The grand tour of Indianapolis!

By Eva Fognell, Curator of the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art

I recently returned from a week installing Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. It was just great! Brittany, IMA's registrar, was a master organizer all went according to her plans and schedule. It was a smooth and easy installation. IMA and its grounds are a delight and I even got myself photographed with the LOVE sculpture.

There are a few Cooperstown Graduate Program alums here in Indiana and I got to visit with Jane Hedeen, my own former class mate. Jane came down and meet me for lunch at IMA.

On Saturday my coworker Chris Rossi, Dorothy (my neighbor back home in New York and a former Indianapolis native) and I went to visit Johanna Bluhm, associate curator of western art at the Eiteljorg Museum.

Johanna interned with me in the Thaw Collection while a student at CGP. I really enjoyed seeing her at "her museum, her collection and her exhibit." Congratulation on a job well done, Johanna! We had a ball at the Eiteljorg - I especially loved the Christmas Train exhibit.

We also went to their storage facility and looked at everything... what a treat! Thank you, Johanna!


Sunday, Dorothy and I, in this Fiat 500, went to Columbus, Indiana. That outing is known as the "Modernism on the Prairie" tour and boy did we look at architecture!

We also toured the Miller House, a recent acquisition of IMA. Getting tickets to the tour was a tricky business. They have been sold out for every tour they have done since opening in May! IMA does 1-2 tours per day with 20 visitors in each tour, and they have a waiting list. No photos were allowed so here is the link to an article from Architectural Record.


I had a lovely lunch in a sweet little ice cream parlor that has been in business for 100 years! They had already decorated for Christmas. Somehow it felt right in this little place.

Many thanks to Dorothy for her tour of Nashville, Bloomington and its university!

Final Destination - Indianapolis

By Chris Rossi, Associate Curator of Exhibitions

Greetings from the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA), where colleague Eva Fognell and I are installing our traveling exhibition, Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection, at its last venue in this 2-year long tour. The IMA has a collection of over 50,000 works of art from a variety of cultures and periods in art history. It also features traveling exhibits such as our own. Situated in the midst of 152 rolling acres, which include a nature park, mansion and gardens, the museum is a lovely place to install an exhibit.

Once again we are working with a topnotch crew to unpack our collection and get the objects in place. Every venue has given us a new way to think about the collection and how to present it. David, the designer here at IMA has chosen wonderful colors and layout for the gallery to offset and compliment the objects.

The Native American Art Studies Association conference in Ottawa

By Eva Fognell, Curator of the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art

I recently spent an interesting 5 days in Ottawa attending the 18th Native American Art Studies Association (NAASA) conference. It is a biennial event hosted at a different location each time. What the locations all have in common is a rich cultural scene with Native American art collections at their museums. This time we were guests on Algonquin land.

The program started with a board meeting for the members of the Otsego Institute for Native American Art History at one of the member’s houses.

Otsego Institute Board members; seated (left to right) Ruth Phillips, Aldona Joinaitis, Joe Horse Capture, Janet Berlo, standing (left to right) Jolene Rickards, Aaron Glass, Richard Hill and myself. (Evan Maurere and Jon Holstein could not make it to Ottawa.)

The Otsego Institute is a biennial conference and workshop held here at the Fenimore Art Museum for graduate students and junior professionals. The next Institute will be held May 20- 25th, 2012. Up to twelve participants are chosen on the basis of competitive application. The Institute pays for their travel and living expenses while onsite. It is a fantastic opportunity to develop relationships with prominent scholars in the field since they serve as faculty and mentors for the students. The Board spent a good part of the afternoon determining the program and discussing speakers to invite for the 2012 gathering.

For the next 3 days it was all business at the NAASA Conference with days joyfully crammed full of presentations. Here are some of the sessions: Object Lessons: Manifold Meanings in Individual Objects; Stand By Me: Activism and Aboriginal Curatorial Practices; Globalizing Native Art; Making the Past Present and the Present Contemporary. Interesting, invigorating and mind boggling at times!

Carlie Fishgold and Joe Horse Capture are enjoying themselves. Carlie was my intern in the Thaw Collection this past summer. It was great to see her again.

I also had a chance to catch up with student alums from past Otsego Institute conferences. At least 6 past students were presenting papers at the conference. On Saturday a group of us got together for lunch:

On Saturday evening NAASA's big gala dinner event was held at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Here are some photos from that event:

What a setting for a dinner - among totem poles! About 200 people attended the dinner. I presented the first triennial $10,000 Thaw Publication Award to Jonathan Batkin for his book The Curio Trade in New Mexico. Afterward, I had moose stew and a glass of red vine. I am always amazed of what can happen "all in a day's work."

While in Ottawa, I had a chance to walk through town and look at the beautiful architecture and public art. Here are some pictures of what I saw:

 Check out this view over Ottawa and the river from my hotel room.

  

 Just a few weeks ago a young bicyclist died when hit by a car. A memorial to her sprang up on the sidewalk near the accident. Beneath all the flowers is a while bicycle. Ottawa is a bicycle friendly town with bike rental stations throughout the city. 

Parliament buildings in the morning light.

