Arts and Letters Live Spring Season

Carolyn Bess, Director of Arts and Letters Live, has kindly taken time to respond to questions related to her job and the upcoming spring season of Arts and Letters Live. To find out about Carolyn and her role here at  the Museum, read below!

Amy
Teaching Programs Coordinator

1. Name and Title: Carolyn Bess, Director, Arts & Letters Live
2. Years Employed at the Dallas Museum of Art: 13
3. Describe your job at the art museum: I oversee Arts & Letters Live, the literary and performing arts series at the Museum, which is now entering its 19^th season. We bring in high profile authors, actors, and musicians for special events. On many occasions, we connect themes in authors’ books with the Museum’s exhibitions and collections or create
   

   Carolyn Bess, Director, Arts and Letters Live

   unique performances combining art forms such as song, art, and poetry.

4. What is your favorite part of your job? Creating the artistic vision for Arts & Letters Live and the opportunity to meet and talk with the authors and performers in person.
5. What is a challenge that you face in your job? Like all non-profits in today’s economic times, cutting the budget and still breaking even financially is the largest challenge we face and one that requires constant monitoring. But I’m proud to say that we’ve done that successfully in these uncertain times and still maintained the high quality programs our audience has come to expect.
6. Tell me about a memorable experience you had with someone who was participating in an Arts and Letters Live event. Last year I drove Elizabeth Gilbert to the Apple store at Willowbend after her event because she was getting error messages on her new laptop indicating that she might have lost the results of a productive day of writing. But the Apple guru saved it, and it’s now part of her newest book, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage (released January 5). I thoroughly enjoyed our conversations on the drive there and back, learning more about her life, new business venture, and travel tips for the future. I feel I connected with her personally.
7. What are some of the highlights for Arts and Letters Live this spring? I’m so excited about many of the authors featured this January through June.

Some of the highlights include:

January 21      David Wroblewski (author of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle)

January 29      Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver

February 9      Vocal Colors: A Vibrant Collage of Arts on Stage (a multidisciplinary song-based performance inspired by exhibitions All the World’s A Stage and Performance/Art)

February 22    The first of five Texas Bound programs featuring Texas actors reading short fiction by Texas authors (this year at the Wyly Theatre!)

March 23         Pulitzer Prize-winning non-fiction author Tracy Kidder (Strength in What Remains)

March 28         Author-illustrator Jan Brett (author of The Mitten and many other books)

April 16            Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Historian and The Swan Thieves (connections to Lens of Impressionism exhibition)

April 18            Jeff Kinney, author of the bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series

May 7              Laura Bush discussing her forthcoming memoir

May 13            Isabel Allende on her newest book Island Beneath the Sea (connections to the Coastlines exhibition)

May 25            Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi, will discuss his highly anticipated second novel, Beatrice & Virgil

June 12           Ira Glass, host of the ever-popular radio and television series,This American Life

Did you know that DISD teachers can book tickets free of charge to Arts & Letters Live’s BooksmART events (featuring award-winning authors for the young and young-at-heart) through Dallas ArtsPartners? Go to dallasartspartners.org or call 214-520-0023 for details. BooksmART flyer. Please help us spread the word about these programs!

For more details on Arts & Letters Live’s 2010 season, visit www.DallasMuseumofArt.org/all. I look forward to seeing many of you at our events!

Carolyn

January Programs for Teachers

We are looking forward to two exciting programs for teachers this month! 

The Rachofsky House (photo by Michael Bodycomb)

In collaboration with The Rachofsky House, we are offering a teacher workshop on contemporary art that will include the current installation of the DMA’s Hoffman Galleries and a morning at The Rachofsky House led by Thomas Feulmer.  The workshop stretches over two Saturdays: January 9 and January 23.  Complete details, including registration, are available on our Web site. 

