central Asia during this time. One of the greatest benefits of the Silk Road that Dr. Bromberg wanted to emphasize was the spread of agriculture. Animals not only provided transportation, but they also provided food and a mechanism for cultivating crops.

                    

 Oxen and Cart, 2000-1800 B.C., Bronze
Dallas Museum of Art, Irvin L. and Meryl P. Levy Endowment Fund

A great deal of Near Eastern art similar to the Oxen and Cart traveled along the Silk Road. The Proto-Hittites were devoted to animals, which were vital to hunting and farming. Objects such as the Oxen and Cart were perhaps used as an offering to be left in a shrine, sacred caches or tomb. In addition,  the Oxen and Cart symbolizes the distinct moment when domesticated horses or cattle were first used as powered transportation on land.

The Silk Road provides a great opportunity to discuss with students the benefits and consequences of trading among different cultures. I’ve added a list of books and websites that will help you introduce the Silk Road to your students. These books and more can be found at the Dallas Public Library or the Museum’s Mayer Library.

Books:
Stories From The Silk Road by Cherry Gilchrist and Nilesh Mistry
The Silk Route: 7,000 Miles of History by John S. Major and Stephen Fieser
Mapping the Silk Road and Beyond by Kenneth Nebenzahl
Adventures on the Ancient Silk Road by Priscilla Galloway and Dawn Hunter
Silk Road: Monks, Warriors & Merchants by Luce Boulnois and Helen Loveday

Websites:
the Silk Road project:
http://www.silkroadproject.org/tabid/177/defaul.aspx

Silk Road Seattle:
http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/

Enjoy,
Karen A. Colbert
Teaching Programs Intern

Teen Docents: It's a Family Affair

Published April 12, 2011 Museum Insight , People 2 Comments
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This summer, we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the DMA Teen Docent program!  Over the course of the last ten years, we have noticed that a lot of our new applicants have older siblings who were also teen docents.  There are even a few teen docents whose moms are DMA docents during the school year.  I’m going to turn the spotlight on two teen docents who are sisters, and who also happen to be my cousins.  For us, the teen docent program really is a family affair.

Leah is currently a junior, and this will be her third summer as a teen docent. 

Leah, what was your best tour experience from last summer?
My best teen docent experience from last summer was a tour for a group of girls who were in second, third, and fourth grade.  They really got into the tour, and we had a great time talking, sketching, and playing games inspired by works of art in the galleries.

What are the benefits (in your opinion) of being a teen docent?
Being a teen docent, you get service hours in a fun way.  You get to talk with kids, teach them about art, and meet other teens who have the same interests as you. It is also a great way to build up confidence in leadership and public speaking, as there will never be anyone quite as opinionated as a group of 20 little kids…

Abby will be a freshman in the fall, and this will be her first summer as a teen docent.

Abby, why do you want to join the teen docent program?
I was inspired to become a teen docent after going on a tour of the DMA with Shannon.  I also want to serve the community by educating young children about art.  I want to keep art alive in this community.

What are you most looking forward to when you become a teen docent?
I am looking forward to talking with kids about artworks at the DMA. I also look forward to giving tours with my older sister. I enjoy art, so getting to instill the same love for art into young visitors will be very rewarding for me.

Abby, Shannon, and Leah--three Karols with a connection to the teen docent program

This will be my second year leading the teen docent program.  I’m so excited to reconnect with our great volunteers and to welcome a new class of docents to the program.  Teachers, if you have students (grades 9-12) who you think would make great teen docents, we would love for them to apply.  Please email me (SKarol@DallasMuseumofArt.org) to request an application.

Shannon Karol
Manager of Docent Programs and Gallery Teaching

Printmaking 101

Published April 7, 2011 Art & Teaching , Museum Insight , works of art Closed
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Printmaking has been around since the fifteenth century.  There are many types of printmaking processes, such as woodcuts, etchings, engravings, lithographs, and monotypes. The earliest print technique, the woodcut, was used to illustrate books. To make a woodcut, the artist carved a design from a piece of wood and inked the block. Ink would only stay on the areas of the block that were not carved. Eventually, artists looked for new ways to create images, which resulted in etchings and engravings.  

Etchings and engravings were favored by artists. To make either type of print, an image is drawn onto a metal plate with a v-shaped tool called a burin.  The plate is coated in an acid-resistant surface and ink is beaten into the incised lines with a tool called a dabber. Then, the plate is submerged in an acid bath, which opens up the lines and exposes the metal surface. The acid creates the depth of line by reacting with the areas of exposed metal. Afterwards, the plate go through a printing press. In the engraving process ink rests in the engraved lines and the plate is run through a press. Both prints allowed for greater flexibility with images and a variety of lines and tones in the final product. 

