The fall weather has arrived and, with it, decorative gourd season. [1] This Pokot gourd, however, is not purely decorative or ornamental, but carries with it important food traditions and community symbolism.
Like this elegant vessel, inscribed with geometric patterns, such milk
containers are made by Pokot women to contain a thick, yogurt-like dairy
beverage (also known as mala ya kienyeji
or kamabele kambou) that is prepared
from cow’s or goat’s milk, and mixed with the ashes of the cromwo tree—a tree endemic to western Kenya. Produced by Pokot
communities for generations, the beverage is prepared by fermenting milk inside
dried hollow gourds, later adding cromwo
ash for its antiseptic properties, aromatic flavor, and distinctive color.
To make the gourd vessel, the hard skin of a calabash gourd is hollowed
out, dried, and smoked using cromwo wood.
The milk is then poured into the gourd, whose natural bacteria magically
assists in the fermentation and acidification process. Once the milk begins to
coagulate, whey is removed and fresh milk is added. This process repeats for one
week, with the addition of an occasional shake.
Historically a staple of the Pokot diet, ash yogurt’s presence has decreased significantly due to shifts in livestock farming, as well as other environmental and economic factors. While the yogurt beverage is still made by some families, it is far less abundant. Still, the tradition persists. As poetically described by a food activist and scholar of global fermentation processes: “the gourd itself is the vehicle of perpetuation.”[2]
– Elisabeth Smith, SAM Collection & Provenance Associate
[1]
Colin Nissan’s
“fist-pumping celebration of fall” was first published online by McSweeney’s in
2009 and has since proven to have consistent longevity on the internet, in no
small part due to the efficiency with which the essay captures the American
mania for autumn.
[2] Sandor
Ellix Katz, The Art of Fermentation: An
In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World (White
River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2012), pp. 181-182.
Image: Milk container, Pokot, gourd, leather, and metal, 7 1/2 in., diam.: 4 1/4 in., Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company, 81.17.1053
“They recreate a surrealistic landscape with the long shadows and I love them, they are all the time changing.”
– Regina Silveira
Brazilian artist Regina Silveira takes us through Richard Serra’s Wake at the Olympic Sculpture Park to share her love and appreciation for how it connects to her installation Octopus Wrap at the PACCAR Pavilion. Listen in as she recalls Richard Serra’s statement on his childhood memory of visiting a shipyard and how it influenced his work throughout his life. Visit the sculpture park in any season to experience the shifting shadows of this monumental sculpture, it is always free. You can see Silveira’s immersive installation at the park through March 2020.
Don’t miss the
Seattle Times’ full fall arts coverage—which recommends getting out
of the house to experience art, with recommendations for music, theater, books,
and more.
Press got to visit the
new Burke Museum recently. Seattle Met’s Stefan Milne wasn’t overly impressed
with the mastodon and T-rex skulls, but loved
the labs.
“All over the
museum—sometimes behind glass, but also out in the open—you see people doing
the actual work of keeping natural history and science alive.”
Here’s Artnet on a
weathered oil painting depicting Saint Jerome that turned
out to be by Anthony van Dyck. Art collector Albert B. Roberts
picked it up at an auction for $600; it’s now on view at the Albany Institute
of History & Art.
Megan O’Grady for the
New York Times Style Magazine on
Beverly Pepper, the sculptor whose Persephone Unbound and Perre’s
Ventaglio III grace the Olympic Sculpture Park.
“Public art can
sometimes feel ponderously corporate or impersonal, but the unroofed splendor
of Pepper’s site-specific works can prompt unexpectedly potent encounters . . .
They are framing devices for wonderment.”
The words “we are all in this together” announce themselves in bold,
sans-serif force, asserting the urgency and agency of the message. Created by
artist Mark Mumford in 2002, the work—whose title is the same as the text—was
created in the context of and in response to the protests that took place
before the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.
As with many artists who work with language, Mumford is interested in
the slippages of syntax and the ways in which words carry a multitude of
meanings. In the case of We Are All in
This Together, the message can be read as either empowering and uplifting,
or apathetic and resigned. For the artist, “meaning hovers on the threshold of
realization, and where the knotty relationships between seeing and reading,
reading and believing, believing and seeing are given a full and lively
expression.”
Currently on view in the Brotman Forum, the work transforms the entrance of the Seattle Art Museum into a shared textual experience that is visible from the outside of the museum as well. Though made over 15 years ago, the work carries more political significance than ever. The words especially ring true today—a day designated for climate strikes around the world—when millions of people will march for urgent climate action. As is the case with any issue, we can choose either action or resignation; whichever you choose, there’s no denying that we are all in this together.
– Elisabeth Smith, Collection & Provenance Associate
From very far away, one sees the softly rendered image of a
still life, complete with various citrus fruits, root vegetables, and leafy
greens. Their shapes are loose and open, lacking definition aside from the
sharp color contrasts between the bright yellow of the lemon, orange of the
carrot, and deep black of the background. As one moves closer to the work,
peering intently at it, the fruits and vegetables in the window sill reassert
their construction in a pointillist fashion. Each “brushstroke” turns out to be
a dot of distinct color, contributing to the ambiguous outlines and shapes.
However, the work is not a painting with layers of dots of color. Rather, Brazilian-born artist Vik Muniz created Still Life with Fruit and Vegetables, After Juan Sanches Cotan by layering cut and hole-punched paper scraps from magazines into a collage. To add yet another dimension to the work, Muniz then photographed the collage, which resulted in the final work: an enlarged chromogenic print. This photo is based on a still life by Juan Sanches Cotan, a notable Spanish Baroque painter, known for his austere yet deeply realistic still lifes.
The optical relationship between part and whole has been
something that has interested Muniz for many years:
It’s like the fur in Vermeer’s painting of The Woman Reading a Letter at the Frick. You get up close and you can’t see fur anymore, just a blur of brushstrokes. Then you go back and it’s fur again. . . . I think art without pretenses of being more than a visual exercise can indeed be powerful and complete.1
Throughout his career, he has used elements such as sugar to construct portraits of children working on sugar plantations, peanut butter and jelly to recreate the Mona Lisa, and garbage to depict pickers in one of Brazil’s largest garbage dumps. His works connect past and present and create illusions of famous and recognizable works.
– Emma Ming Wahl, SAM Curatorial Intern
1 Vik Muniz, “Bomb Magazine: Vik Muniz by Mark Magill.” Vik Muniz. Accessed September 10, 2019. http://vikmuniz.net/library/vik-muniz-by-mark-magill.
