The plant people were still the same – good people. But that weather. A little gray and drizzly, even real rain the one night. Thankfully the day we had devoted to touring was sunny and beautiful from start to finish.

Now. Why was I there? In 2013 the Perennial Plant Association (PPA) will hold its 31^st national symposium in Vancouver. We were meeting to put together the program and then attend to general PPA business. It’s going to be a great program between the selection of speakers and the tours. The dates are July 21-27, 2013 with the three day core on the 23^rd-25^th.  Some very exciting tours during,  before, and after. Along with that, speakers with cutting-edge ideas addressing current needs of PPA members.

But let’s get more in travelogue mode.

Some views outside a hotel window.

Fall color was spectacular. I wasn’t expecting it necessarily and I cannot tell you why. Maybe I thought it was always GREEN out there.

Speaking of green, how about a green wall?

Yes, that’s a banana growing there.

Fuchsias get a little bigger out there than they do here.

And none of us in the group had ever seen Perennial Plant of the Year 2012  Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’ grow so big. Here it is with our Executive director, Dr. Steven Still. He is a tall man. That plant is huge.

Of course there was food. There’s always food with plant people. The Japadogs were somewhere between a sausage and a hotdog with I guess you would say Japanese condiments. I definitely recommend them.

Perhaps the most important plant sighted for me was the always lusted for Gunnera manicata. It’s truly one of those plants those of us living in less hospitable climates would do just about anything to grow one. Anything. Amend the soil. Mulch heavily. Cover with a lightly heated box. Kill? Is it really murder if you are making a sacrifice to the Gunnera gods? At out last stop of the day, we finally stumbled upon a clump that had not been cut down. Spectacular.

And spectacularly long moments of constant craving…

…often leaving a trail of broken horticulturists’ hearts.

But I have an idea if the question is about plants.

I went to the OFA Short Course trade show this week in Columbus, Ohio. It’s the biggie. Everybody seems to be there with the latest and greatest in the horticulture world. It is HUGE! Now I fly right past the potting machines, injector systems, greenhouse manufacturers, and so forth. I’m there for the plants. I was only there one day so I could not bog myself down with non-plant booths. I did not make it through the entire show. One of these years I’m doing the whole four days of the Short Course and then I know I can see every plant booth. Traveling companions this year were Jo Ellen Myers Sharp and our own Sue Nord Peiffer – a brand new GWA member.

I’m just going to try to hit some highlights of what I saw. It would take a month of daily blogging to cover it all. Okay, let’s get started.

Echinacea evolution continues. I mentioned in an earlier blog that a new seed strain was coming that included the exotic colors – red, orange, apricot, gold and so forth. I saw them as live plants. I likey. It’s called ‘Cheyenne Spirit’ and was bred by KieftSeed_TM. It is already a 2013 All-America Selections Flower Award Winner.

Here are a couple close-ups.

In both an Echinacea and a marketing revolution, two true horticultural powerhouses, Terra Nova Nurseries and Blooms of Bressingham, are teaming up. One of the first plants is Terra Nova’s Echinacea ‘Supreme Cantaloupe’. Luscious color.

Another plant we are so familiar with is undergoing some genetic and marketing changes. The poinsettia of today is a far cry from the color and quality of 20 years ago. One of the first colors added to the traditional red was pink. That pink is amazing now with shades ranging from soft pastels to this rather intense one.

You think poinsettias are just for Christmas? Better get used to what may be coming. Expect to see them marketed for Valentine’s Day and Easter in the future. I felt this Easter inspired arrangement was very nice.

Saw lots of booths marketing to the Miniature Garden fad (formerly known as Fairy Gardens – not as marketable). I’m not a fan, but anything to get folks involved with plants, horticulture, and nature has some merit.

Lots of work being done with Eucomis (pineapple lily) now. Getting better color into the flowers in particular.

