Art Rambles

Modly post: We have moved!

2011-02-21T14:36:00.000-08:00

Attn: This blog has moved! We have migrated over to the new Scripps community site. Please update your bookmarks to: http://community.scrippscollege.edu/williamsongallery/

Patricia

Lessons Learned in London

2010-08-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

As Aleedra mentioned, today is officially the last day of the RCWG summer internships. However, I'll be here for another week, because last week I had the amazing opportunity to travel to London.

The purpose of my 9-day trip was a summer course at the Courtauld Institute of Art entitled "Artists' Materials: Invention and Innovation." The class had 9 students and was taught by paintings conservator Clare Richardson. We took a quick tour of European artists' materials, beginning in 13th century Italy, all the way up to the 1920s and the Russian Avant-Garde. We learned about egg tempera's quick-drying character, the problematic nature of poplar panels, the necessity of seams in large works on canvas, the discoloration of certain colors in oil, the difficulty of obtaining and preserving blue pigments, the relationship of the Impressionists with colormen, and the use of asphalt and sugar in Malevich's paintings.

And that's only the half of it. The most rewarding parts of the course were the practical sessions and the field trips. Clare taught us how to water gild in the old-fashioned way, which is one of the hardest things I have ever tried to do! We also made red lake pigment from Brazilwood, and combined that and other pigments with egg yolk to make egg tempera like the masters. Additionally, we went to the National Gallery and the Tate Modern to see in person the subjects we had studied. Imagine a group of 10 people, staring in awe at the San Pier Maggiore Altarpiece, not solely at the beauty of it, but also because we recognized the sheer mastery of the gilding compared to our own shoddy attempts. Imagine that same group of people then craning to look at Rubens' paintings at odd angles, identifying canvas seams and faded pigments in the raking light. Being able to see an identify those little details added such a richness to the art.

And of course, all of the time I was not in class, I spent in museums. At my second visit to the National Gallery, I saw "Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes, and Discoveries," an exhibition about the conservation of their collection. It was interesting to see what goes on in their conservation department, although looking at the painting they had originally attributed to Botticelli, I decided you didn't need scientific instruments to see that the attribution was false! Overall, the show was an excellent introduction to the field of conservation and the different methods used to analyze and preserve paintings. Among my favorite pieces in the permanent collection were Rubens' "Samson and Delilah," Daumier's "Don Quixote and Sanche Panza," and of course a couple early Italian paintings of St. Michael.

The Tate Modern's current exhibition, "Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera," features some fantastic photographs donated by Jane and Michael Wilson, the benefactors of my and Kathryn's internships. The show traces the camera's gaze all the way from late 19th century secret lenses hidden in pocket watches to surveillance photos in the 21st century. For me, the gems of the Tate's collection were a reconstruction of Duchamp's "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass)" and Rodin's incredibly sensual marble sculpture of "The Kiss."

The Victoria & Albert museum had two rooms full of adorable Beatrix Potter sketches and prints, as well as the most beautiful collection of jewelry I have ever seen - bling from the 4th century BC, the Victorian period, Art Deco, modern designers, and everything in between.

Finally, I could not miss the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum, the locus of so much artworld controversy these days.

So that's a brief summary of my amazing trip! Now I'm back in Claremont with a deeper understanding of the nature of paint - which helps me with my work on St. Michael. I'm currently attempting to identify a red pigment that we believe may be the original color of his clothing. I think it's vermilion, based on the color and its characteristic purplish degradation where it has been exposed to the air; I found a great article on this exact subject in an issue of the National Gallery Technical Bulletin. I've taken some pictures of samples on the light microscope, and I hope to use EDS sometime next week to find mercury in the chemical makeup of the pigment. Had it not been for my travels to England, I may never have known how to identify the paint!

This Is Not Goodbye

2010-08-12T13:49:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow is the last day of my internship. Putting that down in writing doesn't make it seem any less surreal. It doesn't help that today has been particularly unusual for me. I share an office with Kathryn and Mckenzie, both of whom are in LA today, along with Tiffany. (Mckenzie and Tiffany work with conservator Donna Williams in her studio every Thursday and Kathryn got permission to go meet some important Art World people through a personal connection.) Milan pops in occasionally to grab some coffee, but for the most part, I've spent the day alone. It's been quiet. Sometimes the quiet is fantastic. I've been incredibly focused today. Other times, I wonder why I never noticed how loudly the clock in this office ticks! Haha!

I suppose I needed this day to go into my own headspace and be über-productive. I have a lot of work to complete. I'm racing to the finish line with my final project—an exhibit in the Clark Humanities Museum called Rendering the Female Subject. Simply put, this show is my baby. I've had a lot of help with organizing it from Kathryn and Tiffany and of course Mary, Colleen, Kirk, Patricia and John. Also, the original concept for the show wasn't mine. Last semester's gallery interns proposed the idea. Having said all that, I've put a lot of work into this exhibit, and I feel a personal commitment to making it a success. Rendering the Female Subject is all about diversity and how women are depicted in art. The show consists of about 30 works on paper, as well as several ceramic pieces and wood sculptures. Everything is from the Scripps Permanent Collection. Keep an eye out for further information about it on the Gallery's website. I'm biased, but I think it's worth taking a look at. There's a lot of variety—something to interest everyone and something new for everyone to learn about.

I guess that's my pitch, haha. One thing I will definitely take away from my experience here: the importance of putting yourself out there, of making your ideas, projects, goals, and accomplishments known to other people. As interns, we've spent a lot of time this summer networking. I'm told this is just the beginning. Apparently, I will spend the rest of my career networking. And I'm actually okay with that because I'm learning that it really does get easier with practice.

Anyway, I'm titling my post "This Is Not Goodbye" for a reason. Looks like I'm staying here, or in LA, rather. I have an internship lined up in Development at LACMA. I don't know how it could possibly compare to the past ten weeks, but I have high hopes.

Tiles and Smiles

2010-07-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday all of the interns, along with Curator of Visual Resources John Trendler, went to the First Street Gallery Art Center in Claremont for a tile-making workshop.

First Street Gallery Art Center is a non-profit program of the Tierra del Sol Foundation, which serves adults with developmental disabilities in the San Fernando and San Gabriel/Pomona Valleys. As part of this foundation, the gallery provides art training and exhibition space for more than 50 people who otherwise would not be as able to express themselves creatively, much less be recognized professionally for their work. The artists receive %60 of all profits from their sales; the other %40 goes to operating costs at First Street Gallery.

We arrived at First Street around 9:30. We were given a tour of the place by the director, Rebecca Hamm, and then we were guided to tables outfitted with all sorts of clay-working instruments. First Street Gallery's Getty Intern, Leah, gave each of us a tile, and we set to work on them. The tile workshop was open to anyone in the community, and there were people of all ages drawing and painting on the clay slabs. Each of us made two tiles, at least one of which will be donated to the gallery. All of the donated tiles will be shown this coming fall, and all sales will benefit First Street Gallery Art Center's programs.

By the time I had finished both of my tiles, the regular artists had arrived and were working on their art in the studio space of the gallery. I walked through the room, meeting the artists and enjoying their work. I met Danny, who had drawn a car, over which he had applied a beautiful, thick layer of dark blue paint. LeRoy was cutting out pictures of tropical fish, creating a collage out of the luminous undersea images. Later on, when the other interns had finished their own pieces of clay artwork, we went through the studio again. This time, we met a man constructing a hay bale out of cardboard and strips of yellow paper, and another woman who was drawing an image of parrots from a book. She told us that she chose her images "because of the colors."

Throughout the morning, I was struck by how wonderful this program is. The artists at First Street Gallery Art Center have faced huge challenges, both physical and social, their entire lives. Here they are given the chance to express their unique experiences and to show that, as the First Street brochure states, "human potential for creativity is not limited by physical or intellectual disabilities." And the artwork they make is incredible.

I was sad to realize that I had never heard about First Street Gallery Art Center before yesterday. Such an amazing place should be common knowledge, especially in a place like Claremont where there are so many students looking toward the future, trying to make a difference. I hope that in the future, awareness of the gallery will be raised among the 5C community, beginning a rapport between students and the artists there.

First Street Gallery Tile Workshop from Milan Reed on Vimeo.

