Five Questions with the 21st Century Consort October 19, 2010

Christopher Kendall, Artistic Director of the 21st Century Consort

On October 23 the 21st Century Consort performs its first concert of its season at American Art. The concert is inspired by the museum's Norman Rockwell exhibition, Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Christopher Kendall, Dean of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance, spoke with External Affairs Chief Jo Ann Gillula about the upcoming performance of the ensemble which debuted in 1975 in American Art's own Lincoln Gallery. This season is entitled Music Meets Art, reflecting Kendall's programming based on American Art's exhibitions and permanent collection.

Eye Level: You are presenting a rather tongue-in-cheek concert on October 23 around the Norman Rockwell exhibition, calling it "as American as…" If we fill in the blank, do you mean apple pie or something not as sweet?

Christopher Kendall: You could add "motherhood" to the apple pie, of course. And although it is a bit of a challenge to come up with a program of contemporary music that enters wholeheartedly into Rockwell's values of love of country, personal honor, and value of family, I think we've got a program that honors Rockwell more than pokes fun at him. Maybe just a little satire thrown in for good measure.

EL: How do you select the combination of 20th and 21st century composers that you usually present in one concert?

CK: These programs are the result of long incubation, during which I am myself often mystified by the process. Being alert to new additions to the repertoire is of course required; certainly, the interests of the Consort's artists are a defining factor; I feel we have developed a kind of "understanding" with our audience—many of whom have been with us for a long time—who appreciate challenge and adventure with their musical beauty; I'm often looking for a balance of humor with the serious business. But over and over, it is the exhibitions and collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum that are the inspiration for our programs. This is a great benefit of our relationship with the museum.

EL: I know you perform in the Folger Consort in a repertoire of Renaissance music. Can you explain how you became so committed to more contemporary music?

CK: Having grown up with the mainstream classical repertoire all around, the emerging interest in early and contemporary music must have seemed part of the liberation of going away to college; both were "new," really, and I'm delighted to be able to keep exploring the newness of both into my dotage. There is also the imperative, for the health and survival of the form, to continually renew the repertoire.

EL: Many of the 21st Century Consort artists perform regularly with the National Symphony Orchestra and others perform internationally. How is that you can present such a distinguished roster of performers? What is your enticement for them?

CK: The Consort does not, on the whole, consist of new music specialists; this is a defining feature both of our programs and the quality and character of our performances. These are musicians, however, who appreciate the challenge and satisfaction of tackling new music, and doing so with colleagues likewise fully up to the task. Even if they don't especially take a shine to one piece or another (there is always a risk when you do new music), playing really difficult music at such a high level is a distinct pleasure. I think our performers, like our audiences, have developed a trust, over time, that the programs will be balanced, challenging, interesting, and consisting of good music (not always hallmarks of new music programs).

EL: We are excited about your programming around the American Art exhibitions and permanent collection this season. What would you like audiences to take away from our Music Meets Art season?

CK: Of course, if they take away the pleasure and edification of wonderful music wonderfully presented, that will be great. If they feel challenged, amused, moved and, hey, even transformed a little, I'm thrilled. If, beyond this, they are drawn to the sense of unity among the art forms often implicit in our programs, they'll be getting the essential idea of the series and residency at American Art.

The October 23 concert is preceded by a lecture at 4 p.m. Tickets are $20 and are available online or at the door the day of the performance; a post-performance wine and cheese reception is included.

• Christopher Kendall, 21st Century Consort, Music, Norman Rockwell, American Art,
  Smithsonian American Art Museum

Award Winning Art Signs October 15, 2010

Last month the American Art Museum received a commendation for Art Signs OnLine from the international JODI Awards which recognize innovative uses of digital media to make museums, galleries, libraries, archives, and heritage venues more accessible to disabled people. Susan Nichols, Chief of Education at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, tells us about the genesis of the program.

Introduction to Art Signs

It's a busy Saturday at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, in Washington, D.C. A knot of a dozen visitors is in animated conversation with their gallery guide. The guide and his cohort are part of two Saturday afternoon Art Signs tours for deaf visitors. Added to the mix is an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter to voice information and queries, observations and exchanges for hearing staff and visitors. Then Art Signs morphs into a bilingual tour with the rare opportunity for hearing and deaf audiences to learn together under the leadership of a deaf guide.

Nationwide 2 to 4 of every thousand people are functionally deaf. Gallaudet University, the first school for advanced education of deaf and hard of hearing students in the world, is located two miles from our museum. A potential audience of nearly 3,000 plus their friends and families, we had no consistent program of services for this audience, no direct invitation, and no relationship.

An email opened that door. Tabitha Jacques, a graduate of Gallaudet, asked us how deaf students might join our next docent training class. We countered with the suggestion of a smaller, more focused training designed for deaf volunteers to give gallery talks to their deaf peers. Not only would this help us serve more diverse audiences, it would elevate the visibility of this group to our hearing visitors and staff. With Jacques's recruiting help and contacts within the deaf community, we welcomed six Gallaudet students and one professor for our April 2009 launch of Art Signs, during National Deaf Month.

At the start of each public tour, Art Signs gallery guides introduce themselves and welcome visitors to the Museum, remind all of museum etiquette, reveal which artworks will be considered, and lead the group to the first artwork. Visitors are invited to spend a few minutes examining the artwork and share their findings—objective and affective. The gallery guide acts as mediator, deftly connecting comments, adding information, eliciting a second look and more reflective questions through shared consideration of visual images. As with all our programs, a key Art Signs goal is to help visitors gain self-confidence in our museum, in fact, to make them comfortable within all museums.

