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Finding the Art in So SMAART

Published November 17, 2015 Uncategorized Closed
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Head of Community Engagement Maria Teresa Garcia-Pedroche and I spent a Saturday afternoon with the So SMAART girls, a group of motivated young ladies aged 9-12 who are “Set on Science, Math, Aviation, Art, Reading, and Technology.” Since its beginning in 2000, the So SMAART program has impacted more than 900 girls from Dallas public schools through various mentorship and after-school activities, all of which prepare the students for careers in STEAM fields including science, math, and the arts. Serving as the girls’ mentors are members of the Trinity Chapter of the Links, Incorporated, a volunteer service organization led by women of color from the DFW area who founded So SMAART to address the lack of minority female students pursuing STEAM careers.

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Trinity Links and the DMA’s Community Engagement team

Throughout their visit, the So SMAART girls and their mentors explored the Center for Creative Connections, toured the African and Ancient American galleries, and created their own masterpieces in the Art Studio. These ladies demonstrated some of the ways the arts can impact and empower the next generation of scientists, engineers, curators, and everything in between:

  • Connect with Communities

The students and mentors contributed to an ongoing basket-weaving project, a response wall discussing personal traditions, and a larger-than-life drawing at the Interactive Gallery and Community at Large installation.

  • See Things Differently

Are those ordinary scraps of cardboard and twist ties, or are they the makings of the next Oldenburg? How does our presence change the way a space feels, functions, or sounds? Our visitors experimented with these and other queries at the Art Spot and the Young Learners Gallery.

  • Blast into the Past

Museum educator extraordinaire Amy Copeland and various DMA volunteers led the So SMAART girls through the African and Ancient American galleries, where they discussed the ways that past cultures and communities influence our current beliefs, traditions, and practices.

  • Make Your Voice Heard

As part of a national competition sponsored by The Links, Incorporated, the students channeled their creativity in the Art Studio to create posters raising awareness about nutrition and healthy habits. Isn’t it a bit easier to forgo the leftover Halloween candy when you’re looking at a solar system made of fruit?

Keep an eye out for these young ladies—we can’t wait to see where the arts will take them!

Paulina Lopez
McDermott Graduate Intern for Visitor Engagement

The African Gallery, Through Time

Published August 31, 2015 Uncategorized 1 Comment
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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.

Learning to Help the Learners: My Year as a Leadership ISD Fellow

Published May 20, 2015 Uncategorized Closed
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Let’s consider the proverbial elephant in the room: many school districts, including Dallas ISD, are in need of community help, be it as informed advocates or active participants. Often, those of us outside the intricacies of the district itself feel helpless to initiate assistance, or to even know where to start. It was this realization, along with a desire as both a museum educator working with teachers and a parent of a DISD student, that led me to apply to be a fellow in this year’s Leadership ISD program. To be accepted into the program and participate this year has been an immensely rewarding, heartening, and humbling experience.

Helmed by Patricia Arvanitis and an amazing group of staff and volunteers, Leadership ISD is a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering knowledgeable citizen advocates for the Dallas Independent School District, ultimately serving as a growing group who can help all students achieve and thrive.

From September through May, we forty-two LISD Fellows attended a series of monthly seminars each focusing on a different issue DISD schools and students face, including the opportunity gap, early childhood education, and buildings and facilities. Those may sound like dry topics, but the activities and conceptualizing that went into each proved to be fascinating. For the training on buildings and facilities, we began the day in groups charged with this question: what would an ideal school look like? As each group brainstormed and later shared their ideas, it became clear that our approaches focused on different ways of tackling the idea: one group considered what might be done with the empty school buildings already owned by DISD, while another group considered a perfect school developed around different educational models.

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One of the benefits of being part of the Leadership ISD is hearing from an array of knowledgeable voices. As part of our monthly meetings we had opportunities to discuss issues with parents, teachers, experts from organizations like Uplift Education, Momentus Institute, and Teach For America, and key figures like school board members, Superintendent Mike Miles, and Mayor Mike Rawlings. At such times we were encouraged to ask probing questions and critically evaluate whatever data was presented.

Beyond these monthly seminars, though, was the real meat of being a LISD Fellow. As part of our participation we were required to attend school visits, DISD board meetings, and participate in a Practicum project assigned to a specific school. These “on the ground” activities not only engaged us in a more individual way with the issues schools, teachers, and students are facing, but empowered us to create active and ongoing results for all involved.