Teacher and DMA staff in the Tech Lab

Teachers will also have the opportunity to merge art and technology during our January Thursday Evening Program for Teachers.  The featured program this month will be Tech Lab: Open Lab on January 14 at 6:30 p.m.  Teachers are invited to experiment with Photoshop collages during this drop-in, hands-on program led by artist Kevin Todora.

Molly Kysar
Head of Teaching Programs

From Faxing to Blogging: A Few Reflective Moments

As many of us do with each new year, I will take an opportunity to reflect.  In this year’s case, we transitioned from one decade to another one. Since I began working at the Dallas Museum of Art in 1999 (exactly 10 years ago), I’ve decided to reflect on a collection of memorable Museum moments from the past decade. In keeping with the popular top 10-list approach, here is my list of moments — some BIG, some small.  In no particular order…

Educator Blog Goes Live! In September 2009, my colleagues and I entered the spacious blogosphere with our first entries for the Dallas Museum of Art Educator Blog.  This makes us one among the 133,000,000 blogs indexed by Technorati since 2002. Ten years ago faxes and snail mail were my primary form of communicating with teachers.  Now it’s email and social networks. Can you believe it?  Thanks for reading — we love to write for this blog!

A Centennial Celebration! In 2003, the DMA celebrated it’s 100th birthday. Based on an idea from one of the staff members, the Museum celebrated this momentous occasion by staying open for 100 straight hours!  Visitors young and old, big and small visited the Museum at all hours of the day and night for tours, yoga, birthday hat making, birthday cake, and much more.  Did you visit during the birthday celebration?  We also opened two amazing exhibitions that year.  100 Treasures for 100 Years was an exhibition featuring 100 masterworks from the Museum collection, which were organized by themes such as Mask, Opulence, and Transcendence.  That same year the DMA celebrated contemporary Texas art through the exhibition Come Forward: Emerging Art in Texas.

DISD 4th Graders Visit! During the 2007-2008 school year, the DMA initiated a partnership with DISD and Big Thought to bring every 4th grade student to the Museum.  Since the start of the program over 22,000 students have viewed works of art on docent-led tours at the DMA.  We look forward to a future time when every DISD graduate can say they have visited the DMA!

King Tutankhamun in the Big D! For 8 months spanning 2008 and 2009 Tut and his family’s treasures filled our galleries. The Boy King, as we referred to him around the halls, brought over 600,000 visitors to the DMA.  Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs was the third in a series of royal world art exhibitions that the DMA welcomed in last decade.  In 2006 it was Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship and in 2004 Splendors of China’s Forbidden City: The Glorious Reign of Emperor Qianlong.

Late Nights at the DMA! Based on the success of the 100-hour Centennial event, the Museum’s popular monthly Late Night celebration was born in 2004.  On the third Friday of each month, we stay open until midnight to welcome between 3,000 – 5,000 visitors.  I love Late Nights!   They transform the Museum and the experience of visiting a Museum.  People visit to come to have fun with friends, view art, make art, listen to music, attend talks and lectures, and watch performances.  The next Late Night is January 15.  Hope to see you there!

The Center for Creative Connections Opens! After several years of planning, the former Gateway Gallery was transformed into the new Center for Creative Connections, opening to the public in May 2008.  An interactive space designed to inspire visitors of all ages, the C3 is anchored in the DMA’s intent to connect with creativity and artists.  Look for programs and classes with artists throughout 2010!

New Kids on the Block! Did I make you look twice?  This one isn’t about the 80’s boy band.  The new kids I am talking about are the DMA’s neighbors to the East in the Dallas Arts District.  Do you remember the big parking lot where the Nasher used to be?  In 2003 the Nasher Sculpture Center, designed by architect Renzo Piano, opened to the public.  Our newest neighbors, the AT&T Performing Arts Center Winspear Opera House and the AT&T Performing Arts Center Wyly Theater, joined us this past fall to complete a vision for the Dallas Arts District that has been in the making since the 1970s.

