Getting to Know Us: Museum Library

This week's blog post is from Frank Thomson, the Museum's Curator, who also organizes the Museum Library:

“Visiting this museum is always a treat, and the library is exceptional.”

This is a note left in the comment book by a visitor this winter. It highlights one of the important, but quieter, programs at the Asheville Art Museum, the Frances Mulhall Achilles Library. The library is located by the stairs leading up to the second floor. It features books, catalogs, magazines, videos and art images. All of this material is searchable in a computer catalog.

On February 3, 2011, the library celebrated an important milestone; the nine thousandth item was added to the catalog.

The Asheville Art Museum’s library is one of the largest resources of art publications in the region and is regularly used by staff, visitors, students and scholars. While the materials do not circulate, the Museum has a Teachers’ Resource Center that allows area school teachers to check out materials for use in the classroom.

Also thanks to a grant from Progress Energy, the library includes three computers with Internet access for further art research.

The success of the library is due to many supporters who have donated materials, but in particular to a small group of dedicated volunteer librarians. The current group consists of Leah Karpen, Fran Myers, Meg Miles and Martha Shepard. Most Thursday mornings find this dedicated and hard working group in the library cataloging new materials, re-shelving books and other tasks needed to maintain the library as the important resource that it is.

The library is free to Members or with paid admission, so check it out the next time you are in the Museum. If you are here on a Thursday morning, say hello to the librarians, they always love visitors.

Getting to Know Us: Membership and Groups

Continue getting to know us with this post from Rebecca Lynch-Maass, Membership Manager at the Museum. She coordinates the Collectors' Circle group. Read here about their recent purchase party:

The Asheville Art Museum Collectors’ Circle held their seventh annual selection dinner on January 17, 2011. The Collectors’ Circle is dedicated to increasing their own knowledge about art and collecting, while also growing the Museum’s Permanent Collection through annual purchases from an acquisition fund created by yearly dues.

This year, the Circle and Circle members added 10 works to the Museum’s Permanent Collection, as well as furthering their commitment to the growth of acquisition funds for the Museum.

The 2010 Collectors’ Circle members voted to acquire Basket by Ruth Asawa (pictured left). This early Asawa work, one of few created while she was a student at Black Mountain College, is a stunning example of her early efforts with the looped-wire technique learned in Toluca, Mexico in 1947. Central to an earlier exhibition of her work was a large looped wire sculpture given to the Museum by Lorna Blaine Halper. The addition of this early basket form offers us the opportunity to build upon Halper’s significant gift and to showcase both an early and a later wire sculpture. This addition of a work by a Black Mountain College artist, and especially one created at Black Mountain College, adds to the ongoing efforts by the Museum to build a significant BMC Collection, and continues the Circle’s commitment to that Collection.

In anticipation of the upcoming exhibition Artists at Work: American Printmakers and the WPA (April 29 – September 25, 2011), Assistant Curator Cole Hendrix presented three works by WPA printmakers Minna Citron, Louis Schanker and Hyman Warsager to the Circle. Warsager’s 1937 lithograph Preserve the Initiative for Children, Schanker’s 1939 woodcut Three Men on a Bench (pictured left) and Squid Under Pier, 1948-9, intaglio and stencil by Minna Citron were gifted by individual members.

Another purchase by the Circle with their 2010 Acquisition Fund was photographer John Pfahl’s Fish, Cypress Gardens, Florida, 2001, Type C color negative print (pictured left). Individuals Pam Myers, Gail and Brian McCarthy and Gary and Olivia Zahler made additional contributions for the purchase of this work. Another powerful work by Pfahl presented to the Circle, Morning Light on Railroad Viaduct, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 2004, Endura print, was chosen to be purchased with funds from the Nat C. Myers Photography Fund.

Additional works gifted by Individual Circle members included:

Morning Gossips by Alfred Heber Hutty, drypoint etching on paper, 1950, gifted by Rob Pulleyn (pictured left).