Image: Still Life with Fruit and Vegetables, after Juan Sanches Cotan, 2004, Vik Muniz, Chromogenic print, 72 x 99 1/2 in. (182.9 x 252.7cm) Gift of Jeffrey and Susan Brotman, Jane Davis, Barney A. Ebsworth, Henry and Mary Ann James, Janet Ketcham, Sally Neukom, Virginia Wright, and Ann Wyckoff in honor of Chiyo Ishikawa, 2004.93.
Very early on in my role as one of SAM’s Emerging Arts Leader Interns, our mentor, David Rue, asked us to write down three personal or professional goals we wished to achieve during our time here at SAM. To be completely honest, I was all over the place during the first few weeks, as I was struggling to find where I fit into the museum to be a successful intern. Despite feeling this way, the one thing that I was certain and hopeful for was to make SAM a place I happily call home: be a part of SAM and SAM be a part me.
As a student at the University of Washington Bothell, being my whole self and feeling at home is what truly made me happier than I ever imagined. In order to feel that same happiness at SAM, I tried to be fully present by having a positive mind and heart. I reminded myself to be my bubbly and kind self and to be comfortable with the people around me. This was way easier said than done.
On top of feeling like a lost intern, I was already struggling with adjusting to a lifestyle that was the exact opposite of what I was used to. I wanted to be a big fish in a little pond that everyone looked up to for guidance. However, being in a new, urban city where nobody really knew me meant this wasn’t the case anymore. I felt lost between the Cat that grew up in California and the adult Cat that lives in Washington. Where would I go? Who am I supposed to be? With all these new changes and heavy feelings, I thought to myself, “I don’t how I’m going to achieve my goal or if I’m even going to get there. Good luck.”
Priya Frank and Seohee Kim are the two mentors I give all my gratitude to for guiding me through my struggles. Talking to them made me realize that I was still a tiny fish in a huge pond that needed to be willing to grow and learn from others. This was a reminder to be humble and to remember that learning and growing never stops, even when you think you’re at the top. Growing only starts when you are uncomfortable, yet willing to feel and embrace that discomfort with an open mind and heart to learn something new. Their kind words of wisdom touched my heart.
After this realization, I started to feel like I could reach my goal. The big project we had the opportunity to do was the My Favorite Things Tour. For this project, I researched different art pieces, connected them to real-life experiences, centered everything around a specific theme, and proudly presented my work to the public. Wow! I will always remember our first practice of walking around and talking about the different artworks we had in mind for our tours. I knew I was on the right track in connecting the art to my personal journeys, but there was much more research and practice that needed to be completed.
After this practice I was motivated to reach out to the curators to learn more about the different art pieces, which was exactly what I did. It was so inspiring getting to hear from and learn from the curators and see how passionate they are. I also learned more on my own by reading books about the artwork and artist. Most importantly, completing all the work would not even be half of what it was without my fellow colleague and friend Lauren Farris, the other Emerging Arts Leader Intern. Working closely with her gave us the space to learn from each other’s personal and professional experiences, all while sharing this internship together. I remember practicing our tours in the galleries, just talking through them while sitting down, and always changing our art pieces and stories every time we practiced. Being by each other’s side allowed us to be vulnerable and really push through to make these tours happen.
When the day finally came, we were there for each other to see all our hard work come to life. That is just so amazing to me because there were so many people and experiences collaborating to create something great. Swimming with the big fish was not so scary after all. As I said during my tour when I was talking about Childe Hassam’s Spring on West 78th Street, “from this painting and my experience with my SAM family, I learned that home is not a place, but a feeling.” Saying these words with my whole heart, showed me that I was able to reach my one and only goal, despite being so lost in everything else. This internship was more than I hoped for and now that it has come to a close I can truly say that I was a part of SAM and SAM will always be a part of me. SAM is a place I happily call home.
A new school year often welcomes crisp air, spiral notebooks, and pumpkin deliciousness. This school year brings one other exciting change: Seattle Art Museum school tours will now be free for all public schools at all SAM locations! Bus subsidies are also available for Title 1 schools. Offering free tours for public schools grew out of SAM’s mission and strategic plan to champion access and equity for all. The museum firmly believes every student deserves access to high-quality arts education and creative learning.
Even though the arts remain a required school subject by Washington State law, arts education is often one of the first programs to be cut. According to ArtsEd Washington, “In Washington State, 75% of elementary students receive only two hours, or less, of arts education each week.” Not only that, but Create Advantage Seattle notes, “Race, family income, and home language are all predictors of a students’ access to arts education in Seattle Public Schools.”
Research reveals that consistent arts education improves high school graduation rates, empathy, motivation to stay in school, critical thinking, voter turnout, and even raises math scores. Arts Impact says, “Arts-infused learning in reading and math eliminates the achievement gap between children of color and poverty and their white upper/middle-class peers.” Also, SAM’s Kayla Skinner Deputy Director for Education and Public Engagement, Regan Pro, strongly believes in furthering arts education. “Everyone talks about how they value things like creativity and innovation. If we are saying that but aren’t supporting arts in schools, then how do we expect those muscles to grow?”
Typically, school
tours at SAM start with a warm welcome from a trained docent or tour guide and a
teaching artist. The docent or tour guide leads the group into SAM’s galleries
where students and teachers might stare into the eyes of a giant mouse
sculpture, learn the history behind Kwakwaka’wakw house posts, or discover a
treasure chest lock in the Porcelain Room. With three locations and art from
all over the world, tours can complement and enhance any curriculum.
After the tour, SAM’s
teaching artists facilitate an art-making experience based on the works that
students just saw in the galleries. Students walk away holding their own work
of art, such as a three-dimensional sculpture, a two-point perspective
painting, or a self-designed family crest. Plus, teaching artists provide
students with an opportunity to view potential career paths in the arts.
“Being in the art museum was a new experience for many of my students. They were intrigued and, to my surprise, were able to connect with some artists. I feared they would find the museum too “high-brow,” but the variety of art allowed most to connect in some way.”
– Educator
In addition to free school tours, SAM has continued to develop school partnerships. One of those partnerships, called “Drawing from Nature,” is now in its fourth year. Through this partnership, SAM offers all second graders in Highline School District a chance to explore the Olympic Sculpture Park. Building off these field trips, SAM provides lesson plans and professional development sessions to teachers. Furthermore, SAM is partnering with Seattle Public Schools on a new program at the Seattle Asian Art Museum when it reopens in early 2020. This partnership supports third through fifth-grade teachers as they build connections between art and social studies.
“This was an amazing experience and many of the themes were continued to talk about and apply in other subject areas.”
– Educator
SAM’s Senior Manager of School & Educator Programs, Anna Allegro, says school partnerships provide students with a sense of ownership of SAM. “We’ll work with a school for five years, the kids will come every year, and they just have this sense of ownership and comfort. It’s so different from when they first walked in where SAM might have felt like an intimidating kind of space. Our goal is that students know they can be seen and heard here.”
