So Much Happening!

I work here and I realize that we have so much going on at any given time that it is hard to stay current on what is happening here.  It becomes my mission to do so mainly because I want the membership to realize all of the wonderful things that happen here because of them and for them.  For instance, right now we are taking RSVP for the Member's Preview of Chihuly Illuminated.  Art Ball and ArtFUSION take place on October 3 and then October 11th is Chihuly Family Sunday.  Those are the easy ones to remember though because I am directly involved.  There are several talks, Art Challenges, Art Book Club, the "Remembering Russel" event and more just in September!

All I can say is keep visiting our website and stay up on your reading of the magazine so that you won't miss even one opportunity here at the museum!

ArtFUSION/ Art Ball quickly approaching

Planning is well under way for ArtFUSION 2009, the cocktail party for young professionals held in conjunction with the annual Art Ball. It all happens October 3rd in the Museum’s Sculpture Garden, where ArtFUSION attendees will enjoy a live DJ, drinks, hors d’oeuvres, and dessert, as well as entrance to the newly opened exhibition, Chihuly Illuminated.  What’s more, the event will include a drawing for an original Dale Chihuly serigraph and a wall-sized video projection showing Chihuly in action. 

These two events are quickly approaching.  Contact me at 614.629.0344 for more info.

The Craft of Making Art

Next month CMA will open the fall season with the exhibition Chihuly Illuminated.  Although I did not organize the exhibition, I am spending the next several weeks giving lectures about Chihuly and his life, creating educational information to use in the galleries and following the installation of the works throughout the museum.  In preparation for all of this I have spent a great deal of time thinking about Chihuly's work and his influence on the debate over craft vs. art.

In 2002 I had landed back in my hometown of San Francisco just a year before California College of Arts (CCA) announced that it was dropping "and Crafts" from its name.  The chaos and confusion this created among artists in the area was palpable.  While CCA seemed to be making an effort to provide an atmosphere of integration and mutual respect, there were other signs that the merging of aesthetics was challenging, awkward and sometimes forced.  For instance, when I met Julie Travis, a young MFA student who had been accepted into the program through the ceramics department, she needed to remind me that in order to find her studio I had to visit the Oakland campus.  Her studio, inside the early 1922 campus building, was far removed from the San Francisco campus created in the 1980s, where all but two of the MFA students were given studio space.  The other student who was placed in Oakland worked in glass.  As the two navigated through the rigorous work schedules and ongoing criticism necessary to complete their degrees, both seemed to have the added endeavor of providing plausible reasons for working in glass or clay in the first place.

Dale Chihuly has spent the better part of 40 years within this critical debate, albeit without the discussions hindering his artistic output.  He has even created a haven in Washington state, his own little part of the world to explore and encourage working with glass.

In his essay written in 1997, Donald Kuspit writes, "...Chihuly effects an iconic reprise of the problematic relationship between craft and art-ultimately the relationship between the decorative and the expressive-in the very act of reconciling them." His extensive list of projects and output can cloud some of his earliest successful examples.  The best aspects of Chihuly Illuminated highlight these successes, and show his formidable desire to push past long held ideas as to what the glass arts were and are for many of us today.

Lisa Dent
Associate Curator of Contemporary Art

Multimedia Production at CMA

I've been with CMA since 2000, and right now is the most exciting time that I've experienced here. There is a lot of really innovative work happening in the Education department, and in the future I'll be posting updates about what we're up to. I hope to use this blog to start a public conversation about CMA's educational philosophy, and to offer some behind-the-scenes looks at how we develop the educational experience at the museum.

I am the Educator for Adult Programs and Multimedia Producer for CMA. Over the past few years we've really stepped up our video production schedule, and I'll be blogging new projects as they happen. For a look at previous CMA-produced documentaries, I invite you to visit the museum's YouTube page.  I post each new documentary there as soon as it's finished.  Some of the titles have been listed in this blog previously and linked on the CMA website, but you may find some unfamiliar ones, too. I'd also encourage you to take a look at the YouTube activities of other museums listed on our channel in the 'Subscriptions' window. Enjoy!

Jumping In

Yesterday I realized that I have been in Columbus  for 3 1/2 months.  A short period of time that has flown by.  What surprised me the most was how I have already settled in to my daily routine.

1) Drop my bag at my desk and grab my coffee mug.
2) Walk to the staff kitchen to get my cup a joe and head back to my desk.
3) Turn on my computer and check my email.

and so on and so forth.  At around 2:00pm I realized that I had not walked through the galleries in a while.  When I first arrived at CMA, I tried to make a point of going upstairs frequently throughout the work week.  Discovering artwork that I hadn't noticed before, an area that I had overlooked.  I also like seeing what visitors respond to in the museum; Overhearing them discuss what confuses them and what holds their interest.  So I got up off my duff and headed towards the galleries again.

It's exciting to see people taking advantage of free admission this summer.  The difference in the energy in the galleries between June and July is palpable.  Our membership has given an amazing gift, and I am thrilled to see so many people taking advantage of it.

I started in the Expressionist gallery, made it through the George Tooker exhibit again, past the newly installed Custodian by Gwathmey, and then it happened.  The moment I always cherish when I am at a museum I have been to frequently.  I see something that I knew was there but hadn't really looked at before.  Deborah Butterfield's Joseph was looking right at me, and only me, for a split second.  So I walked toward it and looked over it, and under it, and around it again.  Charred bits of welded steel plopped onto each other, layer over layer.  Rusted and dented with muted, flat colors pushing out from the backside.  This woman, this artist, managed to make dirty, ugly, and hard bits of metal into this object, now emanating a sense of movement and softness.  Maybe there were not a lot of thoughts and ideas in this object, but in that moment I believed what she was trying to show me.  That sometimes things that we take for granted everyday can transform into something worth looking at again.

I love my job.

Lisa Dent
Associate Curator of Contemporary Art