Ray Griffin and Thom Robinson gifted two works: Ronald Cooper’s Helldozer, mixed media, 2008 (pictured left); and Thunder Pony by John Grant, carved stone, 2007.

Anne Burkhardt and Cherry Lentz Saenger gifted Taylor Rolling Store, acrylic on canvas, not dated (pictured left).

Since their founding in 2003 the Collectors’ Circle and Circle members have contributed over $300,000 to Collections growth and support for the Asheville Art Museum. Their generosity and commitment are to be applauded, and are an inspiration to us all.

2010 Collectors’ Circle members were Nancy Albyn, Phillip Broughton and David Smith, Nat and Anne Burkhardt, Andrew Glasgow, Ray Griffin and Thom Robinson, Susan Holden, Suzanne and Stephen Jones, Gail and Brian McCarthy, Fran Myers, Ladene and Russell Newton, Ann and Ted Oliver, Mary Powell, Rob Pulleyn, Cherry and Paul Lentz Saenger, Randy Siegel, Susan Stair Stevens, Susan Turner, Olivia and Gary Zahler.

Rebecca would also love to help you become a Member so you can join us for the New Members' Reception on February 13 (*mention this blog and get $5 off!*). E-mail rlynch-maass@ashevilleart.org or visit www.ashevilleart.org for information.

Who is Joseph Albers?

Joseph Albers and Sewell Sillman
explored through two WORKs OF THE WEEK

August 9th through August 22, 2010

From left: Josef Albers, Formulation: Articulation Folio II, Folder 12, 1972, serigraph on paper, 15 x 40 inches. Gift of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. 1997.01.05.65L; Josef Albers, Formulation: Articulation Folio II, Folder 18, 1972, serigraph on paper, 15 x 40 inches. Gift of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 1997.01.05.65R.

Josef Albers and Sewell Sillman are intimately tied in terms of the artistic lives they led and the work they produced. When Sillman arrived at Black Mountain College, Albers was head of the art department. Initially interested in architecture, Sillman quickly displayed a passion for art under the tutelage of Albers. Sillman and Albers both shared a passion for color studies and were both instrumental in the formulation of Color Theory. Sillman eventually taught many of the courses that he took under Albers.

Sillman also continued to work with Albers through his print publishing firm, Ives-Sillman, founded with fellow Yale professor and graphic designer Norman Ives. Sillman used the knowledge he gained from years of color studies to successfully create color reproductions of fine art works. By focusing on screenprinting as a new medium for reproductions, these two were able to control the quality of their color prints, allowing them to introduce the fine art portfolio book to the United States. Their first and most frequent client was Josef Albers, who entrusted them with the production of two instrumental portfolios: Interaction of Color, a book based on Albers' lessons in color theory, and Formulation: Articulation, a retrospective reworking of some of Albers' greatest artistic achievements.

These two prints, now on display in the Museum's exhibition Sewell Sillman: Pushing Limits, are included in Albers' deluxe double portfolio Formulation: Articulation. Sillman recalled that the purpose of this portfolio was to allow Josef Albers the opportunity to take "every seminal idea that he's ever had and to redevelop it." Sillman was a key collaborator in creating this portfolio, for he helped Albers review his past work and select compositions to reproduce as screenprints.

All of the works in the Museum's Collection from Albers' portfolio, Formulation: Articulation, are now up on the Permanent Collection Archive.

Come in to see Sewell Sillman: Pushing Limits, which traverses the breadth of Sillman's career as a student, a businessman, a teacher, a collaborator, an artist and a friend.

Image: Eugenia Joyce, Sewell Sillman, Josef Albers, and Norman Ives at the completion of the Formulation: Articulation project in 1972. Photo by John Hill, Collection of James McNair.

Photographs and Memories

The exhibition on Tim Barnwell at the Museum opens tonight! Hands in Harmony: Traditional Crafts and Music in Appalachia, Photographs by Tim Barnwell. It is a special one, classy black and white photographs with oral histories next to each image. Tim spent years photographing some of the icons of this rich region- both in music and craft culture- while also compiling interviews and oral histories on each one. The Museum brings you these in its newest exhibition. OPENING RECEPTION is tonight at 5pm- and it is Free! Come see the show and meet Mr. Tim Barnwell.