With SAM’s partnerships and free school tours, the
museum is honored to support arts education and creative
learning for all young people whilst continuing the goal to promote equity and
access for all. As much as art museums play a role in advancing arts education,
this mission extends beyond our four walls to everyone in the community.
“Everyone can be an advocate for arts education. If you’re a parent, talk to your principal. Talk to your PSA. Ask them how they are supporting the arts. How is that a part of their classroom? If you’re a grandparent or if you live in a neighborhood, understand what the public school is in your neighborhood and how you can help support it.”
Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lionesswould have been the perfect subject for Leo season, but despite that, I am focusing on one of Muholi’s photographs for Virgo season instead. Their (Muholi identifies as they/them) work titled, Bester IV, shows Muholi against a geometric-patterned background with a scarf over their head like the Virgin Mary. Virgos rule detailed work like the complex patterning of material which requires patience, steadiness, and routine rigor to perform. I picked this work for Virgo season because the root of the word Virgo is virgin, and this photograph alludes to the most famous one, the Virgin Mother Mary. Most astrologers prefer to interpret the virginal representation of Virgo as the love of the unadulterated or the purity of essence rather than the religious or sexual overtones it signifies.
Zanele Muholi:Somnayma Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness features 76 black-and-white self-portraits, making the artist very prevalent in this body of work. The time of Muholi’s birth is unknown, but according to Wikipedia, they were born on July 9, a Cancer—the archetype of the mother in astrology. The only planet that Muholi has in Virgo is Pluto, which makes a lovely sextile (a 60-degree angle) to their Cancer sun. In evolutionary astrology, Pluto represents the soul, its incarnations and the karmic gifts brought into this lifetime. Muholi, like others born between roughly 1956 and 1972, has a Virgo soul structure and it melds well with their Cancer ego structure (the sun). This is another reason why I chose this photograph as it mimics this aspect in their natal astrology chart.
Virgo is the 6th sign of the zodiac and the sun transits Virgo from August 23 to September 30 each year. Virgos are meticulous, but Pluto-in-Virgos take the details of an issue to a staggering profound depth and breadth. You can see it in the entanglement of multiple themes and the pure (virginal) qualities in Muholi’s photographs. There is obviously an incredible amount of thought and planning that went into each image so the viewer could understand the difficult and powerful, sometimes in-your-face themes communicated through their body of work. This, along with the simplicity of how the sitter is framed and the exacting ruthlessness of the proportions, takes you on an internal journey into the shadow side (Pluto) of society and your own psyche. But the quality that shines the most in Virgos is ‘service to others’ and that is what I ultimately see Muholi doing with their work. They portray images of the plight of workers, maids, miners, and members of disenfranchised communities, in order to serve the greater good, forcefully demanding recognition and integration.
– Amy Domres, SAM’s Director of Admissions Amy is also a Psychospiritual Evolutionary Astrologer and Healer at Emerald City Astrology.
Images: Installation view Zanele Muholi:Somnayma Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness at Seattle Art Museum, 2019, photos: Natali Wiseman.
Real
Change’s Lisa Edge talks with Osa Elaiho, whose work is included in a group show at
Columbia City Gallery. Music and family are what inspire the artist’s
mixed-media paintings.
What
a dump: Crosscut’s Brangien
Davis visits the Recology CleanScapes recycling facility and meets its two
current artists-in-residence.
“Just as WALL-E
surfs the garbage heaps for treasures to take home — a bobblehead dog toy, a
golden trophy, a hinged ring box — artists in residence roam the space with an
eye out for intriguing items — a toy gun, a set of new knives, the detritus
from an entire bachelorette party.”
In a scene from the 2008 Disney animated movie, Mulan, Mulan’s grandmother holds a caged
cricket, closes her eyes, and crosses a bustling street in China. Like the pet
cricket in Mulan, the practice of domesticating
and keeping animals in cages such as crickets and birds traces back to China’s
earliest records.
This birdcage in SAM’s collection, pictured here, was likely
created during the late Qing dynasty (1644-1911) or Republican period
(1850-1920). In China, a pronounced appreciation for bird keeping arose during
the Qing dynasty. During this period, the Qianlong Emperor (1711-1799)
particularly enjoyed raising pet birds, and the emperor’s fascination subsequently
permeated China. As aviculture spread throughout the country, many men would
stroll through the early morning streets, swinging their birdcages back and
forth like a pendulum. To this day, Chinese bird keepers swing cages to
encourage birds to grip to their perch, an exercise which prevents birds’
feathers from falling off.
As much as aviculturists value their birds, they equally value the craftsmanship of the birdcages. The maker of this birdcage remains unknown. Crafted from hardwood, ivory, and metal, intricate carvings and patterns are etched into the wood. Ivory insets depict beautiful landscapes, evoking scenes of the world where the bird once flew free. Also notable is the cage’s design, which reflects recognizable architectural features of a pagoda, such as steps trailing up to the door and the two-storied structure. Pagodas originated as sacred places to preserve Buddhist relics, and this distinct structure can be found throughout China’s built environment.
While intricately handcrafted birdcages have diminished recently due to industrialization, the cage markets in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong continue to thrive, allowing this rich artistic tradition to live on. See this work on view at SAM in Pure Amusements: Wealth, Leisure, and Culture in Late Imperial China.
– Lauren Farris, SAM Emerging Arts Leader Intern
Image: Birdcage, 1850-1920, Chinese, wood, metal, ivory, 26 x 12 1/2 x 12 1/2in., Gift of Henry and Mary Ann James, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, 2007.11.
What is it about Silk Roads history and art that interests so many people? In the late 19th century, German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen coined the term ‘Silk Road’ or ‘Silk Routes’ as part of his map-making efforts. After all, better maps of travel routes had commercial value for access to coal or building railroads, for instance. In the early 20th century, several spectacular “discoveries” (ie, new to the West) of magnificent troves of art and manuscripts in Central Asia and western China fueled the fascination.
Courtesy of the Dunhuang Academy, photo: Wu Jian.
Now the plural ‘Silk Roads’ is used to better describe the many
complex historic trade routes through the Eurasian continent. The idea of
commercial exchange across a continent that involved interactions of many cultures,
languages, religions, and arts can be such an appealing picture of cosmopolitan
societies—in contrast to present-day tensions at home and abroad. “Silk Road
nostalgia” refers to interpreting this history in the imagination as a time of
tolerance and international understanding as well as prosperity, rooted in hope
for peaceful and respectful global exchange in future.