Halfway Point

2010-07-14T15:37:00.001-07:00

I can't believe I'm writing this—our Getty internship is more than halfway complete. We were warned during the first week that we would feel this way by Week 5, but I think we're all still shocked at how quickly the time has passed.

And it's no wonder! We've had very busy schedules for the past few weeks. In addition to the trip to Culver City and the Getty Arts Summit I blogged about, we also went to a Surrealism lecture at the Getty Research Institute and a Genji Symposium here at Scripps. We met conservators Aneta Zebala and Hisaji Sekichi. And a couple weeks ago, we spent a day in LA with Samella Lewis and Alison Saar. One of my projects this summer has been to reasearch pieces in the Scripps College Samella Lewis Collection and write about them, so meeting Samella and Alison was especially exciting for me. Alison told us about the projects she's been working on lately and her experiences with public art projects. She was wonderfully down-to-earth and kind.

And talking to Samella Lewis was kind of surreal. Have you ever read so much about someone's life and work that you started to feel like you knew them? That's how I was beginning to feel about Samella Lewis. But it turns out there was a lot of information about her that I simply couldn't have learned from my research. There are so many intimate details that get left out of academic articles and museum catalogues and even transcribed interviews. It's really impossible to know someone without actually looking them in the face and hearing what they have to say come straight from their own mouth. Samella had lots of personal anecdotes about her life to share with us. She regaled us with stories from her time spent in Bayou Tesch, Louisiana, which is a place that has inspired several of her pieces. (A few of which are in our Permanent Collection.) It was really a treat to here her talk about her work.

And today we painted tiles at First Street Gallery. I think McKenzie is going to post about that soon, so I'll let her tell you about it. When we aren't busy traveling around and meeting exciting, new people, I've been working on planning the fall exhibit for the Clark Humanities Museum at Scripps. It's going to be a show that features several pieces from our Permanent Collection. I just finished my preliminary checklist and proposal today, but I'll post more information about the exhibit soon!

St. Michael Update!

2010-07-14T15:17:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I mentioned that St. Michael's gilding would be finished in the next several days. And indeed it was; after nine long months of careful work, all of the remaining gold has been secured. And how it shimmers!

The next step is structural conservation. Tiffany, Donna, and I have already removed about a dozen metal handmade and machine-made nails from different areas of the sculpture. This step is incredibly important because St. Michael is carved from wood. Wood has a life of its own, breathing and moving with changes in climate. If anything is embedded in the wood that does not move in sync, cracks will result - and that is precisely what has happened to St. Michael. In the centuries since his creation, nails have been inserted to stabilize him, and in fact they have done just the opposite. Once most of the metal inserts are removed, we'll start in on consolidating fragments and breakage points. After that, the fragments can be reattached and St. Mike will be whole!

On Tuesday morning, we began the process of deciding what colors we'll need for the planned infills for areas of gilding and paint loss. Donna showed Tiffany and me how to add different pigments to a small amount of vinyl spackling to demonstrate each particular hue. Once the samples dry, we'll decide the different combinations necessary for matching the infill as closely as possible to the surrounding material. With the infills, from a distance the piece will appear as a complete and finished sculpture; as you get closer, it will be clear what has been conserved. This approach stays true to the original intent of the artist and takes into consideration the long, rich life of the piece.

On a last note, the sculpture's owner, Duffy Hecht, visited Scripps to see St. Michael on Tuesday. He has not seen the piece since it was in very bad shape, and this was a chance to show him how much work has been done. Furthermore, Duffy and Donna engaged everyone in a conversation about the future of the piece, i.e., where it will be located and how it will be displayed. It's so exciting to think that St. Michael will once again be (almost) whole and as impressive as ever!

Getty Arts Summit

2010-06-29T08:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Tiffany, Milan and I went to the Arts Summit. The Arts Summit is a professional development event at the Getty. All of the multicultural undergraduate interns came together to mingle with each other and meet industry professionals. It was an all day event, and it was jam-packed with activities and interesting people.

We got private tours of some of the Getty's exhibits. Our group got a tour of the new gallery of Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture and Decorative Arts. One of the highlights of the exhibit is a 17th century German cabinet. There's a virtual tour of the cabinet that you can view online or at the museum as you look at the cabinet in person. Maybe I'm just being a nerd, but I was pretty excited about the virtual tour! Tiffany thought it was cool, too. You should check it out.

The programming involved a long lunch break, so we got to hang out with some of the other interns. I talked to some other recent graduates. We exchanged job-finding tips, which made me feel strangely grown-up. Haha!

The main events at the Arts Summit were the career sessions. We each chose five sessions from a list of sixteen. Each session had its own theme and one or two presenters to talk with the interns in groups of nine. The presenters were all people who have carved out a special niche for themselves in the art world. Some work at museums, others run their own nonprofits or galleries. All of them are super-successful. I went to a lot of the career sessions regarding educational programming, and it gave me some food for thought. I've started researching careers in that area.

All in all it was a really fun day! Milan, Tiffany and I bonded. (As all the other interns can tell you by now, I'm always up for some quality bonding!) We also took some fun pictures. The one below is the three of us posing in front of Elisabeth Frink's Running Man. The pose was Milan's idea. It's cute, yea?

Progress on the Conservation of St. Mike

2010-06-22T15:55:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are not familiar with Scripps' St. Michael, he is a painted and gilded wooden sculpture. He was carved c. 145o, and was part of the façade decoration for an Italian church. Under the guidance of L.A. conservator Donna Williams, I have been conserving our 560-year-old friend for the past nine months.

My work on St. Michael has mostly consisted of gilding consolidation, a process by which I flatten and adhere flaking, cracked gilding back onto the wooden base of the sculpture. The gilding on the body has been entirely consolidated, and thanks to a couple of productive weeks and the helping hands of my fellow intern Tiffany Yau, the wing gilding should be finished within the next several days!

Another integral part of the conservation process is testing. Many people, when picturing an art conservator in action, see them standing before an artwork in a studio, utensil in hand, working diligently away on the piece. Most do not see a scientist sitting before computer screens in the basement of a physics building. But while the hands-on work (called “bench work” among professionals) is inarguably the main part of the conservation process, scientific testing forms the backbone of the field. It provides the conservator with important knowledge about the piece, without which sound bench work would be impossible.

The testing on St. Michael has been exciting and diverse. In April, the RCWG staff, Donna, JSD Prof. Anna Wenzel, and myself took him to Pomona Valley Medical Center for a CAT scan! You will be able to read about the scan and its results in the Fall 2010 Scripps Magazine. In May, I was trained on the scanning electron microscope (SEM) at the Pomona Department of Physics. The SEM examines the topography of a sample with a high-powered electron beam. I took micrographs of fiber samples, and by comparing them to images from the MFA Boston’s Conservation & Art Material Encyclopedia Online (CAMEO), I identified two different fibers present on the piece: linen and hemp. Fifteenth-century painters commonly used these materials to prepare painted surfaces. In the case of St. Michael, the fabric was wrapped around joints and other areas. The wrapping was then covered with gesso, a primer much like plaster.

I have also begun using Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDS), a technique that is used in tandem with the SEM. This allows me to detect which elements are on the surface of a paint sample. Since different elements make up different pigments, and those pigments were discovered and used at different points in history, I will hopefully be able to approximate the date of any repaints of the blue garments on St. Michael. Although I have already begun testing with EDS, there are no certain conclusions to be drawn at this time. Updates will follow soon!

Culver City

2010-06-17T16:21:00.000-07:00

This is our second week interning here at the gallery, and I thought today would be the perfect time for my very first blog entry. One of the perks of this internship is that we all get the opportunity to talk to people who have made careers for themselves in the Art World. Today we went to Culver City to meet with several successful entrepreneurs.

First we met Cliff Benjamin and Erin Kermanikian. They own a gallery called Western Project. It's on La Cienega, and they are showcasing an exhibit by Arne Stevenson at the moment. Here's a link to the website in case you're interested. Cliff and Erin talked to us about feeling out the social climate in the Art World. They also told us how important it can be to have a greater vision motivating you when you come up against hard times. They were really cool people.