To get you excited about it- here is a sneak preview. Tim Barnwell's photograph of Minnie Adkins, folk artist, and family, is in the show- and here is her wall text. The Museum also has a piece of Minnie's in their collection- a new acquisition purchased by the Art Nouveax. I have included it also! Enjoy!

Minnie Adkins and family with folk art creations, 2005

Isonville, Elliott County, KY

“As far back as I can remember, I’ve whittled and made stuff. I started out making popguns, whistles, slingshots, stuff like that, to play with when I was little. Back in the early ’70s, I would sell little roosters for fifty cents and a dollar at flea markets. I started making them out of forked sticks, like my slingshots, but I never got to sell ’em, or got recognized, till in the early ’80s. They wasn't no folk art in Morehead at the time. Adrian Swain had a little pottery shop in town. He was a-doing pottery and a-selling people's stuff on consignment. He started selling my work. Now he’s curator at the Kentucky Folk Art Center at the university.

When me and Garland first got in it, there wasn't no market for it. Then we begin to make good at it. Some folks made fun of us, said, "Why, Garland quit working and started whittling." I just laughed all the way to the bank. Garland bought a new truck and people seen us supporting ourself. They begin wondering what was going on, come to me asking, "If I make something, where could I sell it?" I bought stuff from everybody and encouraged 'em in doing it and, at one time, we had fifteen real good artists around here.

I make all different kinds of little animals, roosters, alligators, foxes, giraffe, cow, sheep and four or five Noah's arks. The little animals are made from two-by-fours. We saw off a square block, and I'll sketch out what I’m a-going to make, and saw it out on the band saw. We may use some power tools or a Dremel tool sometimes, but usually we just use pocketknives, drawing knives, and chainsaws. All of it we make out of linnwood. It's very soft and easy to whittle, and don't crack much.

When Herman, my second husband, come on the scene, he was a-helping me whittle and said, “Why, anything you can make out of wood, I can make out of iron.” That little iron blue rooster up there is the first one he ever made. When he brought it down, I knowed he was onto something. He’s added an awful lot to what I’m a-doing. When my first husband passed away, I just couldn’t get with it, didn’t think I’d ever do any more. Greg, my grandson, said, “Mamaw, you can’t give it up. Papaw wouldn’t want you to.” He’d encourage me to go on and I appreciate so much the fact that he seen the need to help me keep working. Greg loves doing this. He’s been making stuff about six year, and he’s the one that helps me with the big animals and he's branched out on his own now till he’s a-doing paintings and stuff, so I’m real proud. It’s more or less become a family project. I’m involving my family because at seventy years old, I know I ain’t gonna always be here, and when I’m gone, I’m hopeful that they will carry on what I started.”

-Minnie Adkins

Images: Tim Barwell exhibition setup; Tim Barnwell, Minnie Adkins and Family, Folk Artist, 2005, black and white silver gelatin print, 14 x 11 inches. Courtesy of the Artist; Minnie Adkins, Possum and Babies, 2005, carved and painted wood, 9.5 x 40 x 4.6 inches. 2009 Art Nouveaux Purchase. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2010.01.04.32; Detail of Minnie Adkins, Possum and Babies.

WORK OF THE WEEK

Had to share this one with you!

Last week was Rowena Bradley's basket. This week is Tim Barnwell's photograph of Rowena Bradley (with baskets). Look down at her feet...

Exploring the Permanent Collection with a Work of the Week

THIS WEEK: May 10 - 16, 2010

Tim Barnwell, Rowena Bradley Making Double Weave Rivercane Baskets,

1991, black and white silver gelatin print, 14 x 11 inches. 2009 Art Nouveaux Purchase. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2010.01.02.91.