The Jewel of Muscat, a reconstructed replica of a ninth century Omani trading ship, sails into the harbour of Galle, 116 km (72 miles) south of the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, on April 19, 2010. The ship, built in a traditional design without nails and sewn together with coconut fibers, left Oman on February 15 to re-enact the old trade routes used by Arab traders, with its final port of call in Singapore, according to the organizers of the voyage. AFP PHOTO/ Lakruwan WANNIARACHCHI. (Photo credit should read LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI/AFP/Getty Images)
The fall Saturday University Lecture Series, Silk Roads Past and Present: From Ancient Afghan Treasure to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, presents current understandings in seven lectures. Beginning with a talk on the Begram Hoard excavated in Afghanistan, we consider how these storerooms from the first century CE could contain Roman glass, Chinese lacquer, and extraordinarily carved ivories from India. A talk on Maritime Silk Roads explores the shipping that actually transported more goods than overland routes, despite the persistent image of camel caravans.
The Silk Roads also saw the spread of Buddhism, and two speakers explore Buddhist art in China. Two lesser-known religions are introduced in a talk on Zoroastrian and Manichaean arts. And what about silk? Find out about silk and fashion in Tang Dynasty China, as trade made new textile technologies, colors, and patterns available. The series concludes with a talk on China’s current international initiative also referred to as the New Silk Road. Please join us!
– Sarah Loudon,Director, Gardner Center for Asian Art and Ideas
Image: Mogao Cave 237. Image courtesy of the Dunhuang Academy, photo: Zhang Weiwen.
SAM Gallery artist Kellie Talbot travels across the country with her husband, cat, and duck, in a truck pulling her mobile studio, an Airstream trailer they named Mr. Salsa. Kellie Talbot’s America on view at SAM Gallery September 4–29, showcases some of her newest works. Talbot has established a national reputation for her oil paintings of the neon signs scattered across America. In the last two years, her family has driven 36,000 miles, through 29 states, in pursuit of source material for her paintings. She plans her route, knowing where certain signs are located, but is always open to possibilities and unexpected opportunities. Some of her favorite signs and memories come from happening upon them. One unexpected ice storm led them to Vaughn, NM (population 446), where Talbot found one neon sign after another. She was out in the snow, climbing on her Airstream trailer to get photographs for future paintings. When she’s traveling the country, Talbot says “I photograph almost every sign I come across because when I am in collecting mode I don’t want to pass up any potential. Sometimes it’s more obvious. Some of those obvious ones have an iconic shape or beautiful neon that just demands to be painted.”
Once Talbot returns to her studio in Seattle or New Orleans, she relies on reference photos from her trip, to paint photorealist paintings of the signs that represent the landscape of American artifacts, craftsmanship, and history. Talbot describes how “once I am in my studio I spend a lot of time with my reference material planning out a body of work. I like to have a balance of close-ups mixed with landscapes. I like there to be a push and pull of sorts. Some signs are small but I paint them big while others I can enlarge just portions. Almost every sign has the potential to be painted. I just have to find the aspect of that sign I want to paint.” Talbot is often drawn to a particular letter or shadows from a sign. Focusing on a smaller portion of the sign allows the viewer to enjoy the shapes, shadows, and colors in a new way. Talbot intentionally includes the rust and decay in the neon signs she paints. These details aren’t negatives to the artist, they are signs of time and experience, both an elegy and a hope.
Meet the artist at the opening reception on Thursday, September 5, 6–7:30 pm at SAM Gallery.
Last week, SAM announced the finalists for this year’s Betty Bowen Award: Andrea Joyce
Heimer, Anthony Hudson, Adair Rutledge, Lynne Siefert, and Anthony White.
“Let’s have
positive images of ourselves that are done with love,” said Muholi. “Let us
consume this self-love because our forefathers, our foremothers that came
before us never had the opportunity to speak for themselves.”
“Swift’s video, no
more than 10 minutes long, grapples with the concept of home, being home,
having a home, feeling at home in one’s body and community. In that
way, it fits well at Wa Na Wari. Where
do we belong?”
Inter/National News
Artforum reports that Werner Kramarsky passed away this week at the age of 93; a formidable
collector, he donated 25 drawings to SAM over the years.
It wouldn’t be too difficult to argue that we live in a
youth-obsessed culture. If we only take a moment to look around, we can see it
everywhere. It pops up in advertisements, in movies, and in TV. It works its
way into our minds with anti-ageing skin creams and anti-graying hair dyes. It
settles into our society and fills us with the irrefutable fear of getting older.
To be young—or so our culture seems to suggest—is to be wild, uninhibited, and
free. And, conversely, to be old is to be slow, sidelined, and ignored.
While this is never fully true in reality, it is difficult
to deny that, in our current society, old age is a thing that many people fear.
Some might argue that this is even more prevalent for women, who are judged
more frequently on their looks than men and who, as such, feel more pressure to
maintain a youthful appearance. How many times have you heard a woman complain
about “getting old”? It is because women have so much more to lose when they
lose their youth.
In her series My Grandmothers, however, photographer
Miwa Yanagi presents a fascinating and poignant counterargument to our societal
fear of aging.
For My Grandmothers, Yanagi interviewed a variety of
women between the ages of fourteen and twenty, asking them to describe what
they thought their lives would look like in fifty years. She then staged photos
to capture these descriptions. The photo above is titled Yuka, named for
a woman who imagined herself living on in the U.S. with her younger, playboy
lover. Yuka, with bright red hair and a cigarette, riding down the Golden Gate
Bridge in the sidecar of a motorcycle, hardly fits our stereotypical idea of an
old woman. She is laughing with abandon, unashamed and unconstrained.
With Yuka, as with the other portraits in the series, Yanagi explores the idea that old age is liberating rather than limiting. Women, no longer defined by their beauty and (as one critic noted) by their reproductive abilities, are free to live for themselves, on their own terms, by their own rules. According to Yanagi, young women today are restricted by society’s expectations and are unable to express their true desires for the lives that they want to live. When they are freed from their youth, they are freed from those confines. Old age, it seems, is not so much our great nightmare as it is our ticket to a more liberating life.
We are honored to support the transformation of the Seattle Asian Art Museum. As children, we both grew up visiting SAAM and were awed by the massive art deco building and exposure to rich culture within the museum. While raising our children, we visited the museum on school field trips and family outings, so it wasn’t surprising when our son, Michael, chose to take his senior pictures in front of SAAM. When we learned that the historical building was in desperate need of improved infrastructure and climate control as well as expanded exhibition and learning spaces, and we wanted to be involved. SAAM is a Seattle gem with its unique location within Volunteer Park and long, relevant history. This treasured landmark will offer locals and visitors an opportunity learn about the diverse art, culture, values and traditions of Asia for years to come.
“The tradition of
art museums is that they’re closed off repositories of precious works of art,”
[Cruz] says. “How do we open ourselves up so that museums can become part of
everybody’s daily life?”
