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.

Q. How are children in the Edible Schoolyard project transformed by food?
When kids are growing the food and cooking it themselves they build a sense of pride in what they are doing. When they serve it, they want to eat it, and their friends want to eat it. The ideas about food happen by osmosis. The values we talk about are absorbed by the kids in the process of working in the garden and kitchen. Science and history classes educate their senses and open their eyes to the world around them, not just to food.

Q. What’s the relationship between food and art?
You can set a table with flowers and cloth and it’s like magic. I think of art as magic. It nourishes us in beautiful ways that we can’t speak about. I see beauty as a way of caring. Both food and art offer the possibility of seeing the world in a different way.

The reason I’m interested in working with artists is to take food out of that ‘foody’ place and put it into the beauty of culture. Food is a universal language. We are digesting fast, cheap and easy. The consequences of the choices we make are destroying our world and our culture. I envision a place where an artist is curating the food. You would walk through a beautiful museum and food would be part of that experience.

Q. What artists inspire you?
Peter Sellars, Olafur Eliasson and Ann Hamilton – These artists have a way of surprising people and caring about the same set of values that I’m talking about.

Q. What’s in your refrigerator?
All the produce I brought back from a friend’s garden, jams given to me, milk, coffee, a bottle of Bandol Rose Wine, two small bottles of sweet wine from my daughter’s birthday, duck eggs, pickles, mustard, walnuts and hazelnuts, a couple lemons and Seltzer water.

Q. If you could be any food, what would you be and why?
It’s a toss up between being sweet like tomatoes or spicy like garlic.

Recipes from Alice Waters
If you are still unsure of what will dress the Thanksgiving dinner table tomorrow, try these recipes from the kitchen of Alice Waters.

This exhibition details the journey of conservation and hints at the power of art to heal. I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of art therapy. While the halls and galleries of a Museum are my temple of healing, I would like to experience art’s power to heal in other settings such as classrooms, hospitals or shelters.

I recently had a conversation with two dear friends–one of whom is an art therapist/art teacher at a school for emotionally troubled kids in Virginia and the other of whom has experienced the healing of power of art at a local Indiana treatment center called Selah House. Their insights are shared below:

[Art therapist & teacher]
How do you become an art therapist?
To practice art therapy and to be considered an art therapist, you need to have a Master’s degree in art therapy. There are sometimes other requirements for practicing in various settings, but that is the minimum level. Refer to the American Art Therapy Association Web site for more.

How difficult is it to find work as an art therapist?
Location makes a big difference. It is difficult to be hired directly as an art therapist outside of major cities, primarily because art therapy is a relatively new field. With additional licensure and experience, you can be hired as a counselor, social worker or the like. If you would like to work outside of a major city, you would want to take additional graduate school credits in counseling and seek an LPC (Licensed Professional Counselor).

What do you consider the best and worst parts of your job?
I like working with adolescents who nobody else really enjoys working with. They are the kids who have tried really hard to get the adults in their life to give up on them. They feel like failures. Seeing them find a voice for self-expression in art and become successful at it, and therefore develop a sense of self-worth and more motivation to succeed in other areas of life, makes all the work worthwhile. Good art therapists are artists who have had life-changing or life-defining moments with their own artwork. They are the ones who understand the power that art has to heal.

What are the differences between art therapists and art teachers?
I think there are more similarities between them. I act as both, so I know that it requires more of a desire to help a student develop artistic skills to be an art teacher. Art teachers guide students with lesson plans designed to help them develop these skills. Art therapists guide clients with counseling skills and art tasks designed to help clients navigate whatever waters they are navigating in counseling. They both use art very intentionally.

Therapists need to be willing to look at deep issues. In doing that, you end up exploring a lot of deep emotional material that resonates with your own emotional life and life experiences. Judy Rubin, a renowned art therapist, said, “You cannot take clients where you have not been yourself.” Self-care is crucial, as is having good professional boundaries.

Art teachers need to be able to manage a classroom. You have to be comfortable with yourself as an authority member and being in front of a class. You have to be prepared and on your toes at all times so there is a lot of planning.

What contemporary art lends itself to art therapy exercises?
Dawoud Bey’s photography speaks to my students in a powerful way. They get really excited about it and can relate to it on many levels.

[Former art therapy patient]
What was it like to experience art therapy first hand as a patient?
While I could conceptually imagine what “art therapy” would be like, it was amazing to actually experience it. You think you know exactly what’s in your head…but when you draw and create what’s in there, it can be truly eye-opening. There’s something about taking the intangible and creating something concrete out of it. While it was difficult to dig through all the negative thoughts and emotions in my head, it was an incredibly freeing experience to see them on paper, work through them in therapy, and eventually literally burn them up to let them go.

Some have their names on a gallery, time to give or money to gift. Others use their knowledge of a subject, unique skill set or need for a place to belong. They all have a passion for the IMA.

As editor of Previews, the best part of publishing a membership magazine is interviewing, meeting and photographing our members. As we celebrate the IMA’s 125th anniversary this week, it is fitting to highlight the people who give of themselves to the IMA.

Members selected to be featured in Previews are chosen to fit the overall theme of that particular issue and on their history of devotion to the IMA. For example, in this year’s fall issue, Roger and Francine Hurwitz were interviewed about their contributions to the Museum’s Chinese and Japanese collection since the featured exhibition was Power & Glory: Court Arts of China’s Ming Dynasty. I usually get a brief rundown of the member I am profiling before writing interview questions, but it never prepares me for the true devotion and stories these individuals hold.

I was moved by the volunteer who regained her sight and found hope after listening to her friends describe works of art for her. By painting the pictures for her through words, she found joy in life again and saw in art the possibility to inspire. When she moved to Indianapolis, she sought out the IMA to volunteer her time.

I was tickled when interviewing a donor couple deeply in love. Their journeys to collect art and relationships with IMA curators are so much a part of their life and family. They were so eager to share their love of the Museum with me that they talked over each other and finished one anothers’ sentences. (Talk about a journalist’s headache!)

If I interview the member over the phone, I’m always delighted to meet them in person when they come in to be photographed for the magazine. This is truly my favorite day of the publishing process. Our photographer, Tad Fruits, and I search for the right spot to capture their personality and interest. We joke and laugh as he captures a moment in time that represents so much more than standing in a gallery next to a work of art.

I hope you too find inspiration in the many diverse individuals who come together with the common interest of supporting the IMA. Become a fan on Facebook and keep an eye out for (new) upcoming opportunities for members to have 15 minutes of fame!