Many restaurant facades bear a cartoon depicting the main dish served, like a perky eel or cute cow.

Even bathroom doors have creative signage.

On the natural side, the mountainous Korean terrain inspires a terraced pattern for landscape architecture.

Ancient designs can pack the biggest wallop. The eaves of Buddhist temples are decorated with exquisite detail and color.

We all need dragons guarding our doors.

Here’s a fun blog post that Matt just sent to me. (And boy, we sure do love our gummi candy ’round here.) I wonder if we could install a Gummi Bear Chandelier?

Browsing headlines this morning, I came across a few museum-related articles I thought I might share with you:

Museum Attendance Up: The American Association of Museums released a report Friday that said, “A majority of American museums report an increase in attendance 2009, in many cases despite a significant decline in funding.”

Modern Art Collector Ernst Beyeler Dies: Ernst Beyeler, 88, whose early eye for undervalued Picassos and Impressionists helped him assemble one of Europe’s most famous art collections, died Feb. 25 at his home near Basel, Switzerland. No cause of death was reported.

Sex Club Opens at Vienna Art Museum: In the name of art, an Austrian landmark is encouraging visitors to confront their sexual inhibitions by having them walk through a swingers club to reach one of Gustav Klimt’s masterpieces.

Any headlines catch your eye over the weekend? Please share!

A trending choice for web designers is to use a grid layout system as a way to streamline web development workflow by providing commonly used dimensions. We based ours on a design with the width of 960px because our most common visitor’s screen resolution is still hovering at 1024 x 768 (according to Google Analyitics). Our grid system of choice is the ever easy to use and understand 960 Grid System. We chose the 12 column layout.

IMA Homepage with 960.gs grid layout overlay

The 12-column grid is divided into portions that are 60 pixels wide. The 16-column grid consists of 40 pixel increments. Each column has 10 pixels of margin on the left and right, which create 20 pixel wide gutters between columns. More

Here are a few more examples of our website w/ the 960 grid overlay:

Its visual resonance is amplified by having been recorded by two of the most important architectural photographers of the twentieth century, Ezra Stoller (1915-2004)  and Balthazar Korab (1926-  ).  As we work to understand the property and the changes it underwent, to have the photographs taken by these men is to sift a treasure almost beyond one’s wildest hope. Many preservation projects must rely on much less for visual documentation.  Imagine being immersed a career of genealogical and historical research and suddenly working on an individual whose every portrait had been taken by Cecil Beaton or Irving Penn!

Monica and Balthazar Korab, Photo by Mark Zelonis

My first look at Ezra Stoller’s work was in The Galveston That Was by Houston architect Howard Barnstone.  First published in 1966, the book contains photographs by Stoller and by Henri Cartier-Bresson, and is credited with dramatizing the importance of architectural preservation in the decayed coastal city.  Stoller captured the Miller House and Garden shortly after its completion, some of the images appearing in Architectural Forum of September 1958 and in an article titled “A New Concept of Beauty” in the February 1959 edition of House and Garden.  In keeping with the family’s wishes, the house was published without naming its owner or location.  Stoller’s images, however, assumed a life of their own, achieving great staying power and continuing to illustrate publications about the property decades later.

While Stoller’s visits to the Miller House and Garden were limited to a brief period just after the house’s completion, Korab made several trips to Columbus over many years and so developed an archive of images that captures a sense of evolution and change.  Judging from his images, Stoller’s interest seems to have been more in the house than the garden, with the landscape appearing primarily at the margins of his photographs.  In contrast, Korab’s work responds equally to the architecture and to the landscape, giving it tremendous value to the effort to unravel the garden’s secrets.  Eero Saarinen:  Buildings from the Balthazar Korab Archive, published in 2008, presents a significant sampling of his work at the Miller property.

In June of this year, I had the opportunity to travel to Balthazar Korab’s studio in Troy, Michigan, with Mark Zelonis, Ruth Lilly Deputy Director of Environmental and Historic Preservation at the IMA, in order to review hundreds of photographs.  For the better part of two days, we visited with Balthazar and Monica Korab at their home and studio, enjoying their generous and gracious hospitality in an atmosphere that combined photography, architecture, gardens, and history, all enlivened with the Korabs’ sense of humor and whimsy.  An additional delight was the chance to see the Korabs’ own garden, built over decades on the gentle slopes surrounding their 19th-century house.

