Brrrrrrr. It’s bloody cold for November. Daytime temps have been closer to what normally would be our nighttime temps. Normally. It’s not as though normal actually exists anyway. So I’ve been thinking a bit about what is going on in the gardens and what looks good despite the early cold spell, who out there is laughing at their misfortune rather than crying.
Speaking of laughing, this made me laugh out loud – for a good while.
Anyway, back to the gardens.
Since today’s celebration focuses on a particular bird, I thought it was most appropriate to share with you some turkey highlights from the IMA collection. Enjoy and Happy Turkey Day!
Chairing Thanksgiving by Wayne Kimball
The Turkey Pasture by William Baxter Palmer Closson
Chef and Food Educator Alice Waters will be giving a talk at the IMA’s Tobias Theater next Tuesday. However, tickets sold out within weeks of posting the event online. For those unable to attend her talk, this post is for you. It will give you a glimpse into Waters’ work and how she seeks to inspire. I had the delight of speaking with her about her passion earlier this year:
Interview with Alice Waters
As published in the winter issue of the IMA’s Previews membership magazine
Q. What culture do you think has the most interesting relationship with food?
While I can only speak to the cultures I’ve visited, I find the Mediterranean culture of Southern Italy has a unique balance in their relationship with food. Food is part of the fabric of life there. It’s not on the side in the form of health or fueling up. It’s connected to meaningful everyday experiences. Sitting down at the table with family and friends is precious and important.
Q. What did you learn from your grandparents about food?
Not much. My grandparents were Irish English and it seemed to me that they liked to eat quite a lot, but that’s it. They had a narrow, limited diet. My parents were concerned about diet but didn’t know how to cook. My interest in food came from working in my parents’ Victory garden, and my passion came from traveling to France at the age of 19. The experience opened up a world to me. Read the rest of this entry »
William Edouard Scott, American, 1884-1964, “Simeon and the Babe Jesus,” oil on canvas mounted to Masonite, 98 x 44 inches, Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County, Indiana
It was a monumental undertaking one that had never been attempted at another American hospital. Murals in public buildings were a new concept in 1914. Only the Library of Congress and the Boston Public Library had successfully completed similar projects. The idea of bringing art to Wishard, then known as City Hospital, started on a very small scale with the idea of commissioning a local artist to create an oil painting for the new Burdsal units which had just opened in 1914. A committee of local artists was asked to select the artist, but the committee came back with a better suggestion. Why not enlist several Indiana artists to paint murals on the hospital walls? William Forsyth, a prominent member of Indiana’s famous Hoosier Group, agreed to oversee the project. At the conclusion of many months of work, sixteen Indiana painters had created thirty-three different murals that covered a quarter mile of the hospital’s wall space.
This included well-established artists such as, T. C. Steele, Otto Stark, Clifton Wheeler, Wayman Adams, J. Ottis Adams, and Forsyth himself, and younger painters and local art students such as Simon Baus, Walter Hixon Isnogle, Carl Graf, Jay Connaway, Emma B. King, Dorothy Morlan, Martinus Anderson, Francis E. Brown, Helene Hibben and an African American artist, William Edouard Scott, who would make a name for himself as a mural painter along with his other successful artistic endeavors. Most of this group received housepainter’s wages, slept in empty wards and ate in the hospital kitchens, while the established artists painted in their studios and received no more than $150 a month for their work.
Last night I attended the opening performance in The Toby. It was a memorable experience! The artistry of the musicians – Cho-Liang Lin, Susie Park, Sophie Shao, Atar Arad, and Min Xiao-Fen – was impressive. More than impressive. It was moving. The passion and joy that each artist conveyed to the audience made the performance a gift. During the first half of the evening, four of the five demonstrated their love for the classical traditions of both China and the West. During the second half, all five performed composer Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera, a visual and sonic work that calls on the musicians to perform ritual-like actions involving water, paper, stones and to use their voices to make sounds not usually heard in a concert hall.
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