Digitizing Educator Resources! 10 years ago the DMA said goodbye to slides and projectors, making the leap from paper teaching materials to digital resources for teachers and students.  I bet some of you still have those paper packets in your closets! We now have over 25 collections and exhibition-based online resource units available free to teachers near and far.  In partnership with UT Dallas, we also created an web-based learning game called DIG! The Maya Project.

Contemporary Collections Explode! In 2005, an unprecedented gift of modern and contemporary art was made to the DMA from several Dallas families including the Rachofsky, Hoffman, and Rose families.  In 2007, an exhibition featuring 300 of these artworks was held at the Museum.   Fast Forward: Contemporary Collections for the Dallas Museum of Art included work by artists Gerhard Richter, Matthew Barney, Vija Celmins, Joseph Cornell, Robert Ryman, and Lucio Fontana among others.

Go van Gogh Gets a New Look! For more than 30 years, Go van Gogh has traveled out to classrooms in the community delivering free art programs to elementary age students.  A new van and a new look were introduced in this decade to celebrate the dynamic nature of this education program and honor its long history!

What events, exhibitions, and experiences are among your top 10 at the DMA? Leave a comment and let us know!  We would love to hear from you and we look forward to more blogging in 2010.  Happy New Year!

Nicole Stutzman
Director of Learning Partnerships for Schools and the Community

Gather Round Ya’ll…

My colleague, Holly Harrison, Administrative Assistant for European and American Art, recently reinstalled the 4^th floor Texas landing, bringing together artworks about cowpokes, gunslingers, and a cowgirl or two for Cowboys: On the Range Between Art and Life. The installation, which includes paintings, photographs, and works on paper, invites us to imagine life on the range and to consider our often-romantic ideas about cowboys.  Featured are photographs by Geoff Winningham, Laura Wilson, and Erwin E. Smith, and paintings by Frank Reaugh and Perry Nichols.

Erwin E. Smith, Four Cowpunchers Shooting Craps on a Saddle Blanket in Roundup Camp, JA Ranch, Texas, 1908

Bank Langmore, Portrait of Old Cowboy Vern Torrance, Padlocks Ranch, Montana, 1974

One of my favorite works is Clara McDonald Williamson’s Get Along Little Dogies.  Williamson’s painting is a childhood memory of growing up in Iredell, Texas—a stopover on the Chisholm Trail.  The artist, in a white dress and blue bonnet, watches from a distance as cowboys drive a herd of longhorns across the Bosque River, heading north to Kansas.   

Clara McDonald Williamson, Get Along Little Dogies, 1945

Get Along Little Dogies is one of four paintings featured in the Go van Gogh outreach program for 4^th graders, Art of the Lone Star State.  The program highlights the diverse landscape of Texas and key events in its history— from the devastation of a Dust Bowl-ravaged Panhandle in the 1930s to the lush beauty of fields of Hill Country bluebonnets.  After discussing these places, students create mixed media collages of their favorite Texas place. 

Below is a collage example I made, inspired by a favorite Texas memory–the week I spent on ranchland just outside Mexia, Texas with some real cowboys.  I didn’t quite earn my spurs on that trip (cows are a tough bunch to reason with!), but I did appreciate the hard-work and beauty of life on the range—something you definitely take away from the new installation…

Make a resolution to come see it, and have a Happy New Year, ya’ll!

Amy Copeland
Coordinator of Learning Partnerships with Schools and the Community

on the range!

Thank you, Medrano Elementary Fourth Graders!

Every once in a while, a teacher will take advantage of our Go van Gogh programs and schedule everything that is possible for his/her students.  This is the case with the fourth grade teachers at Esperanza “Hope” Medrano Elementary, a Dallas ISD school. 

Over a three month period, we visited Medrano Elementary fourth graders four times with four different Go van Gogh programs.  As a result, Go van Gogh volunteers and staff established a unique relationship with a mixture of people at Medrano Elementary.  Their front staff recognized us and welcomed us warmly when we arrived at the school.  We looked forward to our visits, because the students are bright, engaged, and enthusiastic.  The teachers are always prepared and helpful as well.  Because of our familiarity with the school, we piloted a new program with one of the fourth grade classrooms, during which we received great feedback from both the teacher and the students.