IMG_20150508_141712As our year has wrapped up, two different things have been dominating my mind. First, after almost every seminar, meeting, and practicum discussion I was involved with, I always walked away with the sense that the issues schools, teachers, and districts are facing are immensely complicated. There are no easy solutions. The more I learned, the more complicated each topic appeared. Yet, this feeling was always tempered by an extreme sense of hope, of participation as a step amid these complicated issues, to chart a path through them. This second feeling — hope — is one that any of us can have by getting involved and informed.  If you are so inclined — and I hope you are — consider applying to be one of Leadership ISD’s Fellows next year, won’t you? The deadline to apply is June 1st!

Josh Rose
Manager of Docent and Teacher Programs

Stir Your Senses

Published May 13, 2015 Center for Creative Connections , Contemporary Art , Dallas , Family Programs , Late Nights , Special Events , Uncategorized 2 Comments
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For Friday’s Late Night, we wanted to make sure we engaged all of the senses, giving visitors an immersive experience at the DMA. There will be many programs to stir your senses of sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch.

To tempt you to stay out late, I have highlighted one program for each of the five senses.

SIGHT

Visit our Flora Street Entrance and our Sculpture Garden to see vivid outdoor installations representing color, pattern, and movement created by The Color Condition.

Color Condition 2

SOUND

Experience the physicality of sound with a newly commissioned performance by New York artist Kevin Beasley. BLACK ROCKER will premiere at the DMA as part of the inaugural SOLUNA festival.

Kevin Beasley

TASTE

Our Lounge @ Founders will tempt all of your taste senses with something salty, sour, sweet, and bitter.

Founders 2

SMELL

Families can stop by the exhibition Between Action and the Unknown: The Art of Kazuo Shiraga and Sadamasa Motonaga and check out a Sensory Art-to-Go Family Tote Bag. The tote bags are filled with a variety of activities, such as imagining how a work of art would smell and then writing a poem about it.

Tote Bags

TOUCH

While you can’t touch the art, you can stop by the Art Spot in the Center for Creative Connections and make your own work of art using a variety of materials.

Art Spot 2

We hope you’ll join us on Friday to see what else is in store!

Stacey Lizotte is Head of Adult Programming and Multimedia Services at the DMA. 

Student Voices Coming to a Smartphone Near You

Published May 12, 2015 Uncategorized Closed
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Last October, staff from the Center for Creative Connections, Founder and Director of Make Art with Purpose Janeil Engelstad, and Skyline High School Architecture program teacher Peter Goldstein began a new project building on a past collaboration at the DMA.

Translating Culture: Community Voices at the DMA originally started as an initiative to create links with the community by providing different platforms to share varied perspectives on the collection. After a very successful first collaboration with AVANCE Dallas, the project took a second life with a group of 11th grade Architecture Cluster students at Skyline High School.

After months of hard work, Translating Culture II: Community Voices at the DMA will finally launch on the DMA.mobi site this coming Friday, May 15. That night as part of Late Night, we’ve organized two programs for visitors to engage with this new project.

The events scheduled for the night include a self-guided tour throughout the Museum of new stops (which are both in English and Spanish) and an opportunity to meet up with the students themselves. You can find maps with the outlined stops at the Center for Creative Connections from 6:00 p.m. until midnight. And you can join us there from 8:00-9:00 p.m., where students will be available to talk to visitors about the project, their individual contributions to the site, and to share about their overall experience.

To spark some excitement about the launch, I thought I would speak to two of our key people in this project–Janeil and Peter–and ask them a few questions about Translating Culture II and their expectations for the future. I leave with you their answers below. Be sure to check out the student contributions on DMA.mobi beginning May 15!

Skyline

Describe Translating Culture II in one sentence: 

Janeil: Translating Culture II: Community Voices at the DMA is a bi-lingual, Spanish-English, smartphone tour where museum goers engage with and experience interpretations of art work in the DMA permanent collection from the point of view of students from the architecture cluster at Skyline High School.

Peter: It’s a program that provides students with the opportunity to share their insights, observations and experiences with works of art in the DMA collection.

15877460231_9f1789c3e8_kSkyline Students

How will this collaboration contribute to the DMA and the community of Dallas?

