From the Fort Wayne Museum of Art
Looking at, Talking about, and Appreciating Art
Every day we get visitors who let us know how badly they want to touch the artwork but know they shouldn’t. It’s true, the first rule of the museum is “Do Not Touch”, but artists use their skills to help people imagine how their art would feel through texture. Artists choose different materials to express different things, including how something might feel. Read on to learn how to discover texture in artworks without touching them!
Do you know if what you are looking at is an installation by an artist? Each of the installations at FWMoA has encouraged visitors to get into, walk around, and experience the space in different ways. What makes these pieces of art installations? Read on to find out!
When we visit art museums we often take for granted that art will be there, hung up on the wall for our enjoyment. In the last few weeks, FWMoA has experienced multiple galleries being deinstalled, prepared, and installed with new exhibitions. Because exhibitions at FWMoA change every 6-8 weeks, we are constantly taking art down, putting art up, and storing art. It wasn’t until I came to work at an art museum that I realized how much goes into prepping artwork for an exhibition, in fact, it takes a whole team of people! A collaborative process between artists, galleries, curators, registrars, and technicians, the artworks go through multiple states before they are displayed for all too look at and enjoy. One of those stages is our term Tuesday: Matting.
Imagine – You were crawling through Grandma’s attic this weekend, trying to chase out the squirrels, when you came across a large square object covered by a sheet. Grandma doesn’t recall where the painting came from but asks you to find out more about it. It’s signed in the corner and when you put that name into a search engine it comes up with a famous artist! Their paintings are rare, valuable, and you might have one right there in front of you! What do you do next?
We’ve learned that makers of lutes and stringed instruments are called luthiers, but since when were they called that? What came first, the lute, or the luthier? Read on to find out!
Well, this should be a short post. A nude is a work of art that portrays a naked human subject. All right, my work here is done.
Or is it? Is there more to nudity in art beyond sheer nakedness? In this weeks Art Term Tuesday, Jack Cantey explores the term nude and what it means in art.
The majority of our collection is from a single collector, David Pottinger, who focused on “Amish Quilts” from the early 20th century, though our earliest quilt is from 1876. Amish quilts have two definitions: quilts made by Amish or Mennonite quilters or quilts made using traditional Amish techniques and fabrics. Amish Quilts have a distinct style that persists to quilters today. A dark base color, striking geometric designs, and fantastically intricate hand stitching are hallmarks of Amish Quilts, though of course not the only techniques found in these types of quilts. Quilting is often a community project, where many friends and family members gather to work together to create a single quilt. Much like glassblowing, quilting is a collaborative art that is passed down to the next generation. Mothers would teach their daughters from an early age what they knew. When you look at the quilts, see if any share similarities in color or style, were they made by people from the same family? From the same community?
When you walk into the 46th International Glass Invitational Award Winners exhibition here at FWMoA, it’s likely that your eye will be immediately drawn to a pair of large, brightly-colored pieces standing in one of the gallery’s corners. These works by American glass artist Stephen Powell have playful, enigmatic titles, and, with their size and thinly curved structures, seem to be part-sculpture, part-architectural element.
“Winslow Homer: From Poetry to Fiction” opened at the museum on July 28, celebrating the engraved works of one of America’s most famous artists. Winslow Homer, a mostly self-taught artist of the 19th century, is well-known for his paintings and watercolors of American life and marine seascapes. However, Homer also created many engravings for Harper’s Weekly before his painting career took off, and a selection of those engravings are on view at FWMoA now. In honor of this exhibit, let’s explore what an “engraving” is in today’s Art Term Tuesday.
A trio of vibrant, eye-catching glass sculptures from the FWMoA permanent collection have recently been put on display in the museum's Karl S. and Ella L. Bolander Gallery. These large, multihued vessels--featuring undulating rims and exteriors spotted with bright pops of color--are from renowned studio glass artist Dale Chihuly's Macchia series. Once you've taken in the visual brilliance of these works, though, you may find yourself wondering: What exactly is a "macchia?" It is an Italian word--derived from the Latin macula--that means "stain," "spot," or "speck;" it can also be used in reference to Mediterranean shrubland. (For the coffee lovers out there: Yep, it is also related to the drink called caffè macchiato, which could be translated as "coffee stained or spotted (with milk).") Looking at how these sculptures are "specked" or "stained" with color, it's possible to understand why Chihuly named this series Macchia. But is there anything more to the word beyond this, especially in relation to art history and technique?