Advances in the print world saw the emergence of  lithographs and monotypes during the nineteenth century. Lithographs are a direct medium; the image is drawn on a flat stone with a greasy oil or crayon and run through a printing press. Monotypes have ink drawn onto a glass or copper plate and transferred to paper. Monotypes produce one image; printing another image results in deteriorated quality.

To help you better understand prints, I included some images of the printmaking process. I hope you enjoy seeing how they are created! If you would like to explore works on paper in the DMA’s galleries, prints by the following artists can be found in the collection: Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre Bonnard.

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Amy Wolf
Coordinator of Gallery Teaching

Playful Looking

Published March 8, 2011 Art & Teaching , Museum Insight , People , works of art Closed
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What if the goal in looking at an artwork during a gallery experience wasn’t to learn everything about the object, or to arrive at “right ideas” about its meaning? 

Interpretive Play, one of my favorite models of gallery teaching, is based on this idea.  During an Interpretive Play experience, groups of visitors are guided by educators to look closely and make observations, “playing” with various possible interpretations and ideas about the artwork. Educators summarize, repeat, and connect visitor observations, weaving information into the conversation only as it is relevant to the group’s responses.  The goal of the experience is to provide an opportunity for visitors to look, think, and wonder together, coming to a shared and unique understanding of the artwork.

Two of our wonderful interns, Jackie Lincoln, McDermott Education Intern for Family Experiences, and Haley Berkman, McDermott Curatorial Intern for Contemporary Art, led a gallery talk last Wednesday in the current Re-Seeing the Contemporary: Selected from the Collection based in Interpretive Play.   They had a large group of participants and facilitated some meaty, dynamic conversations.  Jackie, a frequent blogger on the We Art Family! The DMA Family blog has graciously agreed to share her insights about the gallery talk with us.

See Jackie’s comments below the slideshow of gallery photos and featured artworks.

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Haley and I are both planners by nature, so we spent a couple of weeks preparing for our gallery talk.  We tried to prepare for all scenarios, leaving nothing up to chance.

We started our discussion with the painting Portrait and a Dream by Jackson Pollock, thinking that visitors might feel more comfortable discussing a work by an artist who might be more familiar to them. It was about two minutes into this discussion that I realized that the content of the conversation was largely out of mine and Haley’s control, and that it was up to the visitors to determine the course of the talk. It was a frightening moment for me, acknowledging that something that we spent so much time preparing for was in the hands of other people, but then, I took a deep breath and started to listen to what visitors were saying about the works of art. Many of the participants made observations about the works that Haley and I had not noticed before or brought up ideas or associations that we would have come up with on our own. I found that by listening to others’ ideas, I was gaining greater insight into the works, and I hope that the participants felt the same way.

Leading a group through an interpretive play exercise was much harder than I thought it was going to be, but it was also very rewarding. It was challenging guiding people through a new kind of gallery experience—an experience where they are actively participating instead of passively receiving information. Creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their observations and then finding a way to connect those (sometimes conflicting) observations is not an easy task for the facilitator. It was also challenging deciding when was the appropriate time to step away from a work or move on to a new topic or idea. However, I feel like with practice that many of these issues could be ameliorated.

Overall, this act should enhance their experience with a work of art and will hopefully make it more meaningful to them.  It was interesting and inspiring to me that a single piece of artwork can mean so many different things to so many people, and I definitely plan on incorporating this technique into more of my classes in the future!

Jackie Lincoln
McDermott Intern for Family Experiences

Amy Copeland
Coordinator of Go van Gogh Outreach

Coming Soon: The Thaw Collection

Published March 1, 2011 Museum Insight Closed
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It has been nearly twenty years since the Dallas Museum of Art hosted an exhibition of Native American art.  All of that will change on April 24th when Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection opens.  The exhibition features 135 works of art collected by Eugene and Clare Thaw, whose collection now resides at the Fennimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection will be arranged by geographic region, and will include works of art from the Northwest Coast, Woodlands, Plains, Southwest, Arctic, California, and Great Basin regions.  One of the artworks I am most excited to see in person is a horse mask made by the Nez Perce people.  I am intrigued by the bright colors and intricate beadwork designs, and I can’t wait to include the horse mask on our summer tours.  I’m also looking forward to learning more about the DMA’s collection of American Indian art through connections with the Thaw collection.