Korabs' Studio, Photo by Mark Zelonis

Korabs' Garden, Photo by Mark Zelonis

It was a joy to be with them both, to review the images of the Miller House and Garden with the man who took them, and to listen to anecdotes of a career that can only be described as humbling.  We heard stories of his early association with Le Corbusier, of his entry in the design competition for the Sydney Opera House, his work in Italy during and after a devastating flood in the 1960s, and of his work in Saarinen’s office while it was developing designs for the Miller house.  Of the Millers’ living room fireplace, a simple but exquisitely detailed freestanding cylinder, Korab remarked that the lengthy process of arriving at so pure a design had been responsible for changing him from an architect to a photographer.

Miller House Living Room, Photo by Balthazar Korab©

We spoke of his work to photograph the model for Minoru Yamasaki’s World Trade Center, which was so large that Korab had to rent a space to accommodate both the model and the necessary photographic equipment.  Monica Korab quipped at one point that Balthazar had photographed most of the works of what she called the “brand name” architects of the twentieth century.  I asked about Philip Johnson’s house for the Houston collectors and philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil (coincidentally, it was they who supported publication of The Galveston That Was).   In a moment, my inquiry was rewarded with a large file of color transparencies that recorded the idiosyncratic glory that resulted when the Menils, great collectors of surrealist art, engaged couturier Charles James to design the home’s interiors.  Another treat was to see photographs of Alexander Girard’s residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and to gain some insight into how his taste intersected with that of the Millers in designing and decorating their interiors.  Almost as an afterthought, out of the files came images of the interiors of Georgia O’Keefe’s house.  I was reeling by this point, feeling myself on the edge of a body of work so vast I could barely see into it, let alone comprehend it.

Balthazar Korab’s Genius Loci:  Cranbrook was my memento of the trip to Michigan.  Beautiful as this book is, however, I will remember the visit more for having been in the presence of so deep a repository of experience, of so keen a visual intelligence, whose work has helped shape our perception of the work of the 20th century’s greatest architects.

The Pharmacy prescribes the following links to combat Monday online anemia.

thedieline.com/blog

Blog: The Dieline

Great things come in sleek packaging. Established in 2007 by Andrew Gibbs, The Dieline is dedicated to the progress of the package design industry and its practitioners, students and enthusiasts. Find good design in everything from CD packaging to wine bottles to soda cans.

ArtBabble Video: Mary Heilmann: Inspiration

IMA Work of Art:

Young Woman in Blue by Edgar Degas

Tweet:

art21: 6 new vids on ArtBabble–with notes!–feat. Shonibare, Baldessari, Heilmann, Weems, Koons, and McCarthy: http://bit.ly/4UiHx1

This is the project description that I sent to members of the Academy community, attached to an email inviting them to schedule an interview time with me:

3 October, 2009
Member of the Academy Community:

My name is Linda Duke and I am an Affiliate Fellow in residence at the Academy for four weeks, Sept. 28-Oct. 26, 2009. Back home, I serve as Director of Education at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. While in residence in Rome, I hope to collect from members of the Academy community descriptions of and reflections on their recent aesthetic experiences – with works of art, architecture and other design arts, gardens and thoughtfully-prepared food.

View from AAR balcony

Volunteers will be invited to speak or write about whichever experiences they choose and may participate as many times as they wish. There are precedents for using language as a window into the types of thinking that are engaged (see below). In this project, it will be important to capture participants’ actual words, via audio recording or in written form. My interest is in examining what commonalities of critical and aesthetic thought might be found across the domains of art, design and culinary art.

If such commonalities can be documented, the implications for educators in any of the three areas would be significant. They would indicate that experiences with the tastes, textures, aromas and appearances of food – experiences that are commonly enjoyed – could be used as an entry point for expanding young people’s capacities for noticing, describing and other activities and mental habits that are fundamental to appreciating art and design. Noticing, wondering, savoring – these mental activities slow us down and put our full attention in the present moment, connect our senses and emotions, and often prompt us to make links to related knowledge from past experiences. Engagement with the arts both fosters and requires these activities. So does the enjoyment of real food, the kind of food that nourishes body and spirit with its sensual beauty. Rich or poor, urban or rural, people, including school children, enjoy food. I hope the data I collect might provide an argument for educators to more often exploit the use of language – in discussion and writing  – related to direct, personal experiences with art, design and food to enhance aesthetic development and awareness. I anticipate writing one or more articles describing what I learn in this project.

