Alexander Girard was involved in nearly every aspect of the design of the Miller House — a fact made obvious in the surviving documents that make up the Miller House and Garden archives at the IMA. Among the files is the correspondence between the Millers and Alexander Girard, and for a researcher of mid-20th century design these materials are a dream.

One of the treasures in the Miller House and Garden archives is a collection of over 1,000 3 x 5 inch index cards stored in a small file box. In the upper right hand corner of each card is a handwritten number, and on the front is typed information about items the Millers purchased with Girard’s assistance for the house.

Last spring Bradley Brooks, the Director of Historic Resources, and Annette Schlagenhauff, Associate Curator of Research, asked if I might be interested in helping them and IMA Archivist Jennifer Whitlock to make sense of what the archives contained. I immediately said yes. The House and Garden would be open in the spring of 2011, and the race was on to learn as much about the history of the house as possible.

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Filed under: IMA Staff, Miller House

“The pieces are dense,” Carol Cody, the IMA’s Lighting Designer, and I look down at her lighting plan for Hard Truths. “Visually, physically, conceptually—they’re dense.”

And it’s true. All of Dial’s paintings are 3-D so they present lighting challenges your average still life wouldn’t; but this exhibition makes no claims of being average and Carol has been doing lighting for 13 years. In fact, nearly every single light throughout the IMA galleries has been personally screwed-in by Carol Cody—that’s a lot of bulbs.

Dial’s show alone has around 500 fixtures. These lamps are chosen and adjusted after the pieces have been installed, giving it a final touch. Every light has a filter and Carol layers screens over lamps to dim them. She is part of the process from the beginning. The Lighting Designer has to collaborate with everyone else on the exhibition to “tell the story” as best as possible.

Carol took expert care in washing warm light into the room filled with work depicting the Southern Past. Bright light further excites Dial’s tributes to African American Yard Art and the creative spirit. Dimmer lamps kept the mood of the drawings room more restful. “I angled the light at the floor, with the light wood you get a lot of bounce and that way it doesn’t affect the art as much.”

Light exposure can degrade a piece of art, that’s why it’s regulated so closely and why you can’t take flash photography in a museum. Part of Carol’s job is understanding the conservation issues surrounding a work. The most difficult things to light are textiles and paper, because they’re more delicate and can fade. The easiest things to light are objects, especially stone or metal, which are hardier.

The role of lighting, as I understand, is to best display the message that is already being communicated. It takes care, precision and an aerial lift. Carol designs the lighting, as well as maintains it. With 10,000 square feet in the special exhibitions space alone, it’s a big job. But she keeps us out of the dark one bulb at a time.

Filed under: Exhibitions, IMA Staff, Installation, Thornton Dial

Around the IMA, we’re full steam ahead for the February 25 opening of our next exhibition, Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial. Installation is underway in the galleries, catalogues have arrived in the shop, final preparations are being made for the opening reception, the exhibition website has launched, and finishing touches are being put on the TAP mobile tour.

Thornton Dial presents his perspective on the big issues of our time – from current events that speak to him from a constant stream of news television to the resulting impact of social issues in our nation’s history – through his incredibly layered and symbol-rich work.  The lack of abandon he demonstrates with his choices of materials builds upon traditions found in African American yard art, re-purposing salvaged items while still mindful of their previous incarnations.  As he stated, “I only want materials that have been used by people, the works of the United States, that have did people some good but once they got the service out of them they throwed them away. So I pick it up and make something new out of it.”

Throughout the course of the exhibition, we’ll be featuring a series of blog posts inspired by Thornton Dial – not only discussing his art, but also exploring the larger topics he references in his work.  We’ll also look at the many ways that staffers at the museum work on the exhibition, and how these behind-the-scenes stories contribute to the whole. Stay tuned!

Filed under: Exhibitions, Thornton Dial

At a recent dinner party, a friend expressed his fascination with provenance (Defined: the history of ownership of a valued object or work of art). He was astonished that if he bought something as a bona fide purchaser, or in good faith, that he may someday be required to return it without compensation if it was found to be a valuable cultural relic that was stolen, looted or untrue in record of ownership. I, on the other hand, was astonished that this concept seemed so unfamiliar to him.

And perhaps this is why we began a series of articles in the IMA’s magazine on the provenance of important works in the Museum’s collection, written by Annette Schlagenhauff. As the IMA’s Associate Curator for Research, Annette has spent years tracing the paths of works of art from the artists’ hands to the walls of the IMA. The stories are fascinating and not without moral ambiguities and missing pieces. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Art, Public Programs, The Toby