Horse Mask, c. 1875-1900, Nez Perce or Cayuse, Idaho, Oregon, or Eastern Washington, Thaw Collection, Fennimore Art Museum, photograph by John Bigelow Taylor

We have a very limited number of docent-guided visits to the exhibition available in the month of May.  If you are interested in bringing your students to see the exhibition before the end of the school year, submit an Online Visit Request Form today!   Students receive free admission to the exhibition when a visit is scheduled at least three weeks in advance.  We will include the exhibition on our summer tours and are creating a Go van Gogh Summer Library Program around the exhibition.  We look forward to sharing Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection with you and your students this spring!

Shannon Karol
Manager of Docent Programs and Gallery Teaching

Staff Reading Group Update

Published February 17, 2011 Museum Insight 2 Comments
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It’s been a while since we blogged about our Staff Reading Group! 

January’s reading group featured several special guests.  We were joined by colleagues from the Crow Collection of Asian Art, the Nasher Sculpture Center, and the Rachofsky House for a conversation led by Nina Simon.  Nina is an independent experience designer, author of The Participatory Museum, and author of the Museum 2.0 blog which also appears as a column in Museum magazine. 

Nina selected our reading: a keynote address from the 2008 Australia Council Arts Marketing Summit, given by US philanthropy expert Diane Ragsdale, and titled: “Surviving the culture change.”   Ragsdale’s address (to greatly simplify) challenges arts organizations to adapt and to rethink their audience—what they need (and what they might not know they need), and how we can engage them in order to stay relevant.

The reading was provocative and timely, and led our group to consider behaviors and attitudes of museum visitors and to reflect on our own tendencies as museum-goers.  Why is it that we only go to concerts, museums, or the zoo once in a while if we really enjoyed the experience?  How can we make museum-going a habit—something we integrate in our lives, like an exercise class?  One of the great ideas that came from our session was that we think of going to museums/concerts/etc. like we do going to yoga—an activity that’s regularly on our calendars and prioritized in our lives. 

Ragsdale, in suggesting ways arts organizations can change in response to questions like these, shares truly inspiring examples of progressive, visitor-centered programming already in place in museums around the world.  Here at the DMA, we are pushing on our own ideas of ways to adapt programs to further visitor involvement.  We are currently in the process of refreshing Late Nights with the help of visitor voices and museum-world consultants—Nina, among them.  So look for new and exciting things to come!

And in the meantime, check out Nina’s blog to read more about great programs and experiences happening in museums.

Amy Copeland
Coordinator of Go van Gogh Outreach

Interview with Tammy Bradley

Published January 27, 2011 Museum Insight , People Closed
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One of the busiest staff members in the Museum, Tammy Bradley, works in the Security department. Tammy’s job at the Museum encompasses a wide range of responsibilites. Enjoy reading about her job at the DMA!

Name and Title: Tammy K. Bradley, Gallery Attendant Manager

Years Employed at the Dallas Museum of art: Twenty-two years and two months

Describe your job here at the Museum: I ensure that galleries are properly staffed for normal operating hours and for special events. In addition to this I enforce museum policies and procedures during special events. Other responsibilities include scheduling and posting gallery attendants in the galleries.

What is your favorite part of your job: I enjoy listening to gallery attendants and working with them to better themselves in different areas.

How did you decide you wanted to work in a Museum? I had a friend that was working here at the time who asked me to put in an application and I did so. Twenty-two years later I’m still here!

If you weren’t working in a museum, what is something else you would be doing? I would be retired from the military.

Amy Wolf
Coordinator of Gallery Teaching

My Creative Process

Published January 26, 2011 Creativity , Museum Insight , works of art 1 Comment
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The Dallas Museum of Art is currently exhibiting a staff art show called Insourced. This exhibition includes works of arts by staff members from all over the museum, such as gallery attendants, visitor services representatives, exhibition designers and interns. I am an art enthusiast and really enjoy looking at works of art, whether it’s a masterpiece, a graphic design, or an advertisement. I also enjoy looking at nature, people, and places for inspiration. I find that looking at a broad range of artworks as well as the things around me: 

  1. Inspires and influences my own art.
  2. Gives me a boost of confidence to create art.
  3. Allows me to be free to explore different mediums.