Next we met Patricia Hamilton. On Mondays Mary, the Director of the Williamson Gallery, discusses art articles with all of us interns. Sometimes we pick the articles, and sometimes she does. This week we actually discussed an article about Patricia Hamilton. She's had a remarkable career. She worked at the Whitney Museum right after college, and then decided to open up her own gallery in New York. She was only twenty-five years old at the time! Patricia is definitely one of the most entertaining and successful people I've ever met. I was too shy to ask her all of the questions I wanted to, but it was great just hearing her talk about her life. Seriously! She's fascinating.

Mary and Patricia took us to see some galleries. One of them was Taylor De Cordoba. Heather Taylor, a Scripps alumna who graduated in '02, co-owns the gallery. She talked to us about the importance of internships. They're great opportunities to learn and network and get valuable work experience. Talking to Heather was great because she's a recent graduate, but she's also had a lot of success. So many of the job options I have been considering require more education and/or experience than I have right now. I've been stressing out about the fact that I may have to end up at a dead end job after I finish my Getty internship this summer just so that I can earn enough money to live on. Seeing Heather manage her own gallery was proof that it is possible to make a living doing something that I will actually enjoy at a young age. It's just a matter of networking and being motivated.

We also went to lunch with Mary's son and daughter Matt and Amanda MacNaughton. They've started their own public relations business. You can check it out here. They're yet another example of young entrepreneurs who have found success doing something they really enjoy. And they were fun to talk to as well. They had great energy. You could tell just by listening to them talk that they really loved their work.

That was true of everyone we met today. Even though all of these people have found success doing different things, they all seemed to have a common trait: Patricia calls it chutzpa. That's a Yiddish word that basically means having the guts to do something when others might see it as too bold or unnecessarily daring. I'm working on finding my own chutzpa. It's tough, though. I clam up around new people pretty easily, and I've never been much of a risk taker.

Okay, time to sign out. This has been fun! It's therapeutic to write without worrying too much about structure or grammatical errors. I'll write again soon.

2010 Summer Internships

2010-04-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

Do YOU want to contribute to this blog? Now's your chance! 2010 summer internships are available at the gallery and one of your many perks will be blogging rights to Art Rambles!

We are offering FIVE internship positions: 2 Wilson internships and 3 Getty Multicultural Summer Undergraduate Internships. All interns will participate in field trips with Mary, our director, to cool L.A. art institutions and get to meet with curators, conservators, and other awesome people in the arts. In previous years, field trips have included the Getty Villa, LACMA, the Museum of Latin American Art, MOCA, UCLA's Fowler Museum, and the Broad Foundation.

If you're interested, please visit the gallery's internship page. Applications are due by 5pm, April 20, so get moving!

The Getty Foundation offers internships at institutions all across LA County, so check out the Getty's website for more internship opportunities. The Williamson is the hub leader for the Claremont/Pomona region, so if you want to hang with us, there are positions available at Pomona College, Pitzer College, First Street Gallery, Claremont Museum of Art, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (RSABG), American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA), Millard Sheets Center for the Arts at Fairplex (MSCAF).

If you're not a Scripps student, nor of a multicultural background, fear not! The LA County Arts Commission is also offering summer internships in the performing and visual arts. Check it out here.

Participating institutions each have their own application requirements and deadlines, so if you miss out on the Williamson's deadline, please see the above websites for additional opportunities.

Muybridge on NPR

2010-04-14T10:02:00.000-07:00

Hey look! NPR has a piece on photographer Eadweard Muybridge- Muybridge: The Man Who Made Pictures Move

Apparently, a retrospective of his works will be on exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and will then tour around the country.

Check out the Williamson's collection of Muybridge prints at the Claremont Colleges Digital Library:

Patricia

in defense of art...

2009-08-10T09:03:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been really wondering about how to balance indulging a love for beauty and the interesting with a need to meet the average person where they are and change them for the better. How is art connecting with the average person? I was in a conversation with a friend this week who, on hearing my plan to become more involved with the arts, informed me that art seemed so indulgent and that music truly touched and changed people in a more effective and meaningful manner. He went on to say that the average person is touched every single day by music and that art is for the rich who get to sip wine in a hoity toity museum or gallery. He said art makes the rich feel good and happy for like ten minuets and music makes the masses happy for... ever. I love art and I can literally look at piece for hours and feel like my soul is duking out a war inside my chest but how does it really in everyday life touch the masses and does it do it half as effectively as music? When people off the street look at Monogram (above) do they really get anything from it without previous knowledge of the theories and history behind it? Are the musicians winning the war for the public's hearts? How do we change the minds of people who think like this and get more involved with the masses? How does art change peoples' everyday life? IDK quite yet how to most effectively answer these questions, but I'd love to hear some of your responses! So give me your answer: what would you say to my friend?

August

2009-08-07T16:56:00.001-07:00

It's already August.

Mood: excited, yet also hesitant.

One more week left until... the end! Eek!

One more week until I will have to say goodbye to my kimonos, to Kristin's handy-dandy laptop, and the numerous books on the meanings behind the motifs on the textiles.

Oh, I took that picture while at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Pretty huh? =)

The begining of the end?

2009-08-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

I was recently standing in Wendy's office (like an hour ago) wondering how in the world our time in this amazing internship has flown by so fast. It seems like yesterday i was buying my first dress pants, seeing the permanent collection for the first time, and filling out my first w-9. This experience has been so new to me that time has really been escaping me. I have been settling into the rhythm of the office life and enjoying the amazing amount of field trips and new experiences I have been blessed to participate in. When trying to mentally amass the totality of important events from this internship, my head throbs with the sheer number of amazing people we have met. I think it will be difficult to convey the totality of the experience to anyone who doesn't have a few hours to talk with me. It has had its difficult moments, but I feel so blessed to have had this amazing opportunity.
I can honestly say that it has changed me life: I no longer wonder if I should stop "fooling around with frivolous and indulgent artsy things", and instead wonder how i can enrich my life and the lives of others through creative means. Life, at least for me, is filled with situations that demand the ability to truly listen, understand and critically and creatively think of responses and solution. By realizing that art can be used as a means of furthering understanding, communication, and learning, I have realized that the arts are very applicable to the type of person that I am and the goals that I have. What that means in relation to my future and my career plans is quite fluid presently. However, this internship has allowed me to not only see that the arts industry has a ridiculous number of niches and opportunities, but that I might be able to fit into one of those niches. Again, the application of this knowledge is still evanescent, but a greater knowledge and appreciation of a field can only be a good thing.

The Piccirilli Bros

2009-07-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

Who are they?

Why, they are the 6 Italian-American sculptor-carvers (Getulio, Furio, Attilio, Ferrucio, Masaniello, and Orazio!) who were responsible for some of America's greatest monuments!

The one that EVERYONE and their mothers know about? The marble giant that is Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C..

The same one that comes to life in "Night at the Museum II: The Smithsonian"!! =)

They hand-carved that masterpiece!

Man.. to have 6 brothers who are all talented in the skill of sculpture/marble-carving!

My sister and I share the same genes, yet I can't say we share any skills...

[I guess we both played golf in high school.. but I barely managed to stay in the junior varsity team, while my sister played varsity... I promise I'm not bitter or anything..]

Being the carvers, and not the artists/one who designed the pieces, they did not put their names on the works. Thus they weren't as recognized.

I'm trying to do some additional research on the Piccirilli brothers and artist John Gregory, and decided to post on the blog with the interesting things that I was finding.

I like Furio the best.

And maybe Orazio next.

Sorry, Getulio, Attilio, Ferrucio, and Masaniello. You guys are still really cool too.

Head of a camel+body of a snake=?

2009-07-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

DRAGON!

Today, textile conservator Yadin Larochette visited us at the Scripps Gallery. =)

She examined a couple pieces of our textile collection, many which had DRAGONS on them.

Don't we all love dragons!

Patricia taught us that the dragon is a mixture of different animals, and so I decided to check just how many different animals there were. And what better place than...

WIKIPEDIA!

So apparently, the Chinese long dragon has nine anatomical resemblances:

1. Horns of a stag/deer.

2. Head of a camel. (Yeah, we were pretty surprised with that one too. But I can kinda see it.)

3. Eyes of a demon/rabbit. haha.

4. Neck of a snake.

5. Belly of a clam/frog.

6. Scales of a carp.

7. Claws of an eagle/hawk.

8. Soles of a tiger/palms of a tiger.

9. Ears of a cow.

[Also mentioned: a tortoise's viscera??]