Local News
The Seattle Times’
Alan Berner captured some terrific shots (as usual) of an installation happening at the Burke Museum:
a huge mural by artist RYAN! Feddersen.
From
some of the first recorded dragons found in Mesopotamian art, to the dragons
found snarling onscreen and in books, numerous cultures have fostered their own
myths and beliefs about dragons. Still, most of the dragons we encounter today
are the fearsome fire-breathing creatures of the European tradition who lay
waste to cities and hoard mounds of gold.
In Chinese culture, however, the dragon is highly revered and a symbol of good fortune. Originally associated with the stars and constellations that appear in the spring, dragons began to represent the seasons of rain and the coming of summer.1 Instead of bringing fire and destruction, Chinese dragons brought rain for crops and livestock.
In
many areas of China, the dragon symbolizes harmony and prosperity. The number
nine has long been associated with heaven and dragons have often been described
in nines—leading
to this number being deemed particularly auspicious. Later, dragons even began
to be equated to the imperial throne and the reigning emperor through
architecture and garments.
Far
more sinuous and twisting than their Western European counterparts, Chinese
dragons had bird-like wings with long plumes and whiskers. In this jade disc
from the 8th century B.C., two dragons intertwine and almost chase each other
across the mossy green stone. Each deeply abstracted line flows through one
another. If one looks close enough, one can glimpse the dragon’s long coiling
snout, the orb-like eye, and the curving jaw. Tangled with their bodies and
tails, these two creatures’ plumes function as the outer ring of the disk.
These stone rings, or bi disks, were often carved with sky imagery and buried with the dead. There, dragons signified heaven, harmony, and balance within the natural order of life.2 Rather than functioning as harbingers of doom and destruction, the dragon in Chinese culture and mythology continues to be a symbol of luck and prosperity, hoping to bring balance to many.
– Emma Ming Wahl, SAM Curatorial Intern
1 Wilson, J. Keith. “Powerful Form and Potent Symbol: The Dragon in Asia.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77, no. 8 (1990): 286-323. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25161297.
2 Lopes, Rui Oliveira. “Securing the Harmony between the High and the Low: Power Animals and Symbols of Political Authority in Ancient Chinese Jades and Bronzes.” Asian Perspectives 53, no. 2 (2014): 195-225. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24569921.
Image: Disc with dragon motif, 10th – 8th century B.C., Chinese, Nephrite, Diameter: 9 5/8 in., Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 39.11.
It’s hard to say which came first: The opening of Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts & Crafts Movement or SAM staff binge-watching the Great British Bake Off. Either way, we can’t get enough Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. Our staff is so into it that we are hosting the Great Victorian Radicals Bake Off. On August 29, 6–9 pm, everyone is invited to see the resulting confections of this public baking challenge, cast a vote for your favorite dessert, and find out who the judges select as winner!
24 local bakers have signed up to create signature desserts inspired by artworks of their choosing in Victorian Radicals. At the event, bakers will present their work to the judges, explain their approach and inspiration. Judges will select one baker based on criteria of taste, relevance to artwork, and presentation. The winner will be awarded $500. Here are just some of the artworks selected as inspiration!
Picture 077
Our three judges may not be tossing out catchphrases but they are certainly bringing some serious skill to this lovely affair. Meet our three tastemakers below.
Rachael Coyle Rachael is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute and is the owner of Coyle’s Bakeshop. Previously, Rachael was Executive Pastry Chef at Le Pichet and Cafe Presse.
For me, baking is as much about texture as it is about flavor, so I’ll be looking for pieces that show balance and skill in both areas. I love seeing well-executed classics—but I especially love when a piece can play with something familiar just enough to make it new and interesting. Last, and very much not least, good technique is essential to good baking, so I’ll be checking that all the individual components (pastry doughs especially!) demonstrate good technical skill. But most of all: I can’t wait to see what the bakers create!
– Rachael Coyle
Chiyo Ishikawa Chiyo is Seattle Art Museum’s Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art and Curator of European Painting and Sculpture and curator of Victorian Radicals.
Chiyo Ishikawa headshot
I am hoping that contestants will be inspired by some of the objects in the exhibition—there are great images using flowers, vivid colors, and lots of detail. I am particularly hoping someone might want to take on some of the three-dimensional decorative arts objects that pile on Romanesque, Byzantine, and Gothic styles and use jewels, enamel work, and sculpted forms. More is more!
– Chiyo Ishikawa
Sara Naftaly Sara is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute and is owner of Amandine Bakeshop. For 30 years prior, Sara was co-owner of Le Gourmand.
For me, presentation cakes are a little like beautiful people. If there is no integrity on the inside, no depth of flavor, no individual character, then the resulting impression is eminently forgettable.
– Sara Naftaly
Although the audience can’t sample the desserts, we will have a bar and dessert options provided by TASTE during the event. Definite bonus, a limited number of free community passes will be made available for visitors to view Victorian Radicals which is open until 9 pm.
Beckoning visitors at the end of a long hallway inside Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts and Crafts Movement is an interactive art activity inviting visitors to experiment with ideas connected to the exhibition. Created by artist Allison Kudla, visitors build designs using small pieces of discarded plastic pulled from ocean beaches through community clean up events, organized by the non-profit group Ocean Blue Project. As you build your design a camera captures the work, and the image, translated through a computer program, is projected into a kaleidoscopic pattern on the wall, mimicking the William Morris wallpaper surrounding it. You have until September 8 to see the exhibition, featuring a range of works by Morris and his peers, and to interact with Kudla’s art activity in the galleries.
Awarded a PhD in 2011 from the University of Washington’s Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS), Kudla originally titled the work Radical Anthropocene, to focus on human activity as the dominant influence on climate and the environment. Prior to her PhD work, Kudla earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2002, with an emphasis on art and technology studies. We sat down with the artist to discuss this engaging art interactive, hear from her below!
SAM: Tell us about your process creating
this project.
Allison Kudla:The Radical Anthropocene project was based on a prior work I created for Summer at SAM in 2015. That work, titled Digital Kaleidoscopes of Nature, was an interactive workshop wherein people visiting the Olympic Sculpture Park could select from plant cuttings from the park to create digital kaleidoscopes. SAM approached me to adapt the project to become a wallpaper, rather than a circular kaleidoscope, that would be placed in response to William Morris’ wallpaper.
When considering the material or objects to be used to create the wallpaper, I thought about Morris, his ethics, values, and poetry. I knew I didn’t want to buy mass-produced items, but I did want to talk about industry and where we have come since Morris’ era. His care for our relationship to nature and warning of the future that might occur due to industrialization, were the cohering agents when I determined what the objects to use in creating the digital wallpaper. We are in the middle of a waste crisis on multiple levels. Perhaps the Naturalists of the Anthropocene are those that are working to clean up, invent sustainable materials, and regenerate human culture on the planet.