I got the Hoosier Gardener to pose with the biggest caladium I’ve ever seen. It has the rather unassuming name of ‘Garden White.’

It is from Bates Sons and Daughters - so rare to see “daughters” in a company name.

Succulents remain hot. And I do tend to want them all still.

Loved this silver one.

It’s a non-toxic paint that the plants simply grow out of or it wears off. Comes in a variety of colors including turquoise and orange. Need it.

In the “everything old is new again” category one finds that petunias are still one of the most popular plants that simply keep getting bred to another level. Here is one of many new ones I saw.

The new plants really did cover the gamut from odd new species to variations on plants we’ve used in gardens for seemingly forever. And every color in the rainbow was represented.

So what’s new? Everything and nothing at all.

The host institution was one of our sister public gardens, Taltree Arboretum and Gardens, near Valparaiso (Thank you, Jean Starr!). I’ve been aware of Taltree for years but never visited. It is beautiful with wooded sites, open prairie, and traditional planting beds. Well, they can explain it better than I can. This is from their website.

Taltree Arboretum & Gardens, located south of U.S. 30 between Merrillville and Valparaiso, Indiana, is a 360-acre reserve of formal gardens, woodlands, wetlands, and prairies. Whether hiking the 3+ miles of trails or attending an outdoor concert or special event, visitors have enjoyed Taltree’s quiet beauty interspersed with friendly festivity since 1999. Themed displays include the Hitz Family Rose Garden, Native Plant Garden, Oak Islands, and the Taltree Railway Garden.

Now, about that railway garden. For certain I am not one to overly appreciate train gardens. In fact, I will usually run right past them and go on to the “real” gardens. But I have to say the one at Taltree impressed me. It is both interesting and beautiful. Here are a few shots of it.

So don’t wait a decade like me. Go on up and see Taltree soon. It’s right near the Dunes so you could make a day of it.

Have a fun weekend and don’t forget to water those new plants.

We need some train songs.

Oooo. I love that song and Rosanne Cash, but that’s a little down. Let’s bring it back up. Look at them fancy scarves on them cowboys. Hmmmm…… which group is the Harvey Girls?

Last month I went to Paris. I didn’t go to do research at the Louvre, or to attend a special exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, I went to the POPArt Conference, an international symposium on the conservation of plastic materials.  The conference was the culmination of a European Union funded initiative, and like Contemporary Art: Who Cares?, it is another example of the way that European governments are supporting the conservation of contemporary cultural heritage in a way that the U.S. government does not.  The goal of POPArt was to improve the conservation of plastic objects in European museums and to establish recommended practices for exhibiting, cleaning, and restoring these artifacts .

Tara Donovan, "Untitled (Mylar)," 2010. Commissioned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Frank Curtis Springer & Irving Moxley Springer Purchase Fund, Anonymous IV Art Fund, Deaccessioned Contemporary Art Fund. 2010.218A-D. Courtesy of the Pace Gallery.

When people think about plastics, their minds don’t typically jump to museum collections.  But in reality museums are filled with plastic artifacts and artworks made with plastic components.  Artists and designers choose them for their working properties and aesthetic qualities that cannot be achieved with other materials.  Some works in the IMA’s collection that are made with plastics include Tara Donovan’s Untitled (Mylar), Valentine Typewriter designed by Ettore Sottsass II and Perry King, and Rudi Gernreich’s wool and vinyl Dress.  These are just a few examples and our holdings are only growing as we are rapidly acquiring many new objects in our Design Arts, Textile and Fashion Arts, and Contemporary Art departments.

King and Sottsass, "Valentine Typewriter," 1969. Gift of Eugene D. Silver, Rydal, Pennsylvania. 2009.57A-B. © Ettore Sottsass.

These artworks are essential additions to our collection, because they are important to the history of art and design, but the materials present unique challenges for conservators like myself.  There is a common perception that plastics last forever, but this is simply untrue.  They do last longer than other packaging materials that go into landfills, like paper and cardboard.  But in a museum environment, exposed to light and oxygen, plastics deteriorate faster than almost any other material from which artworks are made.