[Also, in Singaporean folktales, the dragon has attributes of the other 11 creatures in the zodiac. I thought that was pretty cool..]

The needlework on the textiles were amazing. I can't imagine the amount of labor that went into these textiles. No wonder only the wealthy could afford these.

It's so perfect that it's crazy!

Mary mentioned the possibility of a couple museums getting together to exhibit the best of their Asian textile collections.

That would be an awesome exhibition!!

I really hope that can happen.

But getting textiles in a good enough condition to be exhibited is probably ridiculously expensive.

I took a peak at some of the estimated costs for conservation work of the textiles and ... DANG!

But hopefully it will happen one day =)

Designing exhibitions…designing our future…

2009-07-17T08:58:00.000-07:00

The Getty currently hosted an Arts Summit for the Multicultural Interns from 80+ organizations this past Monday. …as explained by Jasmine in her entry “The…Getty!”. One of the most exciting and memorable experiences I had that day was the tour of the Design Studios. The tour was limited to about 9 or 10 interns. Now imagine, there are about 15 sessions that interns can pick from, each session allows only 9 spots. There had to be intense coordination between the 100+ interns. While I picked the top five sessions I was interested in, there was no guarantee that I could attend each one.

Considering that I am the Visual Resources Intern at the Williamson Gallery, I was pleased with the number of digital related sessions available. I have been debating on what to do after graduation so I was excited to meet professionals in different digital-related fields. While I know that I want to be a part of the professional digital world…where in the digital world am I going to find my niche? There are many options to explore…graphic design…post-production…but finding the right one for me might take a while. I have spoken to John, the curator of Visual Resources, who has taught me a few things about different career possibilities. So now I had the chance of learning about designing exhibitions as a career possibility.

I was not aware of this position before...so when I read the description in one of the many papers that the Getty gave the interns…I wanted to learn more. Yet, many, many, many interns were eager to go behind-the-scenes. Throughout the first three sessions, I kept my eye on the line for the tour of the design studio…but everyone seemed to rush over there. I was not so sure that I would get a chance to see the design studio since the sessions I expressed interest in were on the opposite side of the cafeteria. To my luck, my fourth sessions was close to the meeting place for the tour! But then, Jasmine, who coincidentally also chose the same session as I did…told me that she had been ‘rejected’ once before…

Was I going to get a chance to go behind-the-scenes and miss out on a great opportunity? I debated whether I should go ahead and just try or give up. Waiting for the fourth session to begin, I remembered the different individuals I have met at the Williamson Gallery. A consistent word of advice was to just go for it. If you want to try it, just try it. Don’t think about what you want to do. Take the opportunity. The same words that I hear over and over again from Mel at fin aid.

The fourth session ended, and I was ready to be one of the few to go on tour for the last session. This was my last chance to go. Luckily, the tour was extended to 20 spots.

Overall, the tour was amazing. The studio is simply wonderful. I encourage anyone who has the chance to explore a space to go for it…because it makes a difference on how you view institutions. Looking at how different organizations make of a space is great…small or large. It makes you appreciate what you do have.

The tour guide spoke of the different processes they have to undergo for one exhibit. From making a scale model…choosing appropriate colors…meeting with curators…designing the furniture for objects…(look at the walls of exhibits and notice how they are sometimes made to look smaller…or at the furniture that holds a piece…secured for preventing damage from a disaster such as from an earthquake), choosing fonts, etc. So much detail goes into planning and designing an exhibit.

After taking this session, I just had to take a closer look at the exhibitions at the Fowler Museum at UCLA on Wednesday. Fortunately, Mary, the director of the Williamson Gallery, helped us think critically of the different choices made for the installations at the Fowler. While I agreed on some decisions, I did not on others. Yet, that goes into personal taste as well.

This past week has certainly been one of the best, despite not having as much time to finish working on digitizing and optimizing Barnett Newman’s work which is taking me longer than usual because of certain difficulties…but that’s a topic for another entry!

The.. Getty!

2009-07-16T09:23:00.001-07:00

This Monday (July 13th), we Getty interns made a trip out to the LA Getty Center for the Getty Foundation's M(ulticultural)U(ndergraduate)I(nternship) Arts Summit.

Dang, that sounds fancy.

It was basically a career day / meet-all-the-other-100+-Getty-interns-day.

Janet Mota who works at the botannical garden was kind enough to drive.

I'm so glad I had the chance to meet her. She's gonna have the best time in Spain!!

I wish I had applied for a study abroad program... =(

But back to our trip:

The welcome speech was quite informative...

It really helped me realize that I was very lucky to be a part of this internship.

I didn't realize just how expansive this program was until I saw the map on the powerpoint presentation showing all the different organizations/galleries/museums that employed Getty interns. It was funny to see our learning community so isolated from the rest of the organizations, being so inland.

We then took a group photo, which was amusing. It reminded me of our photoshoot with John the first day of work =)

I wish that the tables hadn't been so long for our lunch group. The people around us were really loud, so I basically tried to read people's lips as they spoke and nodded along. I wish that I had gotten to talk to the rest of the interns in our learning community. I remember meeting a couple of them at our first hub meeting a couple weeks ago. Oh! It was nice to see Ghada from First St. Gallery again.

After lunch began the career sessions. There were around 20 (maybe a little less) sessions, and sadly we could only pick 5. They varied from topics such as "curating exhibitions," "museum education," "advocating for the arts," "designing exhibitions," "being a professional artist," "conservation," "historical preservation," and etc. The "designing exhibitions" session was VERY popular. I was rejected twice =(. For the last session, they increased the size of people allowed to 20, but knowing my luck, I probably would have been number 21 =/. So I just decided to sit in on the "advocating for the arts."

My favorite session was "museum education" with Asaka Hisa of the Santa Monica Museum of Art. I am amazed with the amount of creativity that goes into creating programs for museum education. I don't know if I, myself, could ever come up with such brilliant ideas, but I would LOVE to be a part of organizing and carrying out such programs. The one example that I enjoyed the most was Ms. Hisa's bike ride. [link below]

(http://www.smmoa.org/index.php/programs/group/1/3)

After noticing the popularity of cycling in LA, she planned a bike ride that began and ended at the SMMoA, while stopping at various art-related organizations along the way.

I wonder if such an event could be planned around the 5-C's... hm..

Using people's interests and relating them to the museum!! Genius!! =)

SMMoA also has a book club (http://www.smmoa.org/index.php/programs/group/0) that features novels recommended by artists. I would definitely read a book that Allison Torneros (my favorite artist currently) recommends.

The conservation session was equally interesting. Ellen Pearlstein and Allison Lewis (who graduated from the Getty-UCLA conservation program) spoke to us about the field of conservation. They also shared with us some of their favorite projects in the past. I had some more questions to ask about their work, so they were kind enough to give me their cards and offered to answer them through email. I should get on that... maybe after I finish this entry (which is taking me a surprising long time to write).

[One thing that I am realizing throughout this summer and meeting with various members in the art community: people are so nice!]

Although it was a bummer that I didn't get to go behind the scenes and get one of those cool-looking security passes for the "designing exhibitions" session, I really enjoyed the entire day.

I wish had been able to roam around the Getty more, but sadly there was only enough time for a tour of the garden. [Did you know that the artist has the workers pick every-other-leaf off the trees at the beginning of the winding road? I believe it was for the shadow that they cast on the lawn.. but still.. that's pretty intense.] Apparently, the best view of the garden is the second floor of the East Pavillion.

I, of course, fell asleep on the way back home. I think I can fall asleep in any moving vehicle.

I didn't take any pictures, because I didn't want to look like a newbie tourist. But I was itching to whip out my camera...

I can't say that all the career sessions have helped me make up my mind about my future (it's such a daunting topic/decision that needs many more hours of deliberation), but at least I got to brag to my friends that I was one of the special 150-ish students who got to roam the Getty on a day it was closed for "normal visitors." haha. just kidding........ kinda.

Wow this was a long entry.. I'm sure it's teeming with grammatical errors and I see a lot of red underlining. It's like Blogspot is yelling at me to fix them, but.. too bad Blogspot. I'm tired.