AAR Pranza

A well-known model for using discussion and writing to support aesthetic growth and development related to viewing works of art is Visual Thinking Strategies, or VTS, a discussion-based approach to teaching in museum galleries, a professional development program for classroom teachers, and an image curriculum based on the research of psychologist Abigail Housen. VTS is the basis of the IMA’s highly regarded Viewfinders program in several Central Indiana school districts. In her basic research, Housen has demonstrated that language can be used as a kind of window into thinking and, therefore, into the changes in thinking that occur with aesthetic growth. Housen and others have shown that VTS supports aesthetic development in controlled studies. She has also demonstrated that aesthetic thought can be shown to overlap with what is more generally called critical and creative thought. This makes the implications of a program such as VTS, as well as the promotion of aesthetic development itself, important for educators very broadly, beyond the disciplines of art or art history. If aesthetic development is very similar – if not identical – to the development of critical and agile thinking in any field or arena, then the term “aesthetic” is due for a make-over. Instead of referring to something effete and impractical, it may be understood to be an essential aspect of human consciousness and creativity.

For my Academy project, I imagine applying some of the same techniques for gathering language that Housen has developed, expanding them to elicit language describing experiences in the three arenas. With nearly 20 years of professional experience in facilitating discussions about art, I look forward to exploring the potential for fostering discussions of the three arenas (art, design, food) with the Academy residents. I hope that the raw data I collect – the recorded interviews and discussions – might be of interest to others who have the scientific training to analyze them through the lenses of linguistic anthropology and developmental psychology. I am currently seeking collaborators who might play this role. Developmental psychologist Karin DeSantis has agreed to review the material. I hope to engage the assistance of a linguistic anthropologist as well. I imagine these specialists might look at language from several points of view. When and why do people pull terms from other domains? For example, when is it helpful or even necessary to describe a painting’s colors as luscious, a building’s roofline as inspiring, or a pastry crust as heartbreakingly flaky? Do these kinds of appropriations occur more often when people have more or different kinds of experience with art, design or food?

Chefs in AAR

A few words about the usefulness of initiating this project at the American Academy are in order. A quick scan of the impressive list of scholars and artists who are in residence shows that this is a gathering of gifted and uniquely experienced people. So this project is not about collecting samples that would be considered “average” in any way. However, it is an opportunity to learn how much variation there might be between the kind of noticing, reflecting, and wondering an individual directs to an experience with a painting and a building, or a garden, or a seasonal dish. The Academy may afford the opportunity to gather data from individuals who have highly developed critical thinking skills in at least one arena, and to examine whether and how those show up in a non-specialty arena.

The fact that internationally renowned chef and food educator Alice Waters has recently helped the Academy overhaul its dining program is a plus (In Rome, the Academy Learns to Cook, by Elisabeth Rosenthal, NY Times, 3/15/09). That fact ensures that some of the residents will have noticed the quality of the produce and other foodstuffs brought in for meals, as well as the nuances of preparation and flavor juxtapositions. Back at the IMA, educators have been considering opportunities to partner with that organization’s new food provider, Nourish Café.  They’d like to experiment with educational programs that might link thoughtful sensory experiences with food to thoughtful experiences with works of visual art. For me, the opportunity to learn first hand about how a fellow arts organization, the American Academy in Rome, is pursuing this idea will be very useful and timely.

Thank you for your consideration.

Linda Duke
Director of Education, Indianapolis Museum of Art

A few days after sending this, I decided that some interviewees would feel more comfortable if I asked them to choose a picture to discuss. I paid a visit to the wonderful photo archive and was able to get digital images of Academy gardens, the historic Villa, works of art made by artist Fellows, and the nearby Tempietto of Bramante.

Bass and Kitchen Gardens at the Academy

I grateful to say that I have been able to record some wonderfully thoughtful interviews. One of the first was with Alexandra Vinciguerra, the master gardener who has restored all of the Academy’s gardens – the Bass Garden and kitchen gardens at the main building as well as the historic gardens of the Villa Aurelia just down the street. I’ve interviewed the master chefs and interns in the kitchen as they chopped and stirred. I’ve captured the thoughts of scholars about their work here. They talk about the buildings, paintings, music and ruins that have captivated them and sometimes drawn them into relationships lasting decades. The artists and musicians have also given me some astonishing and thought-provoking interviews – fueling my growing sense that our culture needs to better understand that range of aesthetic thinking and the role of the senses in understanding our world and lives. I started with a simple idea: collect samples of language people use to describe aesthetic experiences and see what similarities are found across domains of experience from the arts to design to food. I now feel I have material that begs to be looked from other angles as well.

