Blog
Viewing entries posted in July 2012
Young Artists Enter the Egyptian World
One of the School of Art’s popular classes for kids aged 9-12 is called Art Box, held on Saturday mornings during the school year and during the month of July in the summer.
This summer Art Box II Sculpture Teacher Paula Caruana has her students working on Egyptian-inspired projects, in conjunction with the Shadow of the Sphinx exhibition.
Paula created some instructive, very attractive posters throughout her classroom to set the stage for the young artists.
Summer 2012 Art Box II class enjoying Shadow of the Sphinx
After studying a bit and touring Sphinx, the students set to work and achieved amazing results. They were inspired, in fact.
For one project, the students created masks of a man, woman or a god, such as a cat mask to represent Bastet. These are remarkable, so bold.
I am especially fond of these animal sculptures. They are made of fired clay, then painted.
Art Box II Classroom poster
These pectoral necklaces are striking (they are made of fired clay and painted), and the artists successfully incorporated Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Classroom poster about necklaces
Here are some of the Art Box artists’ canopic jars, made of fired clay and then painted in acrylic. The artists created a giraffe, hawks (traditional god-animal for these jars that are buried with mummies), snakes, and there is one God of Bacon (center), a new entry into the ancient Egyptian world of deities, I guess.
Art Box Princess being honored.
And, of course, the snake is an important motif in ancient Egyptian art, so Paula and the students created these animated serpents. They are made with card stock cut to spiral around and have jeweled eyes. Wonderful!
This Weekend at MWP: Mr. Mummy!
Steve Martin, King Tut
Join us on this Sunday, July 29, at 1:30, to hear Bob Brier, Ph.D., aka Mr. Mummy, talk about Egyptomania: The World’s Fascination with Ancient Egypt.
Professor Brier is a Senior Research Fellow at C.W. Post University and a leading Egyptologist who specializes in paleopathology, or the mummification process. He’s investigated some of history’s most famous mummies, including King Tut, and has published several books on his mummy research. The New York Times described Brier’s The Murder of Tutankhamen as having elements of “teen-age love . . . Orwellian rewriting of history, and the desperate please of a terrified queen.” Perhaps you’ve see Brier on the Discovery Channel, where he is a very popular contributor.
Dr. Bob Brier and Dr. Angelique Corthals extract DNA samples from a mummy for analysis
(Science Museum of Minnesota)
Brier’s presentation will range over a wide variety of Egyptian-inspired stuff, from Steve Martin’s King Tut and earlier popular songs to household trinkets. It will be held in the Museum of Art Auditorium, $10 for general admission and $5 for MWP members (join and save!), with tickets available at the door.
Meet Shannon Stockbridge
Shannon Stockbridge is a rising senior at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn; she completed her first two years of college here at PrattMWP, entering the program in fall 2009.
Shannon Stockbridge Self-Portrait
Shannon is from New Hartford and considered going straight to Brooklyn or possibly to Alfred University, but decided to stay close to home for her first two years and take advantage of PrattMWP’s programs. “I was really impressed by all the teachers when I had met them at Open Houses, as well as the small class sizes and the one-on-one opportunities with the professors,” she said.
ArtReach 2012 with Court Street Children's Center kids
For two summers, Shannon has been a teaching artist in the Museum of Art’s ArtReach program, which introduces urban Utica children to the museum and to art-making (see last week’s blog). She enjoys introducing the kids to their projects, seeing their imaginations at work: ”The creative license they employ results in all the projects having their own artistic touch,” she said.
After she graduates from Brooklyn next year, Shannon would like to look at different areas outside of Utica to see what opportunities are available. Her ideas range from teaching classes in museum, galleries, and art centers, to learning about curating shows, particularly in pop-up (or temporary) spaces. She’s so energetic and creative, I fully believe she can make this and more happen.
Shannon in a Chelsea art gallery, New York City
For the long term, Shannon hopes to be a working artist and teacher with a studio-gallery for making and exhibiting art, her own work as well as that done by artists of all different ages: “I think it would be really interesting to have receptions and openings, similar to those in galleries in Chelsea [a big gallery neighborhood in New York City] in different states that haven’t experienced the art world in this way.”
Funky Foods
It’s July and that means ArtReach in the Museum of Art. Now in its 17th year, ArtReach offers kids from Utica’s summer playgrounds a museum and art-making experience.
Young artists from the Court Street Children's Center and their ArtReach installation
Shannon Stockbridge is one of the teaching artists who leads the youngsters in their two-day ArtReach visit. Shannon is a graduate of PrattMWP and a rising senior at Pratt Brooklyn, majoring in sculpture. This is her second ArtReach summer; last year she led students in a Buckminster Fuller-inspired geodesic-dome-building adventure.
Severin Roesen (American, 1847-71), Still Life with Fruit and Champagne, 1853, MWP Museum Purchase, 82.53
This year, Shannon drew inspiration from still life, what she calls the “fundamental starting point in art making,” but she gave it a Pop Art twist. She introduced her students, from Court Street Children’s Center, to Still Life with Fruit and Champagne by Severin Roesen, a painting in the MWP Museum’s permanent collection.