Rudi Gernreich, "Dress," 1968. E. Hardey Adriance Fine Arts Acquisition Fund in memory of Marguerite Hardey Adriance. 2008.211.

Until recently, relatively little has been known about how plastics degrade and how they should be safely exhibited, stored, cleaned and repaired, whereas we have had centuries to understand how to care for more traditional materials like wood, metals, paint, and paper.

Because of this need in the conservation field, the POPArt conference brought together international experts on the conservation of plastics to share their knowledge with one another.  Many of the lectures and workshops focused on ways of identifying plastics, because this information is not always known when museum objects are collected.

Workshop participants examining plastic objects at POPArt.

Knowing the exact polymer an object is made from is essential for determining how to properly display, store and treat plastic artworks, because different types of plastics present different challenges.  Depending on the type of plastic an object is made from, over time it may become brittle or lose its rigidity, turn yellow or fade, exude acids and/or sticky materials, and crack and/or deform.  Some plastics even emit harmful substances that can speed the deterioration of other objects kept nearby.

Identification can be done by observational methods, or more reliably using analytical instrumentation. As part of one of the workshops, I came away with a small kit of identified samples of different types of plastics. These can be used as reference materials for identification and even testing conservation treatment methods.

Samples from Plastics Identification Kit.

Most of the POPArt lectures that focused on treatment were about cleaning, because this is the most common type of treatment needed by artworks made from plastics.  owever, surface cleaning is not as straightforward as it may sound. Many plastics are very sensitive to solvents and even water, especially when deterioration has already begun. An inappropriate conservation treatment can result in irreversible damage and speed deterioration. For this reason, many different cleaning techniques on many different plastic types were tested and the results of these tests were shared.

All of the work discussed at POPArt contributes to the establishment of reliable protocol for prolonging the lives of plastic objects.  Despite all of this good work, the conference made it very clear that more work, especially on practical conservation treatment of plastics, is still needed.

Time and time again, the Millers made generous gifts that would enhance the quality of life of the citizens of Columbus, Indiana. While their support of great architecture is widely known, their gifts of public art have made an equally profound impact on their hometown.

Henry Moore’s, "Large Arch," Columbus Indiana, 1971.

Mr. and Mrs. Miller were great fans of English sculptor Henry Moore (1889 – 1986) and his work was part of their personal art collection. In 1971, two years after I.M. Pei completed his Cleo Rogers Memorial Library, the Millers watched proudly as the five-and-a-half-ton Large Arch, by Moore, was lifted off a flatbed truck by a crane and set into place on the library’s plaza. It was commissioned and purchased by the Millers to provide a visual anchor to the plaza. Its organic form offers a perfect contrast to the geometric shapes of Pei’s library and Eliel Saarinen’s First Christian Church. Today, it is possibly the most photographed feature in all of Columbus.

Jean Tinguely and his work, "Chaos I" in Columbus, IN.

Chaos I is a 7-ton, kinetic sculpture by Swiss artist Jean Tinguely (1925-1991). The 30-foot high, motorized piece is the largest work by Tinguely in the United States. Since it successfully marries art and engineering, it is a fitting centerpiece for a city known for both its great architectural designs and its world-class manufacturing operations.
The architect of the original Commons Centre, Cesar Pelli, first suggested to J. Irwin Miller that a sculpture by Tinguely would be the perfect at the center of this facility that served as an urban park and a retail center in the heart of downtown. Pelli stated, “We would like a great magnet, a focal point such as the old town clock…a place for people to meet and greet one another.” The work was commissioned by Mr. and Mrs. J. Irwin Miller and Miller’s sister, Mrs. Robert Tangeman. Tinguely, a colorful character, took up residence in Columbus for nearly two years and completed the piece in 1974.