Today: I finished my 10th kimono today! Yeahhh! Thank you Patricia for helping me take pictures and teaching me how to distinguish a plum blossom from a cherry blossom. I learn new things everyday =).

When New Beginnings Come to the End

2008-08-12T14:56:00.000-07:00

Not everyone gets to say that they had the perfect last day at a job, but I think that Rody and I have the privilege of being able to truly say that today was perfect.

One of the reasons that this internship was such an incredible experience is that Mary takes us out on field trips and has us go and meet many important people who work in the visual arts and arts administration. In fact, I'd say that the highlight of this internship was going on these field trips. So it was only fitting, I think, for us to go on a field trip on our last day. And Mary took us to MoLAA (the Museum of Latin American Art) today, which was perfect because both Rody and I really, really wanted to go there.

I loved the work that I saw there, and honestly, I loved the museum. I can see that the museum has some issues (their storage space is TINY), but I really liked the art that I saw there, and I think that the art itself was so different from a lot of the contemporary art that we've seen this summer. I think it's safe to say that Rody and I both loved it a lot.

When we came back to the gallery, both Kirk and Mary came to the Print and Study room to give us some goodbye presents, and honestly, I think that the presents were amazing. Kirk gave us some knee bowls (which I love the concept of), and made me earrings from some slides that I worked with and gave us each a book with a hole in the middle (it will remind me of drill presses, earthquakes, ash and really lame jokes about interns and drilling). Mary gave me a beautiful bracelet made of coconut shell and a notebook (which, again, is really handy).

I've always had a problem with saying goodbye, and having homes in two different parts of the world has not made saying goodbye seem easier or more routine. It's going to be weird to wake up to RA training tomorrow; to not come in to say hi to Rody or Kristin or Kirk or Zoe or John early in the morning; to not take ridiculously long tea breaks routinely; and to not work with slides and really expensive art everyday. I'm still going to have to wake up before 8 this next semester (8 o'clock class is the bane of my existence), but I know that I probably won't look forward to it the way that I did these past 10 weeks. I know the gallery is next door, because it's on campus, but I'm still really going to miss this place.

So before I officially sign out as the Visual Resources Intern at the Williamson Gallery for Summer 2008, I'd really like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who works here. Rody, Patricia and Zoe- I've found a friend in each one of you and I hope that we frequently meet this next year. Mary, Kirk, Kristin and John- thank you so much for everything. This summer was so much fun, and a tremendous learning experience. You guys are incredible bosses, and I can only hope that I will have bosses as fun and nice as all of you when I graduate and go into the really world.

Fare thee well ogre(s)...

2008-08-11T11:09:00.000-07:00

It's never easy to say good-bye...So I won't.

I just want to let you guys know that I'll miss you. It has been a real pleasure working with all of you this summer and I hope to see you again during the year. Thank you guys for being so wacky, sweet, and honest for the past ten weeks; I really appreciate it.

If it had not been for the crazy conversations we had over tea breaks, or on our way to lunch, or on trips with Mary, I probably would not have enjoyed myself as much as I did. Thank you for that. I know this is somewhat corny, but I think I'll let Mr. Rogers take it from here...

It's such a good feeling to know you're alive.

It's such a happy feeling: You're growing inside.

And when you wake up ready to say,

'I think I'll make a snappy new day.'

It's such a good feeling, a very good feeling,

the feeling you know that we're friends.

Sorry, I just had to. Good luck with everything, enjoy what's left of summer, and I'll definitely see you guys again.

The Writing Blues

2008-08-11T08:15:00.001-07:00

Writing has always been something that I've done, ever since I was little.

I remember writing stuff in elementary school. It was mostly fanciful, childish nonsense, but I remember writing it anyway. I grew up keeping an array of different journals and diaries and notebooks full with short stories, but I don't really think that I've ever written anything that has been especially memorable or especially commendable. So I don't pretend to be a good writer, just OK enough to scrape by in school with a B on most of my papers. I do, however, think I have had enough practice with writing to know that I can crank stuff out if I need or want to.

This internship, however, has proved me wrong in that capacity. As one of my final assignments for Mary, I'm supposed to turn in a few essays on some powerful and iconic women photographers and their work. I'm supposed to be writing about fairly well-known photographers (Julia Margaret Cameron, Anne Brigman and Diane Arbus) and I've done a lot of research on all of them. But for some reason, the words just aren't flowing and the essays I have written so far are crap to say the least.

It's not writer's block. I've had writer's block before. This is more than that. Every time I sit down to write, all the information I have just swirls in my head and I don't know where to begin, where to take the essay and how to end. Most of what I've written is all over the place (it's pretty sub-par in my opinion) and it's nothing worth writing home about. I know this shouldn't be hard for me, but somehow, it is. And it's so frustrating. I've never felt like this about any of my writing before, because I positively HATE everything I've written for Mary so far. And I don't think there's anything worth keeping here. And that sucks.

So I don't know what to do. I know I have to turn this in by tomorrow, but I don't want to. I definitely think that it's better to keep the crap stuff hidden or torn up than to have it put on the website for everyone to read.

It's been a while

2008-08-08T11:22:00.001-07:00

Wow. It's been a long time since any one of us actually looked at this and considered writing something.

I only have 2 days left at this internship, and when I think about it, it makes me pretty sad. In many ways, I'm ready to stop working, start RA training and get ready for the semester to start, but I think I will also look back on these last 10 weeks as an amazing learning experience. It's hard to think that these 10 weeks have just whizzed by, but time does fly when you're busy and having fun.

When I look back on this entire thing, I can't help but be incredibly grateful for everything that Mary and Kirk did for us. They were incredibly supportive, and we got to meet some really cool and really interesting people from different walks of life. I've written a lot of thank you notes in my life, but this summer I basically wrote thank you notes to people who simply sat and talked with me about their lives over lunch. It's like Rody said, we met a lot of powerful and successful women this past summer, and being in their presence has inspired me.

I do have to address something I have realized though, something that I think the Getty is making an effort to address:

As lovely and wonderful as all the people we met on our various field trips and excursions with Mary were, they were all white. Meeting all these people this summer has really driven home the point that the Getty was trying to make at the trip to the villa (not that I disagreed with it there)- that there simply aren't enough people of colour in the visual arts and arts administration. To some people, lack of diversity is not a big deal, and I don't want to say that the art world (at least in LA) is this way because it's racist or anything like that. But the truth is that I've seen that people of colour don't really enter this field (or if they do, they're mostly working at ethnicity based museums). I'm sure it's much better now than it was, say, 20 years ago, but if the disparity is still so glaring, there is definitely still a problem.

I'm really glad that the Getty has this summer program and gives students of colour the opportunity to gain work experience in a field that seems unfriendly and pretentious to the average person. Art is universal in that most people appreciate it in some form or another, and I'm really glad that this program helps those of us who want to make a living out of appreciating it.

An Earthquake and 108 Books with Holes in Their Centers

2008-07-29T22:55:00.000-07:00

What does it take to drill a hole in the center of a book?
Kirk, a drill press, 4 interns and an earthquake, apparently.

Today was possibly the most memorable day of my entire time working at the gallery (well, it's right up there with the day that I held the gallery's Diane Arbus for the first time). Not just because we spent most of the day drilling holes into a bunch of books for the gallery's next show (called Performing the Book), but also because we were hit with That Earthquake That Everyone's Talking About.

I'm still a little bit shocked, a little bit amused and a little bit relieved about it (more shocked, less amused and a lot relieved). I'm shocked that it happened in the first place (even though I do realize that this is California), and was definitely shocked by all the shaking and jangling in Kirk's wood shop (too much for comfort: it would not have been fun to have stuff falling all over the place). But really, when I think about the actually earthquake itself, all I can remember is the expression that Kirk got on his face when he realized that the shaking was not a truck passing by, but an actual earthquake. I'm also really relieved that we weren't actually drilling when It happened, because I don't know how all of us would have reacted if the drill press was turned on and it's motor was running.

Anyhow. After the excitement died down, we went back to work and drilled a lot of holes in a lot of books. And although we are no where near the 108 drilled books that we need, we're more than half way done at this point. Right now the books don't look like a lot because, apart from the holes, a lot of them are covered in ash (the drill got so hot that the paper began to burn). I'm pretty curious to see how the final piece will look (the books are going to be stacked), and I can only hope that we will start assembling the thing before Rody and I are done with the internship (only 2 weeks to go).