Janeil: Translating Culture II is a statement by the DMA that the voices and ideas of people from different Dallas communities and cultures are a relevant part of the dialogue about art. I see this statement as gesture or a sort of offering that creates new spaces for engagement and play. Through the process of the project, new relationships and connections between the institution, the collection and the community have been built, which is a new and valuable thread in the fabric of the community.

Peter: The DMA is an invaluable part of our community–it is a unique place of learning and inspiration with a diverse collection of art from around the world. The DMA encourages and facilitates student and community involvement through a wide range of activities focusing on their outstanding collection of art.

In your opinion, what do you think was most valuable about this project?

Janeil: The expression of diversity and inclusion around art was most valuable, providing access and bringing under-represented voices into the larger cultural conversation, which is a key part of MAP’s mission.

Peter: The Translating Culture II project allowed students to engage in a conversation about works of art that spoke to them on a personal level. The students discussed and analyzed the artworks they encountered, and then created responses that are a reflection of their own unique interests and perspective.

Art has the ability to communicate beyond geographic boundaries and across time. With the support and guidance of the DMA and MAP, the students involved in this project were able to explore works of art from artists and cultures around the world, and then embark on a journey to communicate their ideas and discoveries for others to enjoy.

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What do you hope will come out of Translating Culture in the future?

Janeil: I hope that the visitor who takes one of these tours has his or her imagination lit in a way that inspires new thinking or new ideas, and brings joy.

Peter: Our hope is that the work you see on the DMA.mobi site will spark the interest of other students (and adults!) and inspire them to explore the incredible richness and diversity of the Dallas Museum of Art. Translating Culture is about discovery–and sharing those discoveries with others.

Eliel Jones
McDermott Intern for Visitor Engagement

Austen Abounds

Published March 18, 2015 Arts District , Dallas , European Art , Film , Late Nights , Lecture , Special Events , Uncategorized 1 Comment
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It all started last year when a colleague sent me a link to a portrait we have in our collection of Jane Austen, done by Austen’s sister Cassandra. This colleague knew I was an Austen fan and wanted to see if I was aware that we had this in our collection. I had no idea!

After Cassandra Austen, Jane Austen, n.d., engraving, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts, The Alfred and Juanita Bromberg Collection, bequest of Juanita K. Bromberg

After Cassandra Austen, Jane Austen, n.d., engraving, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts, The Alfred and Juanita Bromberg Collection, bequest of Juanita K. Bromberg

I shared this awesome news with other Austen fans on staff, which led us to think about how great it would be do a Jane Austen-themed Late Night. Around that time, we also heard that the Dallas Theater Center would be doing a spring production of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. Voilà, an Austen Late Night was born.

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We brainstormed a lot of ideas, researched speakers who had talked at local and national meetings of The Jane Austen Society of North America, and met with staff from the Dallas Theater Center to talk about connections to their production.

After months of planning, we are excited to see the event take shape, and we invite you to join us for our Jane Austen Late Night on Friday, March 20, from 6:00 p.m. to midnight. You can hear music from the Romantic era, learn about the fashion world of Jane Austen, watch a Victorian fencing demonstration, listen to a dramatic reading by Dallas Theater Center actors, take quizzes to test your knowledge of all things Austen, watch films, including the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice staring Laurence Olivier, and learn how Kate Rorick helped modernize Austen for the digital age.

Secret Diary LB Cover

For those of you who like to bring the world of Austen to life, we invite you to come dressed as your favorite Jane Austen character or in a costume inspired by England’s Regency era for a chance to win great Austen-themed prizes, including a pair of tickets to the Dallas Theater Center’s production of Sense and Sensibility. Baronda Bradley, a specialist in Regency fashion, will judge the contest, starting at 8:30 p.m.

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Our March Late Night is also our annual Spring Block Party in the Arts District. There will be a lot to do that evening with the Nasher Sculpture Center and Crow Collection of Asian Art also staying open until midnight.

And, for anyone needing an Austen appetizer, there are still tickets available to see Jo Baker, author of Longbourn, at tomorrow night’s DMA Arts & Letters Live event.

I hope to see all my fellow Austenites on Friday!

Stacey Lizotte is Head of Adult Programming and Multimedia Services at the DMA.

