Travel: Phoenix Art Museum

-

Lobby of phoenix Art Museum

One of the joys of visiting a new city is checking out their museums. When we were in Phoenix recently we took the time to drop in at the Phoenix Art Museum. 

Our visit happened to coincide with an exhibit of a fun, nostalgic look at a fashion trend from the 1960's: disposable garments. In the late 60's Dupont produced a new paper-like material called Reemay® made of polyester filaments which could be stitched like fabric and was printed in bold pattern and color. It seems to have been ideally suited to the fashion of that era.

Left: Wearing your politics (Romney & Nixon dresses) 
Right: Strong graphic images make a statement 


As we were walking through the exhibit, I overheard two women talking about owning one of these garments. It was quite a fad, although, I would guess it was relatively short lived. It certainly wouldn't fly with the more sustainability and environmentally conscious consumer of today. 

The collection of works by Japanese artists was also very intriguing. The texture on this piece by Hattori Makiko entitled "Sculpture with Concave Center" reminded me of the stippling technique used by quilters to fill in large spaces.    


There was quite a range of textures in these pieces, from natural, organic compositions to polished surfaces and smooth planes with crisp edges:


Left: Goto Hideki, Kakera / Right:Yoshitaka Hasu, Tower #16 & Toubako #5

Left: Matsutani Fumio, Vessel / Right: Katsumata Chieko, Pumpkin

The colors and hand work on this beautiful tapestry were particularly compelling. Loved the fluid lines and artistry in this piece!

And I cannot forget to mention the miniature rooms created by Narcissa Niblack Thorne. They are very on trend right now. 

Left: 18th Century French Drawing Room / Right: Art Deco Hall

Thorne worked in a scale of one foot to one inch in order to create entire rooms in a wide variety of interior decorating styles from various time periods. Her vision was to recreate miniatures that would be more practical to exhibit than full-scale period rooms in museums which often proved costly to furnish authentically and took up precious museum space.
 
Left: Plenty of books in this library!  Right: Looking past the open doors to the garden

They are little gems that invite you in to explore their environments down to the smallest detail. And the craftmanship is amazing!!!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

The Huntington- Galleries (3 of 3)

-
Image
If you're not into gardens, or there's just so much sun you can tolerate, there are plenty of indoor galleries to visit at our destination spot. After all we're talking about The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. ( https://huntington.org/ ) The gallery exhibits cover a wide range of art movements, styles, and periods. (In fact this would be a great place to study millinery designs for women's hats. LOL)  This vast collection is not exclusively one of painting.  Many art forms and disciplines are represented. And it's really interesting to have divergent styles to compare and contrast in one visit. We happily stumbled on the American Art Galleries. Walking into this room felt like coming home, with it's nod to American quilts and textiles.   This yarn sewn rug attributed to Hannah Rosina Maynard Phillips stood out to me. Loved the rich colors and the intricate floral design.  Contrast Hannah's piece with this one by artist Cai Guo-Qiang a
Read more
-
Ability to be Creative Ability , ( noun )- aptitude, intelligence, innate qualities, powers, potency, talent, capability, competence, proficiency, knowledge, technique, craft, skill, dexterity, artistry, facility, mastery, experience,understanding, faculty This is a partial listing of the synonyms for the word "ability" in Webster's New World Thesaurus . It seems to me that these words can be divided into two categories. The first category would be nouns which people generally think of as qualities that come naturally to the individual-  "innate qualities" . I propose that everyone has intelligence, capability, dexterity, even artistry, though some might say people possess them in varying degrees, and in different combinations. But isn't that called "individuality"? Now consider the second group of words. These are nouns that can be acquired: knowledge, experience, technique, skills, mastery . These are things you have with practice !
Read more

The Huntington- Textures & Colors (2 of 3)

-
Image
  There is so much to visually take in when you're surrounded by the natural beauty at The Huntington! Whether you soak in the vibrant colors and incredible textures of the many floral species, . . .  Or you pull back to absorb the magnificent collective textures created in the various themed gardens like the bamboo forest: or the cactus garden: There are also subtle color palettes created in garden displays that include a variety of plants: And then there are the man made textures that are thoughtfully scattered throughout the gardens: Plenty of inspiration for, say, quilt textures, and color choices; even shapes and design elements to borrow for future projects.
Read more