Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Week 3

June 18th - June 22nd

The third week is when I really started to settle into the internship. That Monday I got to go on a tour with a group of history teachers. In addition to going into some of the galleries, we met with two of the curators of the upcoming WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY exhibition, Anne Wilkes Tucker, the Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography, and Will Michels, photographer and Glassell School of Art instructor. The pair gave a really cool introduction to the show, which covers all the wars that the camera has been around for and is ten years in the making.

Alexander Gardner, Group of Guides for the Army of the Potomac,
1862, albumen print, the MFAH, gift of Harry Reasoner at “One
Great Night in November, 1995.”

Mark Grimshaw, First Cut, July 2004, inkjet print,
courtesy of the photographer. © Mark Grimshaw

Because the show spans such a great deal of time, it won't be organized chronologically but by the typical "steps" of war.The rest of the day I worked with Kendra to get EoTW ready to ship and worked on the Tanner packet. Tuesday was another a new adventure - my first Learning Through Art (LTA) workshop. The "ARTiculation" LTA introduced the concept of using art as a learning tool for any classroom subject. The MFAH instructor Rita led the teachers in a number of looking activities, which often involved making descriptive lists of things they saw and then using those lists to facilitate detailed writing. These looking exercises were often accompanied by fun art-making activities such as making easy etchings and paper masks. The teachers also practiced looking and question-writing in the galleries. The LTA went from 9 AM - 3 PM so it ended up consuming most of my day. Wednesday, I again turned my attention to EoTW. George Ramirez, who is the Manager of Digital Media for Education as well as the interim School Programs Coordinator (Lauren's old job), wanted to see if we could get any of the state congressmen who represent the Third Ward at the capitol to attend the exhibit and pose for some promotional photos. I wasn't able to get the congressmen themselves but there were a few individuals from the offices who were interested in attending. I put the staff of Representative Borris Miles and Senator Rodney Ellis in contact with our photographer in Austin to schedule the shoot. Once this was settled, Kendra and I finished all the prep work for EoTW by organizing the instructional materials, pairing the photos with their respective labels, and and packing up the stands and photos into their boxes. Thursday morning we shipped off the show. Later, I continued looking over biography for Tanner. I was trying to enhance the PAFA packet by connecting him with other African American artists. However, I wasn't really sure how useful this would be. After some frustration, I asked Natalie for help and she was able to give me direction by suggesting that I give a bit of background and analysis for the Tanner works that PAFA had written discussion questions for. In short, Natalie is great and continues to be my go-to person for advice. So, Friday I headed off to Rice University's library to do research on the examples. When I got back , I had a talk with Jason and did some writing.

Also, late news but, the piece from the permanent collection that I've chosen to journal about is Philip Guston's Passage.

Philip Guston, Passage, c. 1957, Oil on canvas

The Sarofim Gallery
 aka where I hang out with Guston.

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