Sketchbook Assignment 4: Keeping Time

Sunday was my birthday, and I chose to do something special and visit the Barnes Foundation, a special art collection created by Dr. Albert Barnes in the early twentieth century. The collection moved from Merion, PA, to Center City Philadelphia in recent years amid much controversy since he had planned his museum down to the views of his arboretum through the windows. I'm reading a biography about Barnes at the moment, and learning what a difficult but brilliant and innovative man he was. Well, the Barnes Foundation was filled to capacity on this rainy Sunday, so I resorted to Plan B...

I walked up the long blocks of the wide avenue in the pouring rain, in and out of the Barnes Foundation lobby, up the 72 "Rocky Steps" and into the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

I found the Vermeer in Gallery 264 on the second floor of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Young Woman Seated at a Virginal" is on loan to Philadelphia from the Leiden Gallery in New York City. Only 36 paintings by Vermeer exist, and incidentally, three feature women standing or sitting at virginals. This 1672 painting features a woman in a gold shawl, hands on the keyboard, and looking at the painter/viewer. The most meticulous attention to detail has been paid to the subject, illuminated by light from a window we do not see. The keyboard instrument is in shadow, and so is the back of the woman. The realistic drape of the fabric, gold for the shawl, and ivory for the skirt, cause me to expect that if I reached out to touch it, I'd find them to be a heavy, high-quality silk. Two gentlemen were viewing the painting with me, and after some time, one remarked, "There's a certain intimacy, isn't there?" Indeed there is, since the woman seems to recognize us and it is such a small space. There's also a certain intimacy in the man's comment, not spoken directly to his companion, but to the group gathered to view the painting. This was not the first time I've experienced this fleeting beholder-of-art (or music) intimacy.

The above is another assignment from the MOOC I'm taking from Cal Arts. The lone sentence describes something that took a long time to happen: my walk in the rain from the train station to the Art Museum. The paragraph discusses gazing at the Vermeer painting, a slice out of time. So the assignment was to write short on a long thing, and write long on a short thing. Get it?

Here, the Noyes (Museum of Art)

Inspired (actually required) by the massive open online course (MOOC) I'm taking, I visited an art museum this weekend in search of one attention-grabbing work. Since I was in the neighborhood, kinda, I drove up the Garden State Parkway to the Noyes Museum of Art of Stockton College. I expected it to be small, but I didn't expect it to be so pleasant and inviting. The museum is adjacent to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, and features a deck overlooking Lily Lake. That's a Barnegat Bay Sneakbox parked on the bank in the picture.

Lily Lake from the Noyes Museum of Art

Inside the museum are four galleries featuring temporary exhibits of contrasting styles and media. I was especially interested in the work of Trenton-born Eric Schultz who creates sculpture out of found objects. I read signs, usually, and noticed one that warned me not to take photographs, but I can show you his video:

I chose his "Magic Lantern" to write about since it dominated the gallery and I could see it from the bench I was sitting upon. (I was required to spend time with my chosen piece of art.) This sculpture is a large ogre-like figure sitting on his haunches and holding an illuminated red lantern. I enjoyed studying Schultz's creations identifying the objects he used, but there's another level of interest here. Schultz uses materials appropriate to the theme of the work. For his angel sculpture he used items related to air, for example. I didn't notice this so much in "Magic Lantern" but I did notice that the found objects matched the shape and contour of the part of the body they represented: two red car ramps for the ogre's back, for example, green and blue wire for his braided hair, and pitchfork feet. Good news: "Magic Lantern" is pictured on Schultz's website here. He is the one with the lantern.

Two artists, Nancy Staub Laughlin and Peggy Fox, were featured in the next gallery. Laughlin works with pastels on paper and adds sparkly bits and details from landscape photos, creating her own worlds mindful of theories of aesthetics. Fox is a photographer inspired by theories of physics. By the way, each gallery offered me two-sided guides to the exhibits to help illuminate each artist's purpose and background.

Curlee Raven Holton works with paints and printmaking as he explores life's realities. His exhibit is entitled "Curlee Raven Holton: In the Sahdow of Contemplation." A recent series of prints on display here are inspired by Shakespeare's Othello. You can see some of his art on this flyer for a teacher's workshop. "Blind Spots" from 2004 is a highlight of this exhibit and can be seen on the linked flyer.

The exhibit "Fabio Mazzieri: Memory of Material" consists of painted strips of fabric, around 70 centimeters wide, draped over ceiling beams and lying on the floor, under and around which the visitor can walk. Thanks to the handout, I learned that this fabric had been woven in Perugia, Umbria, Italy by the artist's mother and grandmother. Some of the fabric is 100 years old. Mazzieri discovered the stash in a chest, probably intended for a wedding dowry. Here's a video showing Mazzieri's work exhibited not at the Noyes, but in an old monastery which now houses his studio. This is hard to describe with words, so watch the video, please.

All of these artists would have kept me interested for an afternoon, even if the Noyes Museum wasn't such a welcoming place, but I haven't even mentioned the music yet! Singer-guitarist Nicolas Castillo was performing in a strategic central location and I enjoyed his R&B and Indie Pop as I made my way through the galleries. Castillo wasn't just some guy with a guitar pulled off the street to lend some ambiance--he sounded as if he had just emerged from a radio station (WWFM for example) to grace the museum. Evidently, the music is a Sundays-in-March thing, so don't expect to be as lucky as I was when you go!