A Colorful Spring Break

Published March 4, 2015 Arts District , Dallas , DFW , Special Events , Uncategorized 1 Comment
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Spring Break 1

Whether you’re feeling blue, seeing red, or chasing rainbows, this year’s Spring Break week at the DMA will have something for every hue! We’re kicking things off on Saturday, March 7, with our friends at the Crow Collection of Asian Art  and the Nasher Sculpture Center and throwing a day-long party filled with art making, music and dance performances, yoga, and lots of art!

Need a little more color in your world? Daily family fun at the DMA will continue March 10-13. Take a spin on the color wheel and enjoy story time in the galleries, family tours, art making in the studio, family competitions, and more all week long.

Spring Break 2

We invited a few of our favorite families to come take a sneak peek at what we have planned for the week and give us their colorful commentary.

Spring Break 3

The Paintbrush family had a mauvelous time searching for color in the galleries during a family tour. The Museum has four floors of art, so you are sure to find your favorite color in the paintings, sculpture, decorative art, and objects on display.

Spring Break 4

The Crayon brood was tickled pink during story time in the galleries when one of their favorite stories was read aloud. After the story, everyone used the art around them as inspiration to sketch their own colorful stories.

Spring Break 5

At first the Marker clan was a little worried about being Museum greenhorns, but they quickly felt at home in the Center for Creative Connections, where they enjoyed interactive art explorations, a children’s play area, and a welcoming community space. Once they found the Art Studio, their true colors came shining through, and everyone was eager to leave their mark!

Spring Break 6

To finish off their red letter day, the Paintbrush family used one of the free Arturo Family Gallery Guides to explore the Museum on their own. (Baby Brush thought that the cat-themed guide was positively purr-fect.)

Spring Break 7

Everyone agrees: “Spring Break at the DMA passes with flying colors!” We hope you’ll join us too!

Leah Hanson is the Manager of Early Learning Programs at the DMA.

Cocktail Creations: A Toast to the DMA

Published January 14, 2015 Ancient Art , Arts & Letters Live , Collections , Dallas , Decorative Art and Design , Late Nights , Special Events , Uncategorized Closed
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The DMA turns 112 this month and we wanted to celebrate with a fun cocktail contest inspired by works of art in our collection, giving our visitors a chance to toast the DMA with their creativity!

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We asked visitors to choose a work of art in our collection that inspired them to create a cocktail recipe along with a fun (or even punny) name for the drink. We saw a lot of great submissions from our community of art and alcohol connoisseurs, and with the help of our Executive Chef we have picked a winner and four finalists.

Single snake armlet, 1st century A.D.Dallas Museum of Art, Museum League Purchase Funds, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., and Cecil H. and Ida M. Green in honor of Virginia Lucas Nick, 1991.75.92.1

Single snake armlet, Roman Empire, 1st century A.D., gold, Dallas Museum of Art, Museum League Purchase Funds, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., and Cecil H. and Ida M. Green in honor of Virginia Lucas Nick, 1991.75.92.1

The winning cocktail, Twisted Serpent, created by Lori Pasillas, was inspired by the single snake armlet in our ancient Mediterranean collection. This drink, made with amaretto, Chambord, club soda, Italian soda, mint leaves, and a twist of orange peel, will be available for purchase at our upcoming Late Night on Friday, January 16.

That night, we will host a Creative Cocktail Lounge in our Founders Room, where you can purchase this winning drink plus the drinks created by the four finalists. While you enjoy these libations, DJ Yeahdef will spin a set of eclectic music.

It was interesting to see that our visitors were inspired by works of art from across our global collection. We had submissions that drew inspiration from our Japanese, decorative arts, ancient American, and contemporary collections, in addition to artworks in our American and European collections.

The works chosen by the four finalists were The Fish and the Man by Charles Webster Hawthorne, Heat Wave-Texas by Coreen Mary Spellman, Still Life by Perry Nichols, and the Miss Blanche armchair by Shiro Kuramata.

