Tag: art

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Art Term Tuesday: Quilt

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?

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Reality Check: For Your Eyes Only

The news media loves to circulate stories of brazen museum visitors who get too close to the objects in their midst, causing some degree of harm to priceless art and antiquities. The more valuable the art, the more headlines, and the more dramatic the damage, the more shame we in the audience can heap on the hapless fools. Sensational news stories are one thing; real life “please do not touch!” incidents at FWMoA are another.

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Treasures from the Vault: Margaret Burroughs

Burroughs’ work in the visual arts took the form of painting, some sculpture, and a large body of relief prints.  In Black Venus, Burroughs surely sought to reinterpret Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli’s iconic Birth of Venus.  Dr. Alain Locke, along with other Harlem Renaissance intellectuals and writers, set out to redefine their image as the New Negro, which would counter the stereotypes associated with Jim Crow America.  They challenged artists to forge a new, authentic iconography for a re-envisioned identity.  The arts would draw inspiration from the South, the Caribbean, and pre-colonial Africa—their true cultural roots.  Burroughs borrowed compositional elements from Botticelli’s painting of the classical goddess rising from the sea, but provides a renewed definition of beauty by replacing her fair hair and complexion with a rich, dark skin tone. 

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Art Term Tuesday: Murrini

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.

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Docent Dialogue: The Marvelous Ms. Marlene

With the start of the school year also comes the start of our docent training for the year. What better time to get to know another of our wonderful docents, Marlene Cooper! Marlene’s enthusiasm for and love of art is infectious. Read on, and watch a short interview, to see why FWMoA is her happy place and the children she gives tours to are her favorite people.

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Treasures from the Vault: Robert Stackhouse

Over the course of his 30+ year career, Stackhouse has refined his style. He almost exclusively crafts around the forms of ships and snakes, believing that a great artist doesn’t need an abundance of new information. He’s found what works for him, and if it’s not broken, he doesn’t plan on fixing it.

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Treasures from the Vault: Polaroid Pictures

Today, we are more accustomed to posting digital images on social media than printing photographs and putting them in albums.  Recently, companies like Polaroid and Fujifilm have manufactured a line of retro looking cameras, like the Fujifilm Instax Mini, that produce prints almost immediately without the need for a darkroom.  Perhaps it is a mixture of nostalgia and novelty that has caused a resurgence in popularity with these instant print cameras.  

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Art Term Tuesday: Macchia

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?

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Confession: I’m a Chalk Walk Wimp

As sure as the sun will rise and turn Main Street into a frying pan at the peak of an Indiana summer, FWMoA will, every July, organize the area’s largest community art project—Chalk Walk. In 2007, as a first-time and unpaid intern at FWMoA, I had the privilege of stepping in at the last minute to create the artwork for the square of the event’s lead sponsor. I was markedly more flexible, heat tolerant, and responsibility-free then, making me the ideal candidate to spend 14 hours on the baking pavement rubbing my fingertips away in the name of art. I haven’t participated since.

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Drawing Inspiration: Red Grooms

Scholastic Art and Writing Awards alum and mixed-media artist Red Grooms celebrates his 81st birthday on June 7. In its 95-year history, the Scholastic Awards have played an early role in the development of myriad influential and innovative artists. In Drawing Inspiration, we’ll celebrate them through their work in the FWMoA permanent collection.

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