Our final visit to the Medrano Elementary fourth graders was in mid-November.  Last week, we were surprised and delighted by an envelope full of thank-you letters written and illustrated by the students.  Below are a few highlights. 

Melissa Nelson
Manager of Learning Partnerships with the Community

   

Let It Snow…

With the holidays right around the corner, I find myself feeling nostalgic for the winters of my childhood.  I grew up in Michigan, so I’m used to having lots of snow and a “white Christmas.”  Living in Dallas, where it’s 60 degrees in December, I sometimes forget that this is actually winter!  To get myself into the holiday spirit, I set out to explore images of snowy fun in our collection.*  Happy Holidays!

In front of Francis Guy's Winter Scene in Brooklyn, c. 1817-1820

Shannon Karol
Tour Coordinator

Anna Mary Robertson Moses, The Owlkill, 1950

Detail of The Owlkill. I want to go sledding!

Detail of Berthe Morisot's Winter (Woman with a Muff). I had a muff when I was little and loved it.

*My colleagues in the Family Programs department are also getting into the holiday spirit.  Be sure to check out the DMA Family Blog, We Art Family, to read their version of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Thursday Evening Program for Teachers: DIY@DMA

Our Thursday Evening Program for Teachers this month was DIY@DMA, a program offered through the DMA’s Center for Creative Connections.  We joined artist Lizzy Wetzel to learn about felting wool, a process she uses in her own artwork.

After hearing Lizzy talk about her art-making, we went to the All the World’s a Stage exhibition to see Joseph Beuys’ Felt Suit (Filzanzug), which is made of felt.  We returned to the Studio and tried our hand at turning merino wool roving into felt.

Our Thursday Evening Program for Teachers features a different program each month and is included in general admission.  I hope that you will join us on January 14 at 6:30 p.m. for the Tech Lab: Open Lab program, led by artist Kevin Todora, during which we will experiment with making collages using digital photography and Adobe Photoshop software.

Molly Kysar
Head of Teaching Programs

Lizzy Wetzel describes the process of turning wool roving into felt

Lizzy Wetzel discusses Joseph Beuys’ Felt Suit (Filzanzug)

felting supplies

Participants select wool roving

spreading out the wool

agitating the wool

The felt is ready to be rinsed

Ordinary –> Extraordinary

Last Friday, Go van Gogh outreach volunteers found artistic inspiration in everyday objects.  Volunteers were being trained for the Go van Gogh Creative Connections program Ordinary –> Extraordinary, which asks participants to look at familiar objects with fresh eyes, using the ordinary to construct something extraordinary.  Volunteers combined band-aids, drinking straws, paper plates and dryer sheets in creative ways to make small chair sculptures. The program is inspired by two Rachofsky-owned sculptures made by Tom Friedman—one made of straws, the other made of sugar cubes.  Check out the volunteer’s extraordinary creations below!

Amy Copeland
Coordinator of Learning Partnerships with Schools and the Community

Jacob Lawrence: The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture

On December 6, Jacob Lawrence: The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture opened at the DMA (on view through May 23, 2010).  This exhibition of fifteen silkscreen prints illustrates scenes from the life of Toussaint L’Ouverture, a man who played an important role in the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804).  Born a slave, Toussaint learned to read and write and worked his way up through the ranks to become commander in chief of the revolutionary army.   The prints in the exhibition chronicle not only Toussaint’s rise to power, but also the events that led to Haiti becoming the first free black republic in the Western Hemisphere.