I also took pictures of the entire process of drilling on my phone, but my I guess there's something wrong with the phone's bluetooth, so I can't actually get them onto my computer. But if I figure out a way, I will put them onto this website for sure. But until then, we will all just have to make do with text, right?

Digitize This

2008-07-25T09:54:00.000-07:00

What's with all the digitization?

Everything from newspapers to slides in the slide library to magazines to museums collections are being digitized, and it's pretty unsettling- specially for all of us old fogeys who love everything in print and on paper. We were talking with Kirk the other day and he definitely wishes that everything wasn't going digital (because, as he puts it, "there's nothing better than grabbing a cup of coffee and sitting down with the morning paper"), but he wasn't sure if it was an age thing.

So basically I started to think about it too, and I decided that I'm very picky with what I like digitized. What I mean is that I'm happy that some stuff is digitized and accessible on the internet-it's really nice to have museum collections available online, for example- but the morning paper? I know, I know. It's more accessible, it's free, it wastes fewer trees and all that good stuff. But I can't really help but agree with Kirk on the subject of newspapers.

I really do like flipping through a newspaper. Maybe it's because that's what I did after school everyday (I needed to be at school by 7:25, and so I didn't have time to do it in the morning). I very clearly remember sneaking into my grandmom's room every afternoon while she was sleeping so that I could sit and flip through all the newspapers to see what was happening in the world. I also very clearly remember the sections that I would look at and what order I would look at them in (headlines, world news on page 4 and 5, the arts section and the sports section in that order). Somehow, clicking through all those sections on my screen just doesn't feel the same as flipping through a newspaper, and it definitely doesn't give me the same kind of satisfaction.

Like I've said here before, if I end up becoming an art writer, I can't say that I will end up being severely disappointed. But I do know that if I do write and get published, I would really like to see my work in print, and on paper, in front of me. Seeing my writing-the final published version of it- on a screen just wouldn't work, and it just wouldn't satisfy me at all. So if newspapers do become physically obsolete, I know I will most definitely become very disappointed.

On Growing Old

2008-07-23T21:45:00.000-07:00

I think it’s time I post something. Sim thought it was time a month ago. I haven’t written in large part because I haven’t known what to write about, haven’t felt inspired. But I think I’m ready. Sim, this one’s for you:

This summer, and especially during the past couple of days, I’ve been thinking a lot about age, aging, the passage of time. I think it's all because I will be launching my final year as an undergraduate on September 2. So much of what I’ve been pondering has been inspired and influenced by the gallery staff, too.

There’s Kirk, the collections manager here, who makes working and parenting – being an Adult – seem like some kind of awesome continuation of whatever utopian existence I’m living now. The man practically plays with pieces from the permanent collection for most of the day, handling priceless works with truly unbelievable comfort. He runs endless errands in the gallery’s sweet beater of a van, answers our questions and Mary’s, and whenever he can he checks in on his adorably teenaged daughter. Somehow he still finds time to work in his studio, on personal projects and others for Scripps. And he does it all in Crocs, with a cup of coffee in one hand. He makes it look like fun, and I’ve heard him say many times that he’s happiest at work.

Kristin, our data specialist, is a parent, too, and of littler ones, but like Kirk, she has not let parenthood sap her of her youth. She more enthusiastic – brighter eyed and bushier tailed – than any of us. She’s more technologically savvy, too.

And Mary is the ageless paragon. There are moments she’s more of a peer than a boss; it’s hard to believe that she’s an alumna, not a member of my graduating class. She’s as hip we are; she’s current on more than just the news that makes the front page of the New York Times Arts section. I pray that I am as vivacious, passionate about my work, self-assured, and seemingly fulfilled as she is when I am her age.

This is all in contrast to what I’ve been reading about Andy Warhol. I’m doing research on the 20th century American deity in preparation for a proposed exhibition of 155 photographs he took in the 1970s and 80s, which the gallery received from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts this May. I’m reading his Diaries, transcribed and edited by Pat Hackett, who I would, at this point, kill to meet. You know that game you play in which you have to name the person you’d have dinner with or take with you to a desert island? For me, for the past several weeks, that person has been Pat.

Anyway, I’m reading about Andy – his words, and others’. It’s fascinating. He is fascinating. As are his attitude about age, the world, and what he did to our understandings of those constructs. He stayed so young. Everything I read – every interview with him or people who knew him – alludes to his youth, or obsession with it. He was young for so long, and then when he got old, he had his skin “fixed,” and he just kept on playing with the Kids. Everyone was a kid to Andy. I’ve been wondering: who’s a kid, and who’s not? Andy didn’t think of himself as a kid, but who else wasn’t? And what was he, if not a kid?

What’s intriguing about Andy, too, is his paranoid (or is it just realistic?) understanding of mortality. After being shot and then stabbed, he was quite understandably afraid of death. Fearing another attack, he did little alone. Except sleep. So he says. But he was also aware of the inevitability, the approach of a more banal death: he took vitamins and drank carrot juice religiously. He’s actually famous for drinking orange juice.

Kirk, Kristin, and Mary probably drink orange juice too. And it’s likely they take vitamins, or that they have in the past. But they don’t live with the self-conscious deliberation that Andy did. Their existence is not performance. They simply live. In living, they are less obviously fantastic than Andy. Kirk is not internationally recognized for creating transgressive or phenomenally popular art. Kristin doesn’t have a devoted cult following. And Mary’s gallery operation is far from being considered the fourth Factory. All three are real, though, in a way that Andy maybe never was. Instead of orchestrating and documenting, they seem to me to be in each moment, and to enjoy most of them.

As much as I want my 15 minutes of fame, I know that I will be lucky if I can have 15 minutes of adult life as Kirk, Kristin, and Mary live it. Now it’s time I signed off and did some living of my own.

The Widening Gap

2008-07-22T20:39:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, I made the decision to declare two separate majors. It wasn't really a hard decision to make; in fact, it seemed perfectly logical because I have loved both Art and History since sixth grade. To date, I'm really glad that I picked these majors, so let me just preface this entire post by saying that I don't regretting choosing my majors, and I doubt that I'm ever going to.

Deciding to study the two subjects I love most seemed like a great idea-specially because I was way ahead of most of my friends with my major(s) declaration-but I never really considered what I would do with the two majors once I graduated from college. At the time, any thought about grad school was just a speck on the distant horizon, and I mostly just concentrated on patting my back for actually figuring out what I wanted to do for the remainder of my undergraduate career. At the back of my mind, however, I always just sort of thought that museums would be a good career direction to explore because both my majors seem to apply very well in that general direction.

At the start of this summer, I went into my internship thinking that I would possibly like to be a conservator, but I quickly decided that I didn't have the personality type to actually become one, so that whole idea went right out the window. When we met Suzanne Isken and Suzanne Muchnic, I started to seriously consider going in to either Arts Education or Art writing. Until we met Charlotte Cotton, that is; after we met her, curation got a whole lot more appealing. But then we met Ed Sanchez-an antiquities conservator at the Getty-a week ago, and *poof*. Suddenly, I got right back to square one.

This summer, I've met a whole array of interesting people with incredible jobs. And more importantly, I've met a whole array of interesting people who love their jobs. Ordinarily, all of this should be encouraging, but in truth, all of it is just unsettling. Because most of these people seem to have stumbled into their jobs by accident.

Now before people start rolling their eyes and thinking that I'm just a paranoid girl whose hyperventilating about my future (I mean, dozens of people, both in museums and not in museums, fall into their current jobs by accident, right?), hear me out. Almost all the people I've spoken with this summer prefaced their little "my career path" schpiel by saying, "I'm not the best person to talk to about my career path because I fell into this job and nowadays you need to have a specialized degree to get the job I currently do and love" or something to that effect. Each and every one of them said that, so I'm guessing that this is a trend. I'm beginning to seriously think that there's a huge generation gap between current museum professionals and us, because most of them learned a lot on the job. But "falling" into jobs like these seems to be no longer possible, or extremely rare at best. Museums are getting highly specialized, and they are now beginning to look for people who are not going to have to learn things from scratch, and this worries me.