The Ocean Blue Project, based in Oregon, regularly
organizes community beach cleanups to extract the detritus of industrialization
from the ocean. The oft-called “marine debris” that was sent to me for
selection and placement included plastic forms, shapes, textures and colors—some
recognizable objects, others only fragments, and all created through a process
of industrialization.
I teamed up with my colleague, Dr. David Gibbs, a senior research scientist at ISB, who created the project’s code in Python. We worked collaboratively through GitHub with SAM’s Cooper Whitlow to complete the project
Do you collaborate with people in other disciplines on a regular
basis?
Yes, absolutely. I think working with people in other disciplines is mutually beneficial. Cross- or interdisciplinary pursuits tend to push us out of our comfort zone. If I can work as a colleague with a scientist, and a scientist can work as a colleague with an artist, we are both getting an opportunity to be in the imposter zone. Though this word, imposter, may have negative connotations, the truth is that when we feel this way we are often learning new things, growing, beginning to think from a different perspective, and potentially forming new views of our work. This is inherently positive. Also, it is fun to work with other people, so there are social aspects to that as well.
What brought you to pursue a PhD in the intersection of Art and
Science?
I studied fine art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. This trailblazing school didn’t require their students to pick one discipline, but rather let the course catalog be exactly that; a catalog. Each semester I would pick my classes thinking about what I was genuinely interested in learning. I didn’t know what kind of artist I wanted to be when I started there, but by the end, after moving through painting and fiber arts into video and finally art and technology, I realized that it was the creation of new art forms and new knowledge where I found the most satisfaction. When I joined the PhD program at UW, DXARTS (Digital Arts and Experimental Media), it was in its first year. Not only was it a pioneering new program, it was founded on exploring cutting-edge, research-based art. I decided to take the X in DXARTS and run with it. Through that, I established a practice intersecting experimental biology, specifically plant biology, with computer-aided design and fabrication processes.
Where else can we see your work?
Due to the living nature of many of my works, they often are only presented when specific facilities and resources are secured, and typically solely for the purpose of creating a cultural experience for an audience. In short, my work, because it is living, is very hard to collect and often tricky or expensive to produce. When it is produced, it has a finite duration and potentially unknown outcomes, thus making it a “risky” choice for many typical arts establishments. Despite those challenges, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France recently acquired one of my most complex works, “The Capacity for (Urban Eden, Human Error).” It was an amazing experience to transfer the knowledge of the piece to the museum and have valuable conversations with the technology team and the collections managers about not only the maintenance of the living work during the two-month lifespan of when it is on display, but also on the conservation of the whole system for decades to come.
What do you plan to do with the images created from the in-gallery
experience at SAM?
It is another research project for me! I am fascinated by what people choose to “save” or determine as beautiful in the context of the activity. I am also fascinated by patterns and am interested in creating interactive projects where the audience is engaged in creating the work and feeding back into the system itself. In the future, I hope to use the images as a negative control for a classification system I plan to develop around the history of pattern-making using data science and libraries of ornamental patterns. I have been attempting to garner resources to move this project forward, but as you can imagine, longer-term funding in fringe areas like this can be hard to find.
For now, I created this compilation of several of the hundreds of patterns that were saved.
“The humans of our
times are so used to kitsch. But for the Victorians, it was completely new. It
was radical. This is the mind-set the exhibit wants us to enter: one that had
no past, only the future. The Victorian age is the cradle of our
post-post-postmodern times.”
“Why see one sculpture
when you can see nine acres of them?” Business Insider on popular US tourist
traps and
where to go instead—like SAM’s Olympic Sculpture Park.
Local News
Crosscut’s Misha
Berson on “The Bar Plays,” two
plays set in bars presented in a real-life “venerable gathering
place,” Washington Hall.
“The thing that
we’re living under doesn’t seem to be working for us, so maybe we need to
imagine a new thing,” said Pruitt. “Myth, science fiction, all of that is a way
to kind of for me to think about another kind of way of living.”
Now on view at DC’s
National Gallery of Art: The Life of Animals in Japanese Art, featuring
“300 works drawn from 66 Japanese institutions and 30 American collections” that
are all about animals (!).
“Together they
outline a more fraught view of the art of the last century, in which the
refugee is not an outsider looking in, but a central actor in the writing of a
global culture. ‘Refugees,’ Arendt wrote in 1943, ‘represent the vanguard of
their peoples — if they keep their identity.’”
As we have seen too many times in recent weeks, a single
bullet can destroy a life, a family, and a community. In this photograph by
Harold Edgerton, a bullet is frozen in time and space, its trajectory and
destruction momentarily bound.
Born in Nebraska in 1903, Edgerton studied electrical
engineering at MIT. His academic background, coupled with his interest in
motion and high-speed photography, allowed him to produce images that made
visible the imperceptible. After earning his PhD in 1931, Edgerton developed
and improved upon various stroboscopic models—a repeatable flash device better known
today as a ‘strobe’—ultimately applying for 45 patents between the years 1933
and 1936. The high-powered repetition of the strobe allowed Edgerton to effectively
freeze objects in motion in order to capture them on film, resulting in iconic
photographs that bring together science, technology, and art.
The history of photography is inextricable from the history and development of military technology—to borrow from French theorist Paul Virilio, “For men at war, the function of the weapon is the function of the eye”—making the bullet a fitting subject for Edgerton to capture.[1] In this photograph, printed in 1961, the bullet serves to represent technological achievement and photographic mastery; today, however, it is hard to see a single bullet as anything other than destructive, especially when they are rarely singular, more often multiplied in the hundreds and deployed in seconds.
– Elisabeth Smith, SAM Collection & Provenance Associate
[1] Paul Virilio, War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception (London: Verso, 1989), p. 20.
For her recent commission for the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA), SAM Gallery artist Niki Keenan created 11 paintings focused on healing environments. SCCA brings together the leading research teams and cancer specialists of Fred Hutch, Seattle Children’s, and UW Medicine. The treatment rooms in their newly expanded SCCA outpatient clinic in South Lake Union feature Keenan’s work.
Niki Keenan’s paintings are inspired by the natural world, specifically sunrises and sunsets in Seattle. She uses dynamic, bold colors to paint water scenes with bridges and reflections from the vantage point of a boat. Keenan writes, “Each of the paintings in this series depicts a Pacific Northwest bridge, most of them are in Washington State, one is in British Columbia, Canada. I use these bridges as a way to frame the sky, as a way to show off the sun’s rays dancing around the architecture and as an anchor to a specific place. These brilliant sunsets and sunrises are happening all around us and by showing them happening in places we recognize, it makes the experience a shared one. Also, I believe bridges are symbolic of journeys in that they help us get where we want to go.”