Jacob Lawrence, General Toussaint L'Ouverture, 1987

Jacob Lawrence began creating this series of prints in 1986, but they were based on a series of paintings that he completed in 1938 when he was just 21 years old.  It’s fascinating to me that an artist living and working in the 20th century would be interested in a little-known leader of a revolution that happened in the early 19th century.  There is a great quote from Jacob Lawrence that explains why Toussaint was such an important figure to him:

 “I’ve always been interested in history, but they never taught Negro history in public schools…I don’t see how a history of the United States can be written honestly without including the Negro.  I didn’t do it just as a historical thing, but because I believe these things tie up with the Negro today.  We don’t have a physical slavery, but an economic slavery.  If these people, who were so much worse off than the people today, could conquer their slavery, we certainly can do the same thing.” (quoted in Jacob Lawrence: The Complete Prints, 1963-2000: a catalog raisonné, edited by Peter T. Nesbitt, p. 16.)

Jacob Lawrence, The Opener, 1997

We are offering a variety of programs for students and teachers focusing on this exhibition, including a Teacher Workshop on February 6, 2010.  We are also offering docent-guided tours of the exhibition; because it is a small focus exhibition, docents will be using three themes–narrative and biography, commemoration, and leaders–to make connections between the screen prints in the exhibition and works of art in our African and American galleries.  I hope that you’ll join us to explore The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture!

Shannon Karol
Tour Coordinator

Community Connection: Contemporary Art and a Beluga Whale

Thomas Feulmer is the Director of Educational Programming at The Rachofsky House and is a regular collaborator with the DMA.  We always look forward to his fresh ideas and perceptive insights related to works of art and artists.

Describe your work at The Rachofsky House.  What is your favorite part of your job?

As Director of Educational Programming, I do anything involving schools or the public having any interaction with the Rachofsky House.  My favorite part of my job is being around the works of art and being around original objects.  I also like the creative element of having to improvise in front of groups and having to think on your feet.

Thomas talks about a work of art at the 2009 Museum Forum for Teachers.

 Tell us about your relationship with the DMA.

I work collaboratively with Molly Kysar on Programs for Teachers based on Contemporary Art. I’ve also worked with Nicole Stutzman on the Travis Academy Program.  The UT Southwestern Medical School class “The Art of Observation”, led by DMA docents Margaret Anne Cullum and Joanna Pistenmaa, visit The Rachofsky House once during the semester.  I also participate in the development of some programs and exhibitions, in part by talking about artists and artworks that are in both the Rachofsky Collection and the DMA collections or are on loan to the DMA. 

 If you could take home any work of art from the Rachofsky Collection, what would you choose?

Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, La Fine di Dio, 1964

One of the first things that comes to mind is the Lucio Fontana piece Concetto Spaziale, La Fine di Dio.  It’s one of the works that every time I stand in front of it, I think it’s incredible.  When I’m looking at that piece, I feel like I’m looking at a real, sincere thing that is about exploring and is about a rich and deep thinking on the artists’s part. 

 How would you describe your personal work as an artist?

Most of my work looks at relationships: relationships between people, and more recently, relationships between people and animals.  It is also about how intimacy is managed and expressed and how desire and attraction are managed and expressed.  One of the big themes in my recent show is about my relationship with a beluga whale.  I like the notion that most people have a desire to have a pure relationship with an animal and we project a lot of our purist ideas about love and desire onto animals because they seem so unguarded, I guess. I love that we project all those purist things onto animals, but, to have an experience with a beluga whale it had to happen at Sea World, which is a big place.  The whale is trained and follows commands, and ultimately the experience is all controlled – which, in a way, is how all interactions are.  See Thomas’s recent work at New Work by Rebecca Carter and Thomas Feulmer, open December 5-20, 2009 at 500X.

Does your job have an impact on your own work as an artist?

Yes, because I can come into contact with so much art and I feel like I get such a great sampling of contemporary ideas and contemporary culture.  It’s like constant research for how to create meaning or visual culture in the contemporary world.

Meet Thomas during our two-part January Teacher Workshop on Contemporary Art, which takes place at the Dallas Museum of Art and The Rachofsky House.

Melissa Nelson
Manager of Learning Partnerships with the Community