Then, in the classroom, Shannon gave a presentation about the artist Claes Oldenburg (born 1929) and showed the students images of his food sculptures.
The Court Street kids chose their own favorite food to create and. using papier-mâché over balloons, made it many times the actual food size. It was a delightful and messy experience. Shannon was really pleased with the results: “The project turned out even better than I had imagined! They all did awesome!”
Claes Oldenburg (born 1929), Assorted food sculptures
In the one north gallery of the Museum of Art, you can see these great food sculptures – drumsticks and broccoli to donuts and fruit – organized into the young artists’ very own still life installation.
"Hungry" Court Street Children Center's artists and their ArtReach food sculptures
Marc Chagall’s Arabian Nights
Marc Chagall’s captivating lithographs from Four Tales from the Arabian Nights can be enjoyed in the Otto Meyer galleries as part of the Paper Visions exhibition, opening this Saturday, July 20.
Chagall (born in Belarus, lived in France, 1887-1985) created these illustrations in 1948 when he was living in High Falls, New York (on the western side of the Hudson, about 10 miles northwest of New Paltz), in exile during World War II
Yousuf Karsh, Portrait of Marc Chagall, 1965
The tales are said to have been woven by Scheherazade to captivate her husband, a sultan who had his wives executed after their marriage was consummated. The engrossing stories of romance, fantasy, comedy, tragedy and erotica so enchanted the sultan that Scheherazade was allowed to live.
The stories known as A Thousand and One Nights in fact have strains of Arabic, Persian and Indian sources that were collected between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. They include the adventures of Aladdin, Ali Babba and the 40 Thieves, and Sindbad and were brought to Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with first French, then English translations. The subjects are a perfect fit for Chagall, whose sensuous style and luscious sense of color had always been inclined to the mystical, folkloric, and whimsical. His imagery for these stories includes flying horses, entwined lovers, and rich palettes.
Visions of Eyeballs, Bats, Angels . . .
Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)
Michael Slaying the Dragon
1498, woodcut
Museum of Art Director Emeritus Paul D. Schweizer has organized Paper Visions, an exhibition with graphic arts about visionary subject matter from the Museum’s collection. The show opens in the Otto Meyer Galleries, second floor of Fountain Elms, on July 20 and will remain on view through October 28.
Many of the artworks are inspired by the written word, from sources as diverse as St. John’s Book of Revelation in the Bible and Gustave Flaubert’s The Temptation of St. Anthony to A Thousand and One Nights. Other imagery comes straight from the artist’s imagination, in response to joy or crisis.
Marc Chagall (1887-1985)
"So I Came Forth
of the Sea"
from
Four Tales of the Arabian Nights
c. 1948
color lithograph
Artists represented in this fascinating exhibition include Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Francisco Goya (1746-1828), William Blake (1757-1827), Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), Edvard Munch (1863-1944), and Marc Chagall (1887-1985).
Odilon Redon (1840-1916)
"Eyeballs Blazed Everywhere"
from The Temptation of St. Anthony
1888, lithograph
While you’re here, be sure to also view Shadow of the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt and its Influence, and enjoy the newly opened Terrace Café.
A Feast for the Senses
The Shadow of the Sphinx exhibition is a feast for the eyes. Among the treasures to see, is this painting of the Temple of Karnak.
Ernst Karl Eugen Koerner,
The Temple of Karnak,
The Great Hypostyle Hall,
1890
If you access the mobile guide on your smart phone, you may also see a video tour through the temple, a movie clip from Death on the Nile with still more beautiful footage of the temples of Luxor and the surroundings, as well as a view of the steamship on the Nile, and costumes and sets that evoke Egypt ca. 1937. See yourself – and have your picture snapped – standing alongside Rachel and Fred Proctor from a photo of their trip to Egypt in 1902.
Rachel and Fred Proctor and
guest from their 1902 visit to Egypt.
But the exhibition goes beyond captivating sights. You may hear Egyptian lute music on the mobile guide or on your cell phone and hear curators and experts speak about the objects and about Egyptian history and culture.
Touch the Eye of Horus puzzle and explore how its many parts represent the senses.
Play the Senet game; images of people – and animals! – playing this game can be seen in ancient paintings.
 Wall painting from the Tomb of Queen Nefertari (1295-1255 B.C.) |
 Museum visitors play Senet |
Sit in a replica of the throne of King Tutankhamen; have your photo taken, and post it on our Facebook site!
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| Left and right, visitors to the exhibition sitting in the “King Tut Throne” | |
Smell the spices that have been an essential part of life and trade in Egypt from ancient times to today, including familiar spices like cinnamon and cloves, and not-so-familiar spices like telicherry pepper and nigella seeds.
Scent Station in the gallery
Taste the country’s cuisine at the Taste of Egypt dinner on August 25 – you may register for it now.
Or visit the Terrace Café for a light lunch or snack.
Finally, please Talk to us – tell us your thoughts, comments, revelations, even complaints, by calling our audioguide on any phone 315-214-6454, when you hear the greeting, press 0, then # .