Bronze sculpture of Joseph Brandt on Rideau Street

And another bronze this one of Champlain

Maman by Louise Bourgeois, 1999 in the background is the National Gallery of Canada.

NGC borrowed 9 objects from the Thaw collection a few years ago for their exhibit Art of This Land.

Sculpture of ... hmmm, forgot to get the title! Isn't it an amazing stainless steel line in the sky? It is located on the river side of the National Gallery.

And then the Byward market! On the second floor this wood and paper mâché sculpture by Victor Tolgesya titled, Mc Clintock's Dream, 1978.

And here is one of the booths outside selling --- I don't know what to call it!

Tote pole in front of Ottawa School of Art

“Birds and Beasts in Beads”

By Eva Fognell, Curator of the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art

On the weekend of September 17 through 19, Colgate University hosted an Iroquois beadwork conference in conjunction with their exhibition Birds and Beasts in Beads.

Samantha Clink, my student intern extraordinaire when she is not hard at work at SUNY Oneonta, joined me for a day of beads, bags and birds.

First we went upstairs to the Longyear Museum of Anthropology, to take a look at the exhibit.

There was lots of beautiful beadwork in the exhibit. The low light levels in the space (to preserve the textiles) makes the photographs a bit dark.

We enjoyed an interesting program with presentations by bead workers, scholars and collectors all day long.

The first talk of the day was by Karen Ann Hoffman from the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. Her talk was titled “Written in Beads: Iroquois Stories in Raised Beadwork.” She is a teacher as well as beadworker. The stories that she told, beaded into her work, were so fascinating.

On a light blue bag she beaded a turtle. A pearl in the corner is Sky Woman and Turtle is the land - these are part of the Iroquois Creation story. Here is Karen Ann holding her “Fall Map”, in her Council Map series:

The story she tells in this map is about 4 brothers and their dog named Four Eyes that hunts and kills a bear in the sky world. They butcher the bear and he bleeds, blood falls from the sky and that is why maple leafs turn red in the fall. Later the brothers have a great feast of bear meat and the fat sizzles down. That is why we have snow in late fall. The hunters’ slept the winter away and in early spring the bear constitute himself and he was off again for a new year. That is how the world continues.

Next up was Dolly Printup Winden, Tuscarora, a contemporary bead worker. Here she is talking about the familiy tradition. The photo in the background is of her grandmother selling beadwork:

There were also bead-workers there selling their amazing creations as well as a beadwork competition. Look at these photos of some of the amazing creations:

I also learned a lot about dating and styles of beadwork - information that will come in handy when working with our collection.

Tips from the road

By Chris Rossi, Associate Curator of Exhibitions

After packing and installing our traveling exhibition, Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection  six times I've picked up a few things. Curator Eva Fognell and I like to think that by the time we finish the tour we may have perfected installing and packing the 111 American Indian objects we have been traveling.

At each venue we have had the pleasure of working with talented preparators who have taught us a few new tricks about art installation. The Cleveland Museum of Art staff tipped us off on new ways to coat and pad our brass mounts.

Minneapolis Museum of Art staff introduced us to the use of magnets for hanging textiles. That technique was just the thing for installing the unframed canvasses by Awenheeyoh Powless in the 8th Contemporary Iroquois Art Biennial: 4 Artists Under 30 exhibit now on display at the Fenimore Art Museum:

Our last venue, the Dallas Museum of Art, ended with preparator Mary drawing a level mark on one of our more difficult to hang mounts. A seemingly simple act, but we have struggled for ages to get the Box and Border robe consistently hung at just the right angle. All we were waiting for, apparently, was a fresh perspective from a kind colleague at another venue:

We have one more stop in our tour. I am looking forward to meeting the staff at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and have no doubt they will add something new to my toolbox!

What a difference a day makes!

By Eva Fognell, Curator of the Eugene & Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art

What a difference a day makes!

My colleague, Chris Rossi,  and I were just in Dallas deinstalling our traveling exhibition Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection at the Dallas Museum of Art. Dallas was dry and had a light smell of smoke in the air from the terrible fires that were burning in parts of the state. The drought was visible as I flew into the Dallas /Forth Worth airport and the city looked exhausted from the heat wave.

All went well when we took down and packed up the exhibition. I left Chris to finish up the last day of packing by herself while I flew to Naples Grand Resort in Florida to present a paper at the Embroidery Guild of America’s International Embroidery Conference. My paper was entitled THE EMBROIDERY OF THE AMERICAS AND INFLUENCE OF COLONIALIZATION.

So what difference a day makes. Look at this view out my hotel room in Naples! The Embroiders Guild sure knew where to hold a conference.

This may be where they dispose of presenters they don’t like? ☺

My talk was on moosehair embroidery on birchbark. I presented my paper on the opening night of the conference. It was followed by a dessert reception on the terrace.

The following 2 days were filled with interesting and lively presentations on various topics. My favorite might have been on the huipil embroidered blouse tradition made by Maya women in Guatemala.

Look at this beauty. Over 60 embroidered birds on this blouse. The little parrots sitting there in a row may be my favorites.

A very interesting and varied work week!