Tim Barnwell is well-known in the region for his photographs of Western North Carolina's rich and unique cultural heritage. Through his professional and striking photographs, he has documented some of this area's strong characters, fascinating crafts and unprecedented artistic and musical history. His work both reflects great artistic talent and documents the talent of others. It is greatly understood that the Western North Carolina area has a cultural heritage uniquely it's own, and Tim Barnwell effectively showcases this heritage to the world through his incredible talent as a photographer.

In the Holden Community Gallery, the Museum has organized a new exhibition on Tim Barnwell, Hands in Harmony: Traditional Crafts and Music in Appalachia, Photographs by Tim Barnwell; it is a photographic exploration of the makers of Appalachian folk music and traditional handcrafts. This photo, Rowena Bradley Making Double Weave Rivercane Baskets, is part of the show. It was purchased last year by the Museum's collecting group, Art Nouveaux, in preparation for this show. Rowena Bradley was a Cherokee basket weaver; at one point she was one of only a handful of double weave rivercane weavers, and during her lifetime, she helped to revive interest in Cherokee basketry, effectively insuring that knowledge of this craft would live on in future generations. Reflective of many of the Museum's goals in collecting Cherokee art and contemporary photographs and cataloging regional heritage, the Museum's Permanent Collection contains three Barnwell photographs and two Rowena Bradley baskets. Last week's Work of the Week discussed Bradley's Double Weave Lidded Basket in the collection.

THIS FRIDAY, MAY 14^th is the opening for the exhibition of Tim Barnwell's photographs at the Museum. Come discuss the work with him!

For more information on Tim Barnwell and his photograph Rowena Bradley Making Double Weave Rivercane Baskets, visit it in our Permanent Collection online!

For more information on Rowena Bradley and her basket Double Weave Lidded Basket, visit it here in our Permanent Collection online!

WORK OF THE WEEK

This next month of works is going to be so cool that I thought I would post it to the blog.

Here is the first week:

May 3 - 9, 2010

Rowena Bradley, Double Weave Lidded Basket,

No date, double woven river cane with walnut and blood root dyes, 6.75 x 6 x 6 inches. 2004 Collectors' Circle Acquisition. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2005.03.09.58.

At one point, Rowena Bradley was one of only a handful of double weave rivercane weavers. She learned by watching her mother weave, a third generation Cherokee basket weaver. Eventually, she became part of the Cherokee craft revitalization which helped boost Cherokee economy and also kept the traditions of Cherokee craft alive for future generations. Bradley's father was Henry Bradley, Principal Chief of the Eastern Band, and she grew up on lands owned by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indian.

Double weave baskets were good storage containers because they were strong and often water repellant. A double weave basket is really two baskets, one inside the other, woven together at the rim. Beginning at the base of the inside basket, the weaver works upward to the rim and then down along the outside towards the base, often using two designs on the inside and the outside. Bradley learned patterns and designs from her mother, but she also came up with some of her own. To make the baskets, the rivercane is collected, split into quarters, peeled, soaked in water and then dyed before beginning to weave. Bradley used materials common to traditional Cherokee rivercane basketry, including naturally found dyes from native roots and bark, including those from butternut, black walnut, bloodroot and yellow root.

This basket was purchased for the Museum by the Collectors' Circle after it was in the Museum's exhibition Transformations: Cherokee Baskets in the Twentieth Century, which examined Cherokee basket making over the past century, and how the materials and styles have evolved during this time period. A photograph of Rowena Bradley taken by photographer Tim Barnwell will be on display starting May 14th in the Museum's new exhibition Hands in Harmony: Traditional Crafts and Music in Appalachia, Photographs by Tim Barnwell. Look for it next week, here at Work of the Week!

For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!

Don't be scared of Decoupage

What is Decoupage?

A Staff Craft brought to you by the Asheville Art Museum

First, as scary as it sounds, decoupage is actually very, very easy. It took me a staff craft to learn this. Fittingly similar to mosaics (with glue, not grout), you can really decoupage anything. My coworkers did pots for plants, boxes, and trays. I did some covers for a book I am making; my decoupaged bookboard will become the covers of a new journal.