Jean Tinguely, "Chaos I," 1974.

For the past three years, it has occupied a climate-controlled box while the Commons was razed and rebuilt in the heart of downtown Columbus. The residents of Columbus are delighted at the return of this beloved sculpture. The sculpture returned to life when locals celebrated the grand opening of the new Commons on June 4 with a ceremonial flipping of the switch.

Dale Chihuly’s "Yellow Neon Chandelier and Persians"

Mrs. Miller was very involved in the operations of the Visitors Center, an organization that originated as the agency to host visitors and to provide tours of this growing architectural mecca. In 1995, Mr. and Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Robert Tangeman, and other local donors, funded the renovation and expansion of the center.

It was architect Kevin Roche who suggested that a work by glass artist Dale Chihuly would create the perfect focal point for the stairwell windows. The artist proposed a blue chandelier, but Mrs. Miller, who was known to have a great eye for color, was opposed to the idea. Blue light, she said, was not flattering to women. She requested the color yellow instead. The chandelier radiates gold light from its yellow neon center through 900 pieces of hand blown glass in four shades of yellow. The Persians, in sunny yellow and watery blue and green, cascade down the window. Today, visitors of all ages delight in these cheerful glass sculptures that greet them as they begin both city architecture tours and tours of the Miller House and Garden.

Bernar Venet’s "2 Arcs de 212.5°"

Positioned in front of the Commons is French artist Bernar Venet’s 2 Arcs de 212.5°, a red sculpture that is typical of his minimalist work in steel. It seems to balance precariously. This work, like his others, reflects his love of mathematics and his habit of investigating material, form, balance, and spatial perception. Mrs. Miller purchased the piece for her home, but gave it to the Columbus Area Arts Council in honor of the organization’s 25th anniversary in 1998. It was temporarily relocated during the Commons reconstruction but now is installed near the new main entrance of this sparkling downtown jewel.

Statue of Rocky outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

A group of us here recently attended the annual Museums and the Web conference, held this year in Philadelphia.  The conference brings together museums from around the world to explore the role of technology in our various initiatives – whether they be online, in the galleries, or even in how our museums function.  Between lunch runs to Reading Terminal Market (amazing), the references to Ben Franklin (ever-present), and meeting with colleagues old and new (always a highlight), we each came away with a list of projects/ideas/encounters that grabbed our attention and will inspire our work throughout the upcoming year.  Here are our top takeaways from this year’s conference:

Rachel Craft:

1) The meeting kicked off with an opening plenary from Kristin Purcell of the Pew Research Center.  She gave a great talk about the actual usage of a lot of the tools we all are focusing on – mobile technologies, e-readers, social media usage, etc. – and shared stats that, for me, helped frame the rest of the conference. Knowing how our audiences are consuming information helps us to better shape how we deliver our content. (If you’re interested, check out her presentation here).

2) This segues nicely into my second takeaway, which is that approach to delivery – how are we streamlining what we produce to accommodate multiple channels (mobile, apps, website) without duplicating our efforts, while still tailoring the resulting media for each need?  I really enjoyed SFMOMA’s presentation on their approach.

3) Philadelphia’s cultural institutions was a huge part of the experience for me, and definitely one of the most inspiring.  The Mutter Museum with its incredible collection (seriously, check it out) also has a really great, dramatic way of conveying the story behind these objects.  Albert Barnes hung his collection in a way that specifically highlighted the (often unconventional) relationships he saw between paintings and objects, creating a powerful visual experience at the Barnes Foundation.  The arrangement of works cross time periods, geographies, and styles for the purpose of comparison and study – which is an interesting approach to consider for multimedia, as well. If we explored different approaches to storytelling, what kind of new, revealing connections could be made?   And at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, well, I could have stayed in this room all day.

