Hi, folks. Sorry to run out on you all in a way, but no time again this week for much writing. We’ve got The Garden Club of America coming to visit and I am not ready for them!  You know how it is when company’s coming (and there is over 600 of them!), you want every weed pulled and that ain’t happenin’. It’s the GCA national convention and they are visiting the IMA on Saturday afternoon for a couple hours. I hear tell the weather will be nice.

In the meantime, while I’m out weeding, here are some pretty pictures for you all to look at. To make it more interesting, here are the plant names too. You put the names with the pictures. Have fun.

Magnolia ‘Coral Lake.’ Cercis chinensis ‘Don Egolf.’ Mattheucia struthiopteris. Cercis Canadensis ‘Pauline Lily.’ Epimedium x versicolor ‘Sulfureum.’ Tulipa ‘Dorodgne.’ Cercis Canadensis ‘Appalachian Red.’ Brunnera macrophylla. Mertensia virginica. Cercis Canadensis ‘Alba.’ Fothergilla major. Magnolia ‘Yellow Bird.’ Tuilpa ‘Blumex.’ Tulipa ‘Blue Aimable.’ Tulipa ‘Ballerina.’  Viburnum carlesii ‘Cayuga.’ Malus ‘Prairie Fire.’ Cornus florida v rubra.

Filed under: Art and Nature Park, Horticulture

The royal wedding between Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton has been the talk of the town for months. Two hundred and fifty years ago, another royal wedding – that of King George III (1738–1820) and Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744–1818) – was on every Londoner’s lips. As Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773), said of the marriage – and impending coronation – of the royal pair, “The town of London and the city of Westminster are gone quite mad with the wedding and the approaching coronation. People think and talk of nothing else.”

Shortly after the marriage and coronation took place in September 1761, Scottish artist Allan Ramsay (1713–1784) was commissioned to paint full-length portraits of the king and queen in their coronation robes. The demand for replicas of these portraits was so voracious that Ramsay and his assistants spent much of his remaining life producing dozens of copies, not only for the royal residences, but also for public buildings and private houses in Britain and abroad. To meet the demand, according to Ramsay scholar Alastair Smart, the artist ran his studio like a “veritable picture factory.” A visitor recounted seeing Ramsay’s “showroom crowded with portraits of His Majesty in every stage of their operation.” The result was the mass production and global distribution of copies of the coronation portraits.

The IMA is fortunate to possess fine replicas of the coronation portraits that were once owned by a member of the House of Windsor: both were formerly in the collection of Prince George, Duke of Kent (1902–1942), who was the fourth son of King George V (1865–1936) and brother of King George VI (1895–1952).

Allan Ramsay, "King George III" and "Queen Charlotte," probably 1762–1766, oil on canvas, James E. Roberts Fund.

The paintings were installed this week in the Clowes Pavilion, just in time for today’s royal wedding. Their placement in the Clowes Pavilion heralds a reinstallation of British paintings in the pavilion’s balcony gallery that will take place next month.

Filed under: Art, Installation

In late 2010, I had the pleasure of examining and conserving White Cloud by John Rogers Cox from the Swope Art Museum.  Not only was Cox an artist, but he was also the first director of the Swope.  Suffice it to say, White Cloud is an important painting to the Swope’s collection.   I’ve worked on a couple of paintings by Cox from the Swope and I have come to appreciate his work, from the barren feel of his landscapes to the tiny, precise details he incorporates.

This conservation project involved examining, understanding, and documenting an artist’s change and ultimately how far to take the conservation treatment.  This project also highlights the thought process surrounding certain conservation treatment choices, or in this case, the choice not to do something.

Looking, Observing, Understanding: The Examination Stage

Before treatment image of "White Cloud" by John Rogers Cox.

All conservation work begins with careful examination, the first stage of which includes just looking at the painting and noticing details from the surface, from the brush strokes in the paint, and from the support (yes, we spend lots of time looking at the back of the painting too).  If you don’t understand what’s there, then you can’t know how to perform the conservation treatment.  So with the painting in the IMA’s conservation lab, I began to look and observe.

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Filed under: Art, Conservation

Hanneorla has to be among the most prolific amateur art photographers of the 21^st century.  With more than 40,000 Flickr images that have been sorted into 517 distinct sets—each from a different location around the world, and mostly of art, architecture, and museums – Hanneorla’s photostream is one of the most important sources for art images in the 21st century, and why so many were excited about the potentials of  “Web 2.0.”

I first became aware of Hanneorla around 2007 when I was looking for Flickr users that were photographing artworks on the grounds of the IMA.  The set made for the IMA has 61 images in it and most of the contemporary outdoor artworks are documented. Although the sheer number of photos is impressive, what also interested me is the way the photos were taken: many of the works are shown from multiple sides, demonstrating that Hanneorla is skilled at looking carefully at art.

It was also around this time when Clay Shirky was getting a lot of attention for talking about how the Internet was ideally suited for us to spend our cognitive surplus doing something productive, rather than just watching television in the evening (Shirky estimates today this cognitive surplus is around a trillion hours a year for the adult population in the developed world).  Trying to harness but a sliver of a thumbnail of this surplus, we created the Wikipedia-and-Flickr-based project Wikiproject Public Art. While this continues to slowly grow, I’m always on the lookout for museum-based projects that tap into the cognitive surplus in a meaningful way.

So, to get to know the most productive art photographer in world better, I invited Hanneorla here for a discussion.

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Filed under: Around the Web, Art, Photography, Travel

Spring has sprung…..finally.  Well, the weather isn’t cooperating, but the produce is finally starting to arrive.  I have been looking forward to the arrival of our first local asparagus in the next couple of days.  This is really MY first indication that we are finally over the cold and dark.  Next week we will feature the local asparagus on at least three items on the menu and also our produce supplier is bringing us a new local spring mix.  I really enjoy this time of the year after trying to be creative with beets, turnips, carrots, potatoes and the occasional box of kale through the winter months.

Today is Earth Day.  Nourish has committed to featuring a new sustainable shrimp from a company called Laughing Bird.  The great thing about it is that no habitat or environmental damage is part of the raising or harvesting of these shrimp.  This company is also going to offer scallops in the future as well, so keep checking in.  Today we’re featuring shrimp po’boys with remoulade sauce on the menu and a salad featuring the shrimp as well.

Another big announcement for the day is that voting begins for a contest that I entered to support our commitment to sustainability.  I have been selected as one of twelve chefs from across the U.S. & Canada to compete for a chance to cook my recipe for the James Beard House (like the Grammys, but for chefs) in May.  I chose to feature cider braised pork shanks from Fischer Farms and oyster mushrooms from Hawthorne Farms, paired with creamy smoked tomato grits, in a comforting dish perfect for this time of the year as the cool evenings are hanging on.  This dish utilizes several local offerings from some of our suppliers and is part of how we at Nourish try to keep our guests connected to the farmers that are our life blood.  The voting will happen on YouTube and the top 5 get to go to the James Beard House in New York City to show their stuff.  How about a little support for Nourish?

Just around the corner, we will have Indiana strawberries, heirloom early tomatoes, spring greens, as well as great products from our partners from Fischer Farms, Capriole Farms Goat Cheese, Viking Lamb, Fair Oaks Farm Cheese and many others.  Stop in and see what we have every week…..the menu is always changing.

Be patient….Think SPRING.

Filed under: Local