The second thing is that decoupage is often unfairly stereotyped. You can pair stripes and patterns according to colors and style, add monogrammed touches, and incorporate all things floral. Or you can decoupage cardboard boxes (often found in your recycling pile) with skeletons and other images found in a medical supplies magazine. You can use comics from the Sunday paper, as I did. Everything is game- and I am sure that if you look around your house, you can find some things to decoupage- all you have to do is buy the glue...

Here it is- how to decoupage...

Required ingredients:

• something to decoupage. If you don’t already have something around the house try the thrift store, dollar store, or big lots (you probably have something around the house). Pots for house plants, washed out aluminum cans, old picture frames under the bed, etc.
• decorative papers (or any papers really)- look in magazines, family photo albums, newspapers, catalogs sent to you and you don't know why...(it is better than recycling- or even worse, throwing them in the trash)
• scissors- (or you can just tear if you want that rustic edge look- or if you lost all the scissors in your house..)
  
• mod podge (good decoupage glue) and probably a paint brush for spreading glue.

Steps:

Cut out and arrange the pictures onto the item you are decoupaging. Make sure the surface is dry and clean. (this is the planning out step)

Apply a generous layer of glue onto the item you are decoupaging- or onto the back of the picture. (this is the glue step)

Attach and smooth out. (no wrinkles!)

Repeat

Once all of the decoupage medium is dry, coat your item completely with decoupage medium. Let this dry.

Repeat until it looks good to you. Make sure it is all covered with glue. Dry completely.

Crafty Ideas

Did you miss the Asheville Art Museum on WLOS's Craft Corner?

Learn to make origami books here.

Getting Crafty

The BIG Crafty drops into Pack Place this Sunday, December 6th from 12-6pm.
The Asheville Art Museum hosts!

They have great local crafts by many, many artists plus holiday music, cupcakes and beer, fancy decor, and a lot of people! Don't miss the Asheville Art Museum's shop where the Holiday Market has been extended with more homemade goodies from area artists!

Because the Asheville Art Museum is hosting the Big Crafty in Pack Place, we all got a little excited and decided to do some crafts of our own! For an afternoon, we walked away from our computers, pushed up our sleeves, and made our way to the Studio where the Education Staff led us in a Paste Paper making session. It is so easy and fun to do- so read the recipe below and get crafty in celebration of this weekend's great local craft fair!

Basic Paste Paper Recipe:
Set 6 cups of water to boil in large saucepan. Meanwhile, mix 3/4 cup white rice flour (available in bulk foods) and ¾ cup white wheat f lour (cake flour is great) with 1 ½ cups of cold water. (You can use plain white wheat flour for the whole shebang if you want to.) Add water to the flour slowly, trying to make the paste as smooth as possible, you will thank yourself later. When your water is boiling add the cold-water paste mixture to the boiling water stirring constantly with a whisk. The paste will thicken immediately and turn somewhat translucent. As soon as it does this, remove the paste from the heat and let in cool. Once paste is no longer boiling hot, add 1tsp of glycerin (drug store) and 1tsp. of Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap though any liquid soap will do the job. If the paste is lumpy use a blender to smooth things out. Mix the paste with water soluble paints like acrylic but tempera is fine if you are working with kids.

BE CRAFTY: Get a piece of blank, clean paper. Water it with a sponge (all of it- all the way to the corners) so it is wet but not soaking wet. Drop a few drops of colored paste onto the paper and spread it around with your fingers( too many colors will make it brown so be careful!). Use fun tools like old legos, rubber stamps, whatever to make cool designs... When finished- spread them out to dry for a day- and then iron from the back side to make them flat. They are excellent as homemade cards, wrapping paper, etc. It can get messy! So make sure that you have plenty of water and that you do this in an area you can clean up afterwards (studio, kitchen, e.g.) Wash off the table every time you start a new piece of paper and HAVE FUN!