Charlie Moad:

1) Drupal, the open source content management system that the IMA uses extensively, seems to have really taken its place within the museum community. I had a nice chat with George from Palantir who has been attending Museums and the Web for several years now. He stated that a few years ago he constantly had to explain what Drupal was. This year however, he was accompanied by a handful of other vendors who were also focused solely on Drupal based services.

2) There was another subtle theme that I picked up on across several sessions. Museums are starting to recognize the inevitability that much of the online interactions that occur with its content won’t necessarily happen on their websites. There was even an unconference session questioning the amount of effort that museums place on their websites redesigns due to this fact. As social networks and search engines provide web visitors with more and more of the information they seek, how can museums ensure they are making the most out of the online efforts?

3) Finally, it was a joy to have people walk up and show me their own TAP-based applications on their iPhones. Seeing others benefit from and use the tools we release has a reinvigorating quality.

Matt Gipson:

1) Mobile is the way of the walk. Mobile was definitely a heavy theme throughout the conference. Everywhere I looked somebody was using an iPad. The Mobile Parade was a great chance for museums to briefly show off their mobile achievements. It was especially great to see how the MFA took TAP and ran with it. The re-design touches they put on their app are superb!

2.  Museum tech people, in the flesh! I got to meet several art/tech people in person who I normally only see “online.” Surprisingly, I recognized several faces just from seeing their Twitter avatar. Looking forward to seeing you all at the next museum conference(s)!

3. How to launch a beta site. During a talk on museum collections on the web, the always brilliant Tate’s James Davis slyly dropped a link to their new art collection browser. There are a lot of subtle and smart things going on here. Also, there is a great paper describing their process here.

Honorable mentions: Mutter Museum, late-night back-room karaoke, cheese steaks, Chifa, Philly micro-brews, and disco naps.

Rob Stein:

1) One of the things I like the best about attending the Museum and the Web conferences are those happy surprises when you learn about work from a different part of the field that compliments your own.  This year was no exception!  I was sitting in a conference session on social tagging as I have so many times before, and was completely caught off-guard by some wonderful work coming out of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).  Gunho Chae, and Jungwha Kim presented their work on faceted tagging with the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art (GMOMA) and how other museums might improve their own tagging systems by adding facets.  It was so nice to see new quality work extending on earlier work of the steve.museum project.  Gunho, and Jungwha presented really solid work, a well written paper, AND were delightful colleagues at the same time.  What a wonderful occasion! You can read their paper here.

2) While our team from the IMA presents our work often at these conferences, I think we will all agree that the most valuable interactions are those where we get to pick the brains of our peers from other museums.  This year it was so great to meet and talk in more depth with Michael Parry from the Australian Center for the Moving Image.  Michael’s museum was the recipient of the Best Overall Site award from the conference this year for their work on the ACMI Generator, a site that teaches media storytelling techniques through the creation of user-generated storyboards.  Generator is a really sweet tool that provides a nice set of features for storytelling without confusing the users.

Recently, at the IMA, we’ve been working on similar projects related to the ArtBabble and finding that digital storytelling is a skill that’s not well understood in the states.  Michael was gracious with his time and honest with his critiques of our efforts.  In short, a great peer.  A second of my favorite moments was a sort of group review of some in-progress work for ArtBabble.  Michael Parry, Len Steinbach, Paolo Paolini, Nicoletta Di Blas, and students provided good critique and encouragement!  By the way, Paolo and Nicoletta’s paper about reusable exhibition content is a good read.

3) Lastly, I was proud to be a part of a community that can on one hand be very technical and scholarly, but on the other work for and support basic and fundamental human rights.  Supporting the arts, and the work of artists puts museums at the crux of all kinds of political, social, and moral issues.  It’s one of the wonderful reasons to work or volunteer for your local cultural organizations.  Leading up to this year’s conference we saw the arrest of the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.  It was great, therefore, to see the Tate’s project for Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds exhibition win an award for the best use of social media. A great project no matter the circumstance, but especially poignant this year!  Along those lines, it was wonderful to see the Guggenheim step up and issue a Call for the Release of Ai Weiwei and for a number of museums (including the IMA) using their blogs to share with our audiences about why this matters.