Outside the Noyes

Required Assignment 1: Thick Description (Eric Schultz at the Noyes Gallery)

Eric Schultz, MAGIC LANTERN, 2014, compressor, car ramps, lantern, pitch forks, pipe and other found objects

The Noyes Museum of Art, Galloway Township, New Jersey

Artist Eric Schultz from Trenton is featured at the Noyes Museum of Art in Galloway Township, New Jersey. This museum is situated next to Lily Lake in New Jersey’s unique Pine Barrens region. The ride to the museum took me through a world of forests, wetlands, and tall phragmites within minutes of the contrasting world of glamour and conspicuous consumption known as Atlantic City.

Eric Schultz’s work would be at home in either world. He makes brilliant art from found objects. “One man’s trash is another person’s treasure,” Schultz says. “I enjoy making art that makes people wonder why I made it. I like to evoke some kind of wonder in people, (sic) I like it when they make up their own stories.” The colorful figure of the Magic Lantern (2014) looks over the Schultz exhibit and features pitchfork feet, yellow air-tank cheeks, gauges for eyes, and braids made from blue and green electrical wire. The found objects share size, weight, and texture with the body parts for which they are intended. Red auto ramps represent the hulking figure’s shoulder blades and back. A shiny, flesh-colored retired Hoover floor polisher plays the part of the creature’s buttocks. The Magic Lantern creature is still taller than me as he sits on his haunches. He dominates the gallery as a monster would, holding his illuminated lantern. Perhaps this mysterious creature is an inhabitant of the magical, mysterious Pine Barrens where I spotted him today. The region has a rich culture of its own complete with a fantastical creature known as the Jersey Devil, and a unique environment home to a certain species of tree frog who lives nowhere else. The Magic Lantern with his gravitas would be a natural leader.

While in the presence of the hulking lantern-monster, the mismatched ambient sounds included children’s voices, footsteps on wooden floor, Eric Schultz's own voice coming from a small video screen, and the R&B/indie-pop song stylings of singer Nicolas Castillo. The music did not fit into the Magic Lantern’s implied world, but it was a perfect match for the rest of the skylit museum which featured contemporary artists in its four other galleries.

Characters: Sketchbook Assignment 3

I was in the library noticing an unusual amount of security officers milling about, and then the chief joined them. "Something's up," I observed to the colleagues at my table. We watched as the plain-clothes detective, wearing his badge as a necklace, joined them, and a strange figure, all in white, was escorted to a table behind a glass wall. "A plain-clothes cop means only one thing," I said, as if I knew what I was talking about, "Drugs." The white-clad figure, wearing a hat like the one pictured above, was questioned at the table behind the glass. Was he or she purposely seated with his or her back to us so that we couldn't see who it was? If so, this was effective as we couldn't even tell if this was a him or a her. Our group dispersed before the interrogation was over, so we never found out much besides (through the grapevine) that the white-attired person was selling pills.

Here's what I think went down: I think the interrogated one is part of a large drug ring operating in the Pennsylvania countryside and parts of Delaware. This group specializes in prescription drugs, obtained illegally, and the various salespeople find a good market in public places at college campuses, suburban shopping malls, and sports arenas. Periodically they have sales meetings, not in conference rooms, but in less-popular mall restaurants in-between the lunch and dinner rushes when there is less of a chance to be overheard.

Our particular perpetrator is transgender, able to switch between male and female with amazing agility to evade the authorities. From the back this person seemed to have no gender, but from the front the interrogators were probably able to discern whichever profile the perpetrator wished to put forth. Although eyewitnesses in the library claimed to have witnessed the white-attired figure selling pills, a search yielded no evidence that this person had pills of any sort upon their person.

Nonetheless, a search did produce an unusual amount of bills (mostly tens and twenties) that seemed to be shoved carelessly in the pockets of the white garments. This might indicate to some that the alleged perpetrator could have been peddling pills and sliding the money out of view hastily, but, as anyone who pays with cash will attest, we are frequently handed our change (bills with coins atop), a receipt and often coupons, as well as our parcel in one motion with a robotic "Thank you." Maybe with four hands we could put this all away neatly, but with only two at best we are forced to jam the bills into pockets and purses as quickly as possible so the next customer may step up.

We weren't born yesterday. (We watch Law & Order.)We know the white-clad figure probably was selling substance, but without more conclusive evidence there was nothing to book them on. They were set free, just in time to make this week's sales meeting at the local mall.

Sketchbook Assignment 2: Storytelling from the Everyday

Quilting is a creative activity in which artistic, geometric, mathematical, and needleworking skills are required. At a quilters' jamboree such as The Quilt Fest of New Jersey X, the attendee will see award-winning innovative, traditional, and completely handmade quilts alongside entries from local quilters. The experience is illuminating for some, and inspirational for others. This past Friday at the show, I decided to eschew the brights and pastels I'm usually drawn to, and I acquired a selection of Civil War reproduction blues, browns, and creams. While resting my feet at home after the show, I paged through my quilt books for ideas and looked for something unlike anything I'd done before. Here's the complete story in pictures.

By the way, the book pictured above where I found my inspiration is: Kooler Design Studio. Quilts of Thimble Creek. Little Rock, AR: Leisure Arts, 2002. The prototype for my quilt was made by Marg Gair. My fabrics were designed by Jo Morton, Studio e, Andover, Moda, and Marcus Bros.