In January 2010, we nibbled at one more Art Signs iteration. After eight months of in-gallery experience and an accumulated portfolio of 23 presented artworks, we set about to share the in-gallery program with a national audience via our website, to videotape each Art Signs gallery guide and post their presentations online. In honor of Deaf History Month, Art Signs OnLine launched in April 2009. Later that summer that resource was adapted with verbal description to aid blind and low-vision visitors to envision the artwork. Our online repertoire of artworks in ASL and audio formats will grow as Art Signs Gallery Guides expand their catalogue of presentations at both Smithsonian American Art Museum and our Renwick Gallery.

• Deaf, American Sign Language, Gallaudet University, Deaf History Month, Accessibility,American Art,
  Smithsonian American Art Museum

Picture This: Turning Wood October 13, 2010

Photo by Christian Goodlander

Clif Poodry, from Montgomery County Woodturners, demonstrates the use of a lathe as part of the exhibition A Revolution in Wood: The Bresler Collection at the Renwick Gallery. Lathe demonstrations are being conducted throughout the run of the exhibition. Here's a list of dates and times.

• Wood, Woodturning, Lathe, Renwick Gallery, American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Draw and Discover: Making Your Own Sketchbook October 5, 2010

The Makings of a Sketchbook

Katherine Rand was never happy with store-bought sketchbooks so she spent a great deal of time scouring the Internet and local craft stores for a better solution. At the beginning of the Luce Center's latest Draw and Discover sketching workshop she gave us this advice as she demonstrated how she constructs her customized notebooks. One tip: use small button-like discs as binding clips. This will allow you to easily remove and replace your sketchbook's paper. Nice!

Cutting up and reusing old colorful folders (see photo) for the sketchbook covers Katherine then uses her specialized hole punch to stamp out notches so the binding “buttons” will slip right in. Genius. Suddenly I thought, "I finally have a use for my old college folders piled up at home!"

For our sketching challenge Katherine showed us book examples ranging from a mini-book that fits in your pocket to something that was more suitable for your living-room coffee table. Everyone was impressed. One adult sketcher said, “You put my organizational skills to shame! I want to be you when I grow up.”

For your own sketching epiphany sign up for our next Draw and Discover program. The workshop runs every Tuesday from 3-4:30pm in the Luce Foundation Center, third floor. Check the online calendar for special workshops like this one.

Mary Tait, from our Luce Foundation Center, wrote this post.

• Luce Foundation Center, Scrapbooks, Sketchbooks, American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Erica Hirshler: Looking at John Singer Sargent September 30, 2010

The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit; 1882; Oil on canvas; 221.93 x 222.57 cm (87 3/8 x 87 5/8 in.); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Gift of Mary Louisa Boit, Julia Overing Boit, Jane Hubbard Boit, and Florence D. Boit in memory of their father, Edward Darley Boit; 19.124; © 2010 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Erica Hirshler, senior curator of American paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, kicked off the Clarice Smith Distinguished Lecture Series in American Art with a spirited look at John Singer Sargent. His painting, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit—a seven by seven foot masterpiece that has earned pride of place in the MFA as well as in Hirshler's heart—was the jumping off point for a look at Sargent's portraits that ranged from the seemingly innocent (as in the case of the Boit's) to the scandalous Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau).

In 1882, when Sargent painted the portrait of the Boit daughters, "Four plainly dressed girls in Paris," he was twenty-six years old, and something of a star in the American colony in Paris. The Boits engaged him to paint their four daughters, "Four girls and five vases," Hirshler said, referring to the sitters as well as the two six-foot tall Japanese vases—the taste for Japonaiserie was at a height in good part due to the ex-pat American painter James McNeill Whistler—as well as three more in the dimly lit background. "He looked both to the old masters and to modern art." But what is the narrative here? As Hirshler said, the painting, "suspended between light and dark, [is] a story that wants to be told."

To understand more about the world the Boits inhabited, Hirshler took us on a tour of late-nineteenth century Paris, with a stop at the rue de Friedland, where the Boits apartment was situated, and the setting for the portrait of the four girls. Hirshler then spoke about Sargent the artist, and how "he looked both to the old masters and to modern art. Chief among the old masters was Velazquez, especially his portrait of the Spanish royal family, Las Meninas." According to Hirshler, "Sargent was a sponge, interested in everything. He takes things from Japanese prints, from the Old Masters, and photography. All of these go into his art. It's hard to pull out one thread."

Hirshler looked at each of the girls individually, and also mentioned the one Boit child who was not in the portrait: an elder brother who was institutionalized at the age of six. Does he inhabit the darker parts of the canvas somehow? The girls--Florence (who developed a penchant for the game of golf as a young woman and even helped design and build a golf course on her uncle's estate in Wellesley, Mass.), Jane, Mary Louisa, and Julia who died well into her nineties in 1969, all remained unmarried. And with that fact Hirshler reminded us, "which is not to say they were unhappy."

During the question and answer period that followed the talk, Hirshler was asked, "How did the MFA acquire the Boit painting?" to which she replied, "In the best possible way. The girls gave it to us." They first lent it to the MFA in 1912, but gave it to the museum six years later, leaving Hirshler to close the evening with, "Let that be a shining example to all of you potential museum donors." Indeed.

For those of you who couldn't attend, you can watch the webcast here. The next speaker in the Clarice Smith Distinguished Lecture Series is Mark Feeney, Boston Globe arts and photography critic and winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for criticism, speaking on October 27, at 7pm.

• John Singer Sargent, Erica Hirshler, Museum of Fine Arts, Clarice Smith, American Art,
  Smithsonian American Art Museum