As a technologist, and software guy by training, there are many places in the world for me to work.  I’m continually happy to be a part of one field that has so much potential for impact and long-term change.

These moments of observation are significant in service to the mission of the museum, and can potentially provide a collateral glimpse into the inner workings of creative practice.

In the summer of 2009, I was fortunate to accompany Conservation Department colleagues, Richard McCoy and Kathleen Kiefer, on a visit to Georgia and Alabama. The purpose of my presence during the trip was primarily to create documentation related to the evaluation and condition assessment of Thornton Dial’s works prior to the Hard Truths exhibition.

We chose to drive down from Indiana, as I loathe flying with every fiber of my being, and it was an opportunity to immerse ourselves in all things Dial along the way…audio interviews, books for the non-driver, and music steeped in southern culture and history. Setting the proper tone and knowing your subject are so important for interviews and photography, and we spent our driving time together reflecting on one man’s life and how his art connects us all through his personal experiences and vision.

Our days in Atlanta, prior to the scheduled Alabama visit, were a great occasion to spend some quality time with Mr. Dial’s assemblages in person, and provided a precursory opportunity for us to experience the works of art that will inform the photography process.

The grueling temperature of the Georgian warehouse in July was a test of will, antiperspirant, and intellectual mettle, seemingly akin to a purification of the mind, body, soul, and spirit. The sweat lodge effect was less than ideal, but we clearly understood its role in the South and the appropriate lesson that was layered into our collective experience of Mr. Dial’s art.

The most provocative portion of our travel was the end of the week outing to Bessemer, Alabama to meet Mr. Dial…and the only opportunity we had to interview and photograph him at the Dial Metal Patterns facility.

There was no guarantee I would have the opportunity, but my hope was to photograph him in his studio for publishing and media projects related to the exhibition.

Accompanied by collector Bill Arnett, Kathleen, Richard and I made the three-hour drive with anticipatory glee, as this was the moment to apply our research toward meaningful exchange and content creation efforts.

Due to the heat, we spent fewer moments as a group in the main workspace of the open-air building, but I was able to capture images of Mr. Dial’s studio space, as well as details of his art supplies, studio floor, etc. – anything that speaks to the artistic process, the artist’s intent, and can inform a broader portrait of the artist himself.

Although I was initially disappointed with his absence in the studio, we instead found ourselves gathered in a small air-conditioned office. This was a more comfortable, intimate space for conversation and I was awed by Mr. Dial’s quiet confidence, patience with both our questions and periodic bursts of my flash unit.

What caught my eye immediately was the United States map on the wall and I made quick work to ensure this element was included in a series of images while Richard and Kathleen interviewed him.

A succession of images followed during this period – his hands, shoes, expressions, etc., were all significant in building a visual narrative for multiple purposes at a later date. A single image from this grouping appears in the exhibition catalog, rendered as black and white, and the entire set of images has been posted to the IMA Flickr page.

Our time in Alabama with Mr. Dial, his wonderful family, and Bill Arnett only spanned a few hours, but it was clear we were in the presence of an American treasure – a soft spoken genius of intellect and creative purpose. His truth is our truth, as difficult as it may be; it is a truth worth telling.

While investigating the exhibits and schedules on the Shedd’s website, I found an intriguing interactive called SheddHeads. Visitors to the aquarium can upload their photos and videos, rate them, and enter them in contests. It inspired me to bring my camera along, and while I was there I noticed quite a few other folks taking pictures with everything from cell phones to digital SLRs. I have to admit that I got in the groove taking photos and forgot to check the labels to see what it was I was observing a few times. So, is this a missed educational opportunity… or a successfully engaging experience? Something to consider.

What do you think? Can an interactive experience be too engaging?