Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

Open your car glove box, pull out a map of your home state or country and start driving. Do you have any idea what masterpiece you might be on the verge of creating? The map is your canvas, your car works as your brush and the Garmin GPS acts as your eyes.

Using the DHL shipping service, Swedish artist Erik Nordenankar brought this global idea to light by orchestrating a 55-day trip across 63 countries. His Web site explains that a sealed case containing a GPS component was sent with specific instructions for its handlers. Nordenankar claimed he created the “biggest drawing in the world” which is also a self-portrait. I was taken in by the video diary of the process. Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, now that Dancing With The Stars is over I can get down to business. I’m supposed to write about my department, Protection Services, or as I prefer to call it, Security (it’s shorter and sounds scarier). Most folks are familiar with the uniformed officers who prowl the galleries during the day, the ones who smile and point the way to the restrooms and the Van Gogh, and that may be the extent of their knowledge of the department. Deep in the building, however, is the nerve center of the department, the Control Room. Some people know about it, a few have seen it, but everyone is fascinated by it.

The Communication Specialists who work in Control are responsible for monitoring everything and everybody. To accomplish this grand task, Control is equipped with video systems, audio systems, HVAC systems, fire systems, and alarm systems. It has a biometric security system and a multi-channel radio station. It even has a freakin’ drive-up window! I can’t give away all the secret stuff, like the GPS tracking chips we embed in every new staff member, but here’s a little history of the Control Room.

Here I am in the old Control Room sometime back in the 90’s. I spent a lot of years in this room and did some of my best work in there (more about that later).

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I took a peek at our Google Analytics numbers and it appears that many IMA Blog readers used the holiday weekend to spend time doing things other than read our blog. That’s okay, I suppose, but you will have some catching up to do this week, so I will keep this one short and sweet. (I am also still out of the office, theoretically doing things other than work. Check out this photo of me writing this blog. Don’t I look happy working from home?)

There are all sorts of things going on in the world o’ new media these days. I thought I would tell you about a few of them. Tomorrow, I will spend the day with a few other IMA staffers, likely holed up in the IMA Cafe Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Memorial Day weekend and everyone in Indianapolis knows what that means…It’s time for the THE GREATEST SPECTACLE IN RACING! For as long as I can remember the Indianapolis 500 has been somewhat of a sacred tradition in my family. If the weather is above 55 degrees and it isn’t raining, my dad will turn on the race broadcast and pull into the driveway every car and/or lawn mower he can find. And so the annual race-day car wash begins. With the broadcast blaring so loud you can hear it for at least a half mile, the rest of the family (and neighborhood) is forced to listen. I won’t complain. I love the broadcast. The bellow of Jim Neighbors singing the line “Back home again in Indiana” gives me goosebumps. The first roar of the engines makes my adrenaline rush.

While many people stay at home and listen to the radio, hundreds of thousands more pour into the track every year as spectators. As the largest and highest-capacity sporting facility in history, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway can hold more than 400,000 fans. That means in one day the track gets as many visitors as the IMA does in an entire year. That’s amazing!

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Author (and goalkeeper), Albert Camus, wrote - “All that I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football.”

I also owe a lot to football and it’s something I’m always willing to discuss, play or watch. It’s even more appropriate to discuss today and even into the summer. In a matter of hours, over in Moscow, the Champions League Final kicks off featuring an all-English match up of Chelsea FC and Manchester United FC (I’m rooting for Man U). In a matter of a few weeks (17 days to be exact), the European Championships begin, sadly without England, but I’ll be rooting for the Orange Crush (that would be the Dutch National Team) and glued to every game I can catch on TV.
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