 

Miss Blanche chair by Shiro Kuramata, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Caren Prothro, Vincent and Dara Prothro, and Nita and Cullum Clark, and Catherine, Alex, Charlie, Jack, and Will Rose, Lela Rose and Grey, Rosey, and Brandon Jones in honor of Deedie Rose, DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund, and Discretionary Decorative Arts Fund, 2012.29.A-E

Miss Blanche chair, Shiro Kuramata, designer; Ishimaru Company Ltd., manufacturer, designed 1988, executed 1989, acrylic, artificial roses, and aluminum with Alumite (anodized) finish, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Caren Prothro, Vincent and Dara Prothro, and Nita and Cullum Clark, and Catherine, Alex, Charlie, Jack, and Will Rose, Lela Rose and Grey, Rosey, and Brandon Jones in honor of Deedie Rose, DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund, and Discretionary Decorative Arts Fund, 2012.29.a-e

To find out what drink concoctions these works inspired, visit the Creative Cocktail Lounge this Friday. While you are here, don’t forget to go to Tim Federle’s talk at 7:00 p.m. Tim’s punny cocktail books Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist and Hickory Daiquiri Dock helped inspire this contest and his talk is sure to be fun!

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So come and join us in toasting the DMA this Friday!

Stacey Lizotte is Head of Adult Programming and Multimedia Services at the DMA.

Open Book

Published December 10, 2014 Uncategorized Closed
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A&LL_24thSeason
The 24th Arts & Letters Live season promises to be varied and exciting, with a celebrated lineup of award-winning authors, artists, and performers. When we were creating this season, several themes kept rising to the surface:

  • ART – Peter Mendelsund on the art of book jacket design and on what we see when we read; illustrator and New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss; Sue Roe on Matisse, Picasso, and other artists working in the Montmartre area of Paris in the early 1900s—a group portrait of men and women on the cusp of fame who profoundly changed the arts of painting, sculpture, dance, music, literature, and fashion.
  • MEMOIR – Candice Bergen, Roz Chast, Gail Sheehy, Rebecca Alexander, Lynsey Addario, and Huan Hsu will all share their recent memoirs this season.
  • MULTICULTURALISM AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES – MacArthur Genius Grant–winner and photojournalist Lynsey Addario, who has captured war and human crises around the globe; Oral Fixation, back by popular demand with “Destination America,” featuring seven new personal stories told by immigrants to North Texas.
  • FOOD AND COCKTAILS – Emmy Award–winning host of the Barefoot Contessa television show Ina Garten, James Beard Award–winning chef Marcus Samuelsson, and Tim Federle, author of the whimsical and witty Tequila Mockingbird and Hickory, Daiquiri, Dock, which serve up a blend of literary commentary, puns, and drink recipes.
  • IDENTITY – editors of the Women in Clothes anthology (Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, and Leanne Shapton) as well as fashion designer Lela Rose; Rabih Alameddine exploring identity both in writing and painting; Jacqueline Woodson, award-winning young adult author on Brown Girl Dreaming, a collection of poems depicting her childhood, which won the 2014 National Book Award for young adult literature; rising literary novelists Jacob Rubin and Rebecca Scherm
  • TEXAS – Philipp Meyer and Grace Pettis (“Texas Tales in Story, Song, and Art”—involves commissioning Pettis to write a new song inspired by a work of art of her choice in the DMA’s collection); Texas Bound this year features star actors Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond), Glenn Morshower (24), and G. W. Bailey (Major Crimes) as well as many members of the Dallas Theater Center’s Brierley Resident Acting Company.
  • LOVE – Selected Shorts presents “Surprised by Love,” featuring award-winning actors Jane Kaczmarek, Mary Kay Place, and James Naughton; Graeme Simsion, bestselling author of The Rosie Project and The Rosie Effect, about a brilliant but socially inept scientist who crafts a scientific survey to find a wife.
  • WAR IN FICTION AND NONFICTION – a look back at the meaning of the Vietnam War with Pulitzer Prize-winner Fredrik Logevall; Anthony Doerr and Jim Shepard on their novels, both featuring teenage protagonists in World War II; and Elliot Ackerman, a decorated veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars whose debut novel, Green on Blue, told from the perspective of an Afghan orphan recruited by a US-funded militia, is garnering high praise.
  • CREATIVE COLLABORATION – Award-winning poet Billy Collins and Oscar- and Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Aimee Mann team up for a rare evening of poetry, acoustic music, collaboration, and conversation; Joshua Wolf Shenk‘s book Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs examines the creative collaboration found in iconic pairs such as Matisse and Picasso, the Beatles, and many more.

Don’t miss out on your favorite authors this year. Tickets, and the entire season schedule, are available online starting today!

Carolyn Bess is the Director of Programming and Arts & Letters Live at the DMA.

London Calling!

Published October 13, 2014 Uncategorized 1 Comment

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