In the new treatment rooms at SCCA, Keenan hopes her paintings will help transport viewers and give them something new to focus on, during their treatments. She believes “being transported during times of stress and uncertainty, is such a gift and so vital for healing. Paintings can literally turn a regular wall into a portal and the place you get to go in my paintings is full of hope, happiness, light.”
Keenan began showing her work at the SAM Gallery in 2018 and was quickly discovered by local collectors. SAM Gallery supports local artists and their careers by increasing their exposure and finding audiences for their work.
There’s a hint in Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts & Crafts Movement that some were. That hint is in Edward Burne-Jones stained-glass piece, St. Mark, which depicts the saint evangelizing what would become his gospel with a winged lion above him, a representation of his strong character. What is interesting is that the lion is resting his paw on a stylistic blue wave which contains the astrological glyph of Leo slyly repeated in it. Coincidence? I think not.
It seems that Edward Burne-Jones gave a shout-out to the astrology world. During the Victorian era advancements were made in astronomy and Alan Leo, a British astrologer who is often referred to as the father of modern astrology, was born in 1860. Seances, salons, and the occult were all the rage during this time and the first Ouija Board was commercially produced in 1890. Astrology could have been a serious topic of discussion in their group.
Needless to say, Victorian Radicals contains a fair amount of beautifully-painted depictions of myths that astrologers use to explain and interpret planets and asteroids in charts: Medea, Iris, Pandora, Venus, Cupid, and Psyche are some of the few. Any astrologer can pick out paintings in this exhibition and tie them easily to the planets’ mythology because they are so symbolic and integral to our work.
I would be remiss not to mention that I picked St. Mark because we are in the middle Leo season right now, and Leos are synonymous with lions, although not flying lions, but you could make a case that a Leo Sun/Neptune conjunction could produce one (Mic drop! Where my astrologers at?). Each year between July 23 and August 22, the sun transits across the sky through the Leo constellation. Leos are one of the three fire signs in the zodiac, Aries and Sagittarius being the other two, which lends to traits of passion, spontaneity, and playfulness. Lions are also the proud, strong, loyal, and loving ones living among us.
If you haven’t seen the exhibition, visit on September 5 when the rates are reduced to $9.99 and below for first Thursday. Also, there is a painting of Morgan Le Fay by Frederick Sandys which calls to mind the book Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradly and calls on anyone who loves witchcraft to come see their pagan roots immortalized in it. This exhibition is a woo-woo lovers’ paradise packed with supernatural aspects.
– Amy Domres, SAM’s Director of Admissions Amy is also a Psychospiritual Evolutionary Astrologer and Healer at Emerald City Astrology.
SAM director and CEO Kimerly Rorschach shared the museum’s position on proposed changes to Washington State’s overtime rules. These changes are long overdue, and SAM has been a leader in implementing adjustments. However, a slower ramp-up would be more sustainable for non-profits.
DCist on the Phillips
Collection’s new exhibition of 100
works by 75 artists on global displacement; director Klaus Ottmann
calls it “the most ambitious exhibition the museum has ever undertaken.”
Author Toni Morrison
died this week at the age of 88. This New York Times obituary celebrates her “luminous,
incantatory prose resembling that of no other writer in English.”
“Ms. Morrison animated
that reality in prose that rings with the cadences of black oral tradition. Her
plots are dreamlike and nonlinear, spooling backward and forward in time as
though characters bring the entire weight of history to bear on their every
act.”
In Daedalus/Upliftment, a young Black man struggles to take flight. His gaze is fixed on the ground instead of the sky, with eyes downcast and obscured by gold sunglasses. One hand is outstretched to conceal himself. The other grasps a plume of pheasant feathers, with a rope tied around his wrist. A wreath of ostrich feathers adorns his neck, draping his chest and blending into bright white pants. The feathers symbolize the deities Yoruba Orisas Obatala of wisdom, and Osun of love.
This full-body portrait portrays someone steady, yet vulnerable, someone who embodies the emotional juxtapositions of freedom and captivity, hope and doubt. The dazzling high-tops—inlaid with gold leaf and spray paint detail, dripping to the edges of the canvas—paired with grayscale triangle-patterned socks are captivating. Although a symbol of value, the gold sneakers carry much weight: a strain against the aspirations and ability to rise.
Daedalus/Upliftment is from Dr. Fahamu Pecou’s 2015 series, I Know Why The Caged Bird Blings, the series title inspired by Maya Angelou’s poem, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.” A visual/performing artist and scholar, Pecou concentrates on Black masculinity in his work. Pecou probes today’s media representations, expectations, and images of Black men removed from Black agency—including stereotypes of violence—and their emotional toll on readings and performances of Black masculinity. In 2017, Pecou was the subject of a retrospective exhibition “Miroirs de l’Homme” (Mirrors of the Man) in Paris, France and a recipient of the 2016 Joan Mitchell Foundation “Painters and Sculptors” Award.[1]
Daedalus/Upliftment alludes to the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus. Daedalus built wings of feathers and wax for himself and his son, Icarus, to escape their prison. Despite Daedalus’ warning, Icarus flew too close to the sun, melting the wax on the wings, falling and drowning in the ocean. Pecou reinterprets this classic tragedy and questions the actions of Daedalus as Icarus’ father. Daedalus/Uplifting provokes a meditation on paternalism and masculinity, with “the breakdown of intergenerational communication and the emotional complexities within the Black male experience that trouble the desire and ability to take flight.”[2]
In the far-right corner of the stark white background, Pecou
leaves us a surrealist poem:
In addition to their
booth-to-booth coverage of this past weekend’s Seattle Art Fair, Crosscut has
pieces by Emily Pothast and Margo Vansynghel examining the various outcomes of the Fair on
the local art scene.
“The festival will
highlight ‘artist-driven portraits of identity,’ which will take many forms
including visual art and performance, according to co-curator and dance artist
David Rue. ‘We’re using this approach so that artists can provide a
counterpoint to the dominant narrative told about people that look like them
while celebrating the power of culturally responsive rigor.’”
“What Does Radical Love Look Like?” Hyperallergic’s Seph Rodney explores that
question at the Ford Foundation Gallery’s latest show, featuring work by
Athi-Patra Ruga, Lina Puerta, and Ebony G. Patterson.
‘”This is someone
becoming — finding themselves, finding their voice, finding their practice,’
Ms. LaBouvier said. ‘I didn’t want to make him into a myth, or make him into a
sort of trauma-porn story either. And I thought the best way to do that was to
take a step back and let him speak for himself.’”