My two works of art, Untitled (2007) and Generations (2001), were inspired by observing things around me. Generations was created using two inexpensive materials: paper and charcoal. One night,  I decided to draw my mother, who was sitting on the couch. I grabbed my drawing board, newspaper print, and a box of charcoal sticks. I sat in front of her for about forty-five minutes. I think the essence of my mother, my grandmother and great-grandmother shines through in this portrait.

Untitled was inspired by a box of chicken from a fast food restuarant. I was drawn to the image of the chicken on the front of the box. I thought about the box growing legs and running around. Strange, you might think, but it was the beginning steps to my creation. First, I sketched and decided on the materials. I knew I wanted to pair wood and metal because I thought they were good match. Once I drew my sketches and had an idea of what I wanted to make, I created the objects.  I made the wooden boxes by gluing and nailing wood panlels together and creating a hollow form. I also used a mechanical disc sander to even out and smooth the sides and edges of the box. 

The bottom portion of the scultpture took more time to make. I used iron rods to make the legs. I first cut the rods into shorter pieces and then reattached them using a torch. Cutting and reattaching the rods gave them a sense of movement. The feet, which are my favorite, are made of bronze. They were created using the lost wax casting process. Once I had all my pieces made, it was time to combine them by using a hammer and  torch. I first assembled the legs and the feet using the torch. I inserted the rods into the feet and melted the sides in order to bond the two metals. Then, I torched and hammered the top of the rods in order to flatten them. Once they were flattened, I was able to nail them to the bottom of the boxes. For me, this work of art is a constant reminder that anything can be an inspiration.

Artists are inspired by people, places and things. So the next time you are walking, sitting, or standing, stop and observed the things around you. It could be the sky, a smile, or a box of chicken that could inspire you to create a work of art.
Karen A. Colbert
Teaching Programs Intern

Where are we meeting…?

Published January 21, 2011 Friday Photos , Museum Insight Closed
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There are lots of us here at the DMA (230 staffers, at last count!), and with the highly collaborative nature of our jobs, we are always in need of places to gather and hold meetings. Some of our meeting rooms are great spaces to think out loud (with dry-erase boards from floor to ceiling), some spaces are homes to artworks from the collection, some spaces are like giant bulletin boards with images and ideas covering the walls, and one space (my favorite) showcases an artist from the collection. 

Today’s Friday photo post is a behind-the-scenes look at a few spaces you’ll likely find us when we’re not at our desks or in the galleries.  Enjoy!

Amy Copeland
Coordinator of Go van Gogh Outreach

Teaching with Modern American Art

Published January 20, 2011 Museum Insight , works of art Closed
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Last week, Amy W. blogged about a training session on Colonial American art that she and Jenny led for our docents.  Melissa and I recently led a follow-up session for the docents on teaching with Modern American art.  

Arts of the Americas and Colonial to Modern American Art are two of the most popular topics for docent-guided visits at the DMA.  Melissa and I deliberately selected artworks from the first half of the 20th century that docents don’t typically use on their tours.  It was our hope that by learning more about these paintings and artists, docents will have even more flexibility in selecting stops for their tours.

I started off training by looking at two American artists who were influenced by the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian: Leon Polk Smith and Ilya Bolotowsky. 

  • We discussed what “Boogie Woogie” means and how boogie woogie music might sound.  I even played a short clip of boogie woogie music for the docents and had them dancing in the galleries!
  • Leon Polk Smith’s painting Homage to Victory Boogie Woogie #1 is a direct reference to Mondrian’s final painting (Victory Boogie Woogie). There is an Homage to Victory Boogie Woogie #2, which is in the collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
  • Ilya Bolotowsky knew Piet Mondrian.  They were both members of American Abstract Artists, which was founded in New York City in 1936.  In fact, Bolotowsky was one of the founding members of the group.

Melissa invited the docents to complete a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting two still life paintings: Survival of the Fittest by Fred Darge and On the Ranch by Jerry Bywaters.

  • This is an easy exercise to do in the Museum or in your classroom.  Encourage your students to look closely at images of these paintings and make notes about what they see in a Venn Diagram.  This resulted in a great conversation with our docents, and we think the same thing can happen in your classroom.
  • There are many similarities in the lives of Fred Darge and Jerry Bywaters as well.  Both artists lived and worked in Dallas most of their lives.  They also both took sketching trips to West Texas, where they were inspired by the vast landscape.
  • Jerry Bywaters was actually the director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts when Fred Darge’s Survival of the Fittest came into the collection in 1944.

We hope you’ll visit the Museum this spring to see these paintings in person.

Shannon Karol
Manager of Docent Programs and Gallery Teaching

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