What happens to all of us who don't know what specific field we want to go into? How will "following my passion"-which is what I'm doing with my two undergraduate degrees-help me pick the appropriate graduate school course that I might need to take to actually get hired at a museum?

In many ways, I'm glad I have two more years before I graduate, but all of this is confusing. I really wish that things could just work out the old way and that I could just fall into my dream museum job- whatever that might be. But I guess the times are changing. And I'm going to have to keep up with them. *Sigh*

Antiquities

2008-07-18T08:57:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, we were discussing the current controversies regarding antiquities and their repatriation, such as the case between the Getty and Italy regarding items in the Getty’s collection that apparently did not rightfully belong to them. We also discussed an article about Thai antiquities from the ancient Ban Chiang culture that were discovered in 1966 and have found their way into private and museum collections, even though they were never officially released onto the market. Archaeologists have decried the practice of moving artifacts out of their country of origin, arguing that “it removes objects from their original information-rich context,” and that it “destroys the archaeological record.”

The dilemma of antiquities collecting, especially that of museums owning items that were looted or stolen from other countries, is not an easy one to solve, and not a problem I want to answer here. I do, however, want to address the flaws in the archaeologists’ argument regarding keeping objects in their historical context.

1. Now no doubt viewing Egyptian artifacts in Egypt with the entire Nile River Delta as a backdrop would be an unparalleled experience. But how many people can afford to fly all the way to Egypt to view Egyptian artifacts? For most of us, encyclopedic museums near our homes are the most accessible way to experience and appreciate other cultures.

2. Mary made another good point. If we extend the archaeologists’ argument to its logical conclusion about keeping artifacts in their historical and archaeological context, then wouldn’t that mean leaving the artifacts in the ground? After all, that is now an integral part of their history—that they were buried beneath the earth by time.

3. Now what about looted objects? Let’s take the Elgin marbles for example. Yes, they were looted? No, Lord Elgin probably shouldn’t have done that. Yes, they are now in the British Museum. Should the British Museum return the marbles to Athens? Ah, that’s the question. On the one hand, one could argue that the marbles belong back in the Parthenon because that is its proper historical context. But what does “proper historical context” even mean? True, the marbles used to be on the Parthenon. But an integral part of their history now includes being an object of plunder and a symbol of British power and influence in the 19th century. Its place in the British Museum is in keeping with its historical context.

Of course I’ve only touched upon one facet of the antiquities debate. What are your thoughts regarding the legal and ethical aspects of antiquities collections? Should institutions like the British Museum return all previously looted objects?

(On a slightly different note, it seems to me that the demand by certain countries for their objects back and the refusal of other countries to return them, is oftentimes motivated not by a genuine concern for the objects themselves, but is in fact a clandestine pissing contest between nation-states. No?)

Free Throwing

2008-07-14T17:16:00.000-07:00

At about 3 o'clock today, all of us stopped working-for me, this meant putting down my research on Anne Brigman, the Pictorialist photographer- and we went over to the Ceramics studio.

Since Patricia, Zoe and Mary had already thrown in the studio when Rody and I were on our field trips, they went in to trim their pieces, but I sat on the wheel for the first time in a long time. The last time I sat down at a wheel was in fifth grade, and back then my legs weren't long enough to properly use a kick wheel, so I just presumed that I would be better at throwing than I remember being (although to be frank, I'd like to think that I would be better at everything I do now). Unfortunately, however, I think that I might have actually gotten much worse at throwing.

I do have to give Rody props though. He tried really hard to show me what to do, but it seems as if there was no stopping me: clay water flew everywhere, and clumps of clay fell all over the place, not least because I'm pedal happy and because my brain could not process that stopping the wheel meant not pressing down on the pedal (can't all of you just see how good I'll be at driving?).

I started with a lot of clay and I tried to make something with a shape, but (of course) I thinned out the top too much (because the wheel was spinning too fast) and eventually my lopsided mess of a bowl exploded in my face. After that Rody trimmed the clay down and I started making a smaller bowl (with careful guidance from him), which actually looked like it was going look pretty good for my second atempt, until (of course) I pressed the pedal down too hard, and my beautiful bowl kind of exploded again. Eventually, I tried once more to made a small candy container thing, but the clay (it remembers everything, you know) gave out and I had to get rid of the sodden, lifeless lump.

Meh. I've never actually made a serious attempt at anything clay based. Ever. And now I'm beginning to see that it was with good reason: if my first attempt at throwing is any indication, I'm going to be really pathetic at ceramics.

Man. Who knew that a wheel, some clay and some really terrible pedal work was all it was going to take to give my ego a huge beating.

Getty Field Trips

2008-07-09T16:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Rody and I went on our field trips with our discussion groups.
I'm in Amada Cruz's discussion group, so I went to the Japanese American National Museum to see the Ikebana and Contemporary Art show and then went over to the Pasadena Museum of California Art in (you guessed it!) Pasadena to see Kori Newkirk's survey show and also to meet with the artist, himself.

Since the Metrolink was so unkind as to only have one train passing through Claremont between 8:30 and 11, I had to get onto the 8:48 train with Rody in order to get to downtown in time to meet with the group at 10:45. So one Metrolink trip, one toasted bagel and one coffee later, I set off from Union Station to JANM on foot. I thought it would take me 20 minutes to get there, but apparently it only takes 7 minutes, so I reached JANM at 10:15, only to find that the museum opens at 11. But the wait wasn't that bad, because Amada came at 10:30, and everyone else in the group arrived soon after her.

After hanging out in the lobby (and staring awkwardly at other people) for about 20-25 minutes, the curator of the Ikebana show, Karin Higa, came down and talked to us about JANM, it's mission, and what it's trying to accomplish. She then proceeded to take us through the show and she told us about the different schools of Ikebana, their characteristic styles, and why she chose the contemporary works that she did. In total, I really liked the show- the flower arrangements were beautiful and the art was great- but I'm not sure how I felt about the paper "design and architectural" element. I'm sure that all that paper is significant, but I didn't really see how, and I felt it a little aesthetically out of place with the show- but hey, can't like everything, now can I?

I also noticed that JANM had also provided for a cellphone tour, and I asked Karin Higa about it. I'm not happy with the fact that there was very little in terms of a gallery guide, that there were minimal wall labels, no tour guides for the show, and that there is no catalog yet (they're documenting the weekly flower arrangements before they make a catalog)- but I'm more satisfied with Karin's answer than Suzanne Isken's answer about the cell-phone thing. It turns out that Karin is very well aware of the fact that there is practically nothing on the wall-labels and nothing for the uneducated viewer to go by, and she said that she's rethinking the wall labels for the show because she realizes that people might not be taking away a lot from what they see (other than the seriously beautiful flower arrangements). But she also conceded that a cell phone tour is significantly cheaper for a museum, and since budgeting is tight, that's the option they have to go for.

After JANM, the group made a stop at Senor Fish's (tacos! burritos! quesdillas!) and then went to Pasadena to meet with Kori Newkirk at PMCA. To be honest, I'd never heard of Kori Newkirk, and I completely forgot to google him before the field trip, so I had no idea of what to expect. But it turns out that I like Newkirk's work (I love the pony bead curtains and I love the basketball sculptures). In a way, I'm really happy that I got to hear him talk about his work, because he seemed to approach his work in a way that I like to approach my own- since so much of it is personal, he's kind of cagey when it comes to talking about it. I'm sure it frustrates some people when contemporary artists don't really like to talk about their works in terms of what the work tries to say, but I have to admit that I'm fine when artists are reluctant to talk about their work because I'm kind of like that when it comes to my own art.

But yeah. In total, I'm satisfied with my sojourn into LA. The shows we saw were well-explained by people who were highly involved with creating them, and the shows themselves were really good- I just wish that the commute to LA wasn't so long and complicated.

Picture!

2008-07-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Mary thought it would be nice if we had a photo of all of us up here, so here it is:

From left to right: Rody Lopez (Getty intern, Pomona '09), Zoe Larkins (Wilson intern, Scripps '09), Simrat Dugal (Getty intern, Scripps '10), Patricia Yu (Getty intern, Pomona '09)

Who Says That Art Critics Are Intimidating?