Homer’s paired stories of The Iliad and The Odyssey have fascinated artists and creators for centuries, generating art, literature, and music. One such artwork, The Judgement of Paris, is an Etruscan piece from around the 4th–3th centuries BCE, and is currently on view at the Seattle Art Museum.
This ancient work illustrates the critical moment that ultimately led to a 10-year war that ravaged the Mediterranean. Deftly etched into the back of a circular mirror, a riveting scene leaps out: four figures tangle with one another, three clad in traditional Greek garments with delicate folds and drapery, and one almost nude (save for a few accessories). This nude woman on the left, the goddess Aphrodite, faces the other three as they each raise their hands to their mouths—in shock at her attire or, possibly, at the decision that has just been made in this scene.
The figure hidden behind the remaining two clothed women is Paris, a young man ordered by Zeus, the king of the gods, to determine the most beautiful goddess. Each of the three goddesses represented here—Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite—offer him a bribe. Hera swears to make him a king, Athena promises wisdom and bravery in battle, and Aphrodite pledges the world’s most beautiful, albeit married, mortal woman: Helen. Paris’s fateful decision to align himself with Aphrodite and sail with Helen to Troy would eventually enable the deeply destructive Trojan War of which Homer wrote.
I find this scene quite interesting due to its historical and cultural references, but also for its touch of irony. Used for numerous occasions, ranging from funerals to weddings, mirrors in Etruscan culture feature mythological moments that deal with physical appearance, specifically “any tale in which vanity or comeliness gained its rewards.”[1] Although Paris’ choice did reward him a love affair with Helen, it also caused one of the longest and most famous sieges in literary history. This seductive tableau—simultaneously puzzling and inviting—raises questions surrounding sexuality, fidelity, and appearance in classical cultures.
– Emma Ming Wahl, SAM Curatorial Intern
Mirror with scene of the Judgment of Paris, 4th–3rd century B.C., Etruscan, bronze, 10 3/8 x 7 in., Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 48.36
[1] Nigel Spivey, Etruscan Art (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1997), 77.
The most
recent edition of Crosscut’s arts newsletter by Brangien Davis
includes a shout-out to the Seattle Arts Voter Guide,
created by Seattle University students in a Public Policy and the Arts class.
“The cels in the
exhibit come from Heeter’s personal collection of more than 900 Simpsons
animations, which he started collecting in the early ’90s. ‘I had a full head
of hair when I started collecting and now it’s all gone,’ he says.”
Don’t miss this
conversation-starting New York Times piece by Elizabeth Méndez Berry and
Chi-hui Yang that calls
for more critics of color.
“…the spaces in
media where national mythologies are articulated, debated and affirmed are
still largely segregated. The conversation about our collective imagination has
the same blind spots as our political discourse.”
With these works, we have created art pieces that serve as cultural and historical artifacts that value and document the experiences, struggles, and achievements of those who have found their way, often through migration and exceptional sacrifice, to new places where they now work to contribute meaningfully within their communities.
– Margarita Cabrera
Soft vinyl covers the customary porcelain, metal, and glass of this trusty kitchen crockpot. While the clear lid is left exposed, plush fabric replaces the sturdy handles and appliance parts. Red stitching adds a playful contrast against the sky blue base, and the remaining long, loose threads speak to homemade craftsmanship.
Slow Cooker is part of artist Margarita Cabrera’s soft sculpture series, which reimagines commercial objects from bicycles and cars to household tools and cleaning supplies. Cabrera was a featured artist in Pop Departures, a 2014 exhibition at SAM that explored contemporary artists who look to Pop Art for artistic inspiration or critique. The malleable and everyday forms of Cabrera’s sculptures draw on stylistic elements of works by Pop artist Claes Oldenburg.
Cabrera is an artist, activist, and community organizer. She infuses her art with socio-political and personal reflection as a Mexican American. Topics of cultural identity, migration, violence, inclusivity, labor, and empowerment—with a focus on US-Mexico border issues—are at the forefront of Cabrera’s art practice.[1] In her transformative justice initiatives, Cabrera organizes artistic collaborations in local communities. For her 2010 outreach project, Space in Between, Cabrera partnered with Latinx immigrants from Mexico and Central America to create sculptures of Southwestern US desert plants.[2] Using fabric from the uniforms of Border Patrol forces, the soft sculptures recall embroidery techniques from Los Tenangos, Hidalgo, Mexico and traditions of Otomi Indigenous communities. The workshops empowered the participants to share their journeys of tremendous danger and sacrifice, crafting dialogues of unity, healing, and resistance.
Playful and
interactive, the collapsible textures of Slow
Cooker invite touch and public engagement. The bold, bright colors are illustrative
of traditional woven Mexican designs. Slow
Cooker provokes us, and perhaps teases us, as consumers and viewers, to
reconsider these unassuming objects and the hands that made them. Cabrera
shatters the invisibility of immigrant laborers in factory, farm, and service
jobs—engaging the need for active listening and policy change at the ground
level, igniting a political conversation that remains urgent and necessary.
From the intricate silver objects and the dazzling jewelry to the vibrant paintings on display, there is so much to see and learn about in Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts & Crafts Movement. For instance, did you know the 15th-century painter Van Eyck’s was an inspiration to the Pre-Raphaelites? Here are some facts that you may not know about the rebellious artists behind the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Read up and then come see this stunning exhibition on view through September 8!
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood began in 1848 and was founded by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
The founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were all students at the Royal Academy but they rebelled against the ideas and methods of The Academy and would often skip classes to have secret meetings at their homes.
The name “Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood” came from their belief that the “Golden Age of Art” came before Raphael and the Renaissance.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood eventually grew and received tremendous support from writer and critic John Ruskin.
When the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood formed, the members were all between the ages of 18–23 years old.
In 1850 the Pre-Raphaelites launched an illustrated journal called “The Germ” meant to “sow the seeds of a widespread reform of society through advanced art and design.” It included poetry, essays, and short stories as well as etchings. The journal discontinued after four issues.
Although the brotherhood by definition excluded women, influential female figures such as Elizabeth Siddall, Rosa Brett, and Anna Blunden made art within the wider circle of the Pre-Raphaelites.
John Millais’ muse, Effie Gray, was the wife of his mentor John Ruskin. While painting and modeling, Millais and Grey fell in love. Gray divorced Ruskin and married Millais a year later!
Pre-Raphaelite art sparked controversy because their realism was seen as ugly and jarring by some critics and writers. Charles Dickens wrote that Millais’ “Christ” painting was “a hideous, wry-necked, blubbering, red-haired boy in a nightgown.”
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood lasted five years and was dissolved by 1853 as the young members grew in different directions. But the movement had a long-lasting impact and inspired the formation of the Arts & Crafts Movement.