2008-07-07T11:59:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, July 3rd, Mary had two really well known art writers come into the office to meet with the 4 of us- Peter Plagens, an artist and the former art writer for Newsweek, and Laurie Fendrich, also an artist and a professor at Hofstra university.

We talked with them for about 2 hours (our meeting ran way into our lunch break, but I don't think anyone really cared- they were really awesome), and heard tons and tons of life stories and got a hefty bunch of advice from them about the art world. And through the entire 2 hours, I don't think any of us got the sense that we were talking to two self-involved, highly-strung art world people. If anything, I think all of us felt that we were talking to two of the most down-to-earth people that we've ever met (despite the fact that they are very important in the art world- I mean, Peter wrote for Newsweek!).

I don't want to pass their stories second hand through the blog- I'm sure they would lose their magic if passed on in writing- but Laurie told us stories about Clement Greenberg's visit to her studio, a dinner party where she and Peter got to roam free in the Met alone at night (with the museum guard in tow) and their time at this year's Idyllwild summer program as visiting artists. And among other things, Peter told us all about his days at Newsweek, and what it was like working under deadline and under editors (both competent and incompetent). Oh, and they also gave us links to some really helpful websites that we've put in the sidebar.

All in all, I think that meeting them was incredibly refereshing (I now have hope for the art world). And after speaking with them and Suzanne Muchnic, I'm pretty intrigued about the world of art writing- I think I might seriously start looking into it as a possible career option.

Contemporary Art

2008-07-07T10:12:00.000-07:00

So, on Monday, June 30, our supervisor took the four of us on a little field trip to the LA Times to meet an art writer, Suzanne Muchnic, and then we walked over to MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) to meet with the director of their education department, Suzanne Isken.

I am not particularly fond of contemporary art. Most of it elicits a noncommittal shrug, and an “Eh, I don’t get it.” Some I find visually unappealing and aesthetically displeasing. For some reason, contemporary art never “hooked” me, and my viewing of contemporary art has often left me feeling baffled, an outsider looking into an exclusive club whose members speak a dialect that sounds familiar at first, but is ultimately incomprehensible.

While touring the new Marlene Dumas exhibit at MOCA, I came to a conclusion about why the general public shies away from contemporary art:

Contemporary art museums are elitist. I’m sorry, but they really can be pretentious.

The Dumas exhibit came with absolutely no explanatory text; the wall labels contained the bare minimum of title, date, and credit line. This is an exhibit that features grotesque and disturbing imagery; expect to see malformed babies, dead bodies, and sexually explicit paintings. It would have been nice to have some frame of reference as to what the artist was trying to accomplish. A few labels contained a phone number that guests could call on their cell phones and hear a recorded message of Marlene speaking about her work or reciting a poem she wrote in conjunction with the painting. That’s it. Oh yeah, and there’s also a catalogue.

I asked Suzanne Isken why MOCA chose not to print out and put up Dumas’ poems, so that people who were visual learners, like me, could read them instead. Also, Dumas is known for basing her paintings off of other works and photographs, so why didn’t MOCA put up small images of the original photograph that inspired a particular Dumas painting? Isken responded by saying that MOCA is known for having very little on the walls and that visitors could always consult the catalogue or call the recorded cell phone message. After all, she says, This is L.A. Everyone has a cell phone.

And so we begin the elitism. So what if MOCA is known for its minimalist white walls? A small panel of black text on white walls would hardly distract from Dumas’ works. To even assume that everyone has a cell phone is elitist. I know plenty of people who do not have cell phones, and even if people did have one, why should they waste their minutes calling for information that should already be provided in the entrance fee they already paid? Or what if they had no reception? In any case, we tried dialing the number. It didn’t connect. After getting back to Scripps, we tried again. The call went through, but big surprise, the sound quality was wretched, and Dumas’ accent difficult to understand. While listening intently in a vain effort to decipher what she was saying, I thought, “There’s nothing wrong with my ears, and I’m having trouble understanding. What if a museum guest was hearing impaired?” In a day and age where institutions can be sued for not being handicapped accessible, MOCA chooses to put their information in a format that excludes the deaf? Whose brilliant idea was this? And now we come to the catalogue. Yes, it’s full of all the information one could possibly want about Dumas and her paintings. It is also a behemoth of a book, and not very many people are going to want to fork over $45 and then lug a 288 pg book with them as they go around the gallery.

Let me direct you to Dead Marilyn. It’s an oil painting of a woman’s face in repose, a woman who is presumably, according to the title, dead. The woman is also, apparently, Marilyn Monroe. Huh. Who’d have guessed that? Very few people, that’s who. The painting bears very little resemblance to sex icon Marilyn Monroe…which is exactly the point. The painting is based off a morgue photograph of Monroe, but I only know this because I read a gallery guide that our supervisor handed out the day before. The gallery itself tells the viewer nothing about the painting’s origins, so all it seems to be is an oil painting of a not-very-attractive woman. And how are viewers supposed to suddenly connect that to Marilyn Monroe?

I understand that MOCA wants the viewers to come to their own conclusions about artwork and to engage themselves with the paintings and not allow wall text to dictate their interpretations. But if the museum does not give guests some starting point, some frame of reference, most viewers will leave frustrated and vow to never waste another $10 on “ugly” art ever again. I’m trying to find the “meaning” in a work, but all I have are bare, blank walls that stare silently back at me. It’s as if the museum is saying, “You will never understand these works of art; you’re lucky we let you in to see them in the first place. That’s right silly mortal, behold the work of genius!”

Oh MOCA...

2008-07-03T15:25:00.000-07:00

I've spent the better part of the week obsessing about how I've felt about the Marlene Dumas show currently on at the MOCA Grand Ave and what I think it might say about the MOCA. All 4 of us saw it along with Mary, Suzanne Isken- the director of education at the MOCA- and Suzanne Muchnic- the art writer at the LA Times, when we went on our downtown intern field trip with Mary on Monday.

Let me just preface this entire next chunk by saying that I really, really liked the work on display. I know that it's depressing, disgusting, perverse and all that blah-blah-blah stuff, but I liked it- not just because I thought that the paintings themselves were excellent technically but also because reading the gallery guide before I saw the work forced me to think about how I was reacting to the paintings. Oh and I also want to preface by saying that a lot of what I'm saying was originally brought up by Patricia, and I fully agree.

But. I was incredibly disappointed by some of the presumptions that MOCA made when it put up the show. Suzanne Isken told us that many of the paintings had supplementary information that went with them (such as poems that Dumas has written for each painting), and that all the supplementary information could be accessed by dialing a phone number on a cellphone and punching in a code. So of course, when she said this, Rody promptly pulled out his phone and dialed the number, and Patricia asked her why the MOCA chose not to print the poems in wall labels.

So while Rody waited on the number to connect (which it didn't), Suzanne told Patricia that there were a number of reasons why the poems weren't printed, two of which were that the poems would've taken up a lot of wall space (because, of course, the MOCA is known for its big white walls and minimal wall labels) and that the supplementary stuff was available in the show's catalog (which costs $45). This sort of put us off because first of all, not everyone has a cellphone, and even if someone did, precious minutes would have to be used (and quite frankly, why should they?). And on top of that, when Rody did finally get through to the number, the audio quality was shitty, and you couldn't understand anything that Dumas was saying.

So, I don't know. I'm not happy about the choice that they've made in terms of how the MOCA chose to include supplementary information about the works on display. Patricia really wished that there were wall-labels with the poems printed and with the source photographs for the paintings (because Dumas works off of photographs that she clips from newspapers, magazines and all sorts of other places), while I really wish they had a small pamphlet or hand out for that kind of thing. I'm pretty sure that some kind of handout with source information for a few choice works could have helped someone who is unfamiliar with Dumas to understand her working process and her thought process. But either way, the fact remains that there is no easily accessible way for anyone to get information about the works.

I've too often heard people complain that contemporary art is confusing (and have too often heard people moan about how terrible it is) to know that many people will take an instant disliking to Dumas work. And while I know that contemporary art is not really everyone's cup of tea, I wish that the MOCA would have made more of an effort to help people without an art theory or art background at least get a better understanding of Dumas' process by providing easier access to her poetry and source photographs.

2008-06-27T11:44:00.001-07:00

Hey girls!