After a full day of shouting “Watch your eyes!” as the strobes went off, we found the results well worth our efforts. The shoot took place on a Monday in the IMA’s new Design Center (store) for easy access to product. Our challenge was to include items from the Museum Store, Design Center, Greenhouse Shop and the newly opened Nourish Café. Keeping a consistent look and feel between these entities took some extensive product planning, and having holiday products in early September also posed some limits. Luckily, we had Tascha as our pro photo editor, Matt the daring designer, and Tad and Mike, two amazing photographers on the team.

A little humor you won’t spot in the published pages of the magazine — We included a pair of cat salt and pepper shakers in the shoot full of bird decorative items. A porcelain origami crane ornament took the hungry kitties’ place in the final shot. We also all fell in love with the Charles and Ray Eames House Bird available in the Design Center for $210. You might call that funny too…

Look for the “Shop & Celebrate” photo spread in the new issue of the magazine this October, and have your holiday shopping list handy.

I thought that these sparklines might be an interesting way to represent data on the IMA Dashboard, and so I’m experimenting by bringing this nugget of wisdom to bear on a chart that I haven’t been very pleased with.

This is the chart that we have on the dashboard to display power readings from our machine room (please note that these charts were all generated on Monday, Sept 21st 2009 and thus do not include the readings for that day). The problem here is that I was trying to show three different things, and none of them ended up being communicated very well. Because I’m trying to show individual measurements along with the total, the scale on the vertical axis diminishes the appearance of trends in the data. It is fairly clear that overall, consumption dropped during this period, and that there appears to be a significant decline in usage by the server components. But it is hard to tell if there is also a trend in the cooling system measurements.

The same story about the overall consumption could be told by this sparkline representation of the previous 28 daily totals:

The maximum value over this period is shown by the dot at 1350 kWh, the minimum value is 1222 kWh, and the latest value (from yesterday) is 1227 kWh. This sparkline includes eight values from last month, and you get same story with more precise information added by a single sentence, all in significantly less space than the original graph… pretty potent stuff.

Applying a sparkline to the server readings, we can see that after the peak at 807 kWh, consumption dropped and is leveling out around the lastest value at 759 kWh. Okay, so that was an attempt at using the sparkline as a word-like sentence element, which is supposed to be one of it’s strong points. It actually works fairly well, even scaled down to font-size, but here’s the sparkline at the native resolution:

The sparkline clearly reflects a drop in consumption a little over a week ago, which is due to the removal of some units from our server rack.

Similarly, we can look at the cooling system readings, which fell from 545 kWh four weeks ago to 457 kWh when we raised the thermostat setting by 3°F, and has been slowly climbing on average since then to 468 kWh – a fact that is more difficult to derive from the original bar chart.

So, it seems that sparklines can be useful for teasing out information about general trends. But, there are a few things to be careful about. For example, each of these sparklines has it’s own vertical scale, so while trends can be compared, the actual differences in consumption cannot. Also, I might look at those bumps in the cooling system sparkline and wonder if those occurred on warmer days. I may then look at the temperature records and see a pattern that appears similar, but without the actual dates and readings I’d be treading on thin ice in forming any conclusions.

So, I think I’ll add the sparkline to my array of tools, but I’m still deciding how to use it’s principles to improve upon our power consumption chart.

Moving Time

Yes that’s right, I moved here from the center of America, Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  I actually am a native Hoosier but moved further out west a few years ago.  South Dakota is an interesting place, it is very flat and has a lot of wind.  There are a lot of windmill farms popping up all over the state.  We enjoyed living in South Dakota but the opportunity at the museum was a good excuse to move back.

My family freezing in South Dakota. I will not miss the long cold winters.

Enough about me, now to something interesting I found over the summer.

While browsing the web I found and became an avid watcher of a design contest called Layer Tennis.  This contest pitted designers against each other in a challenge to build off of each others work.  Here is the description from the website:

We’ll be playing matches using video, animation, sound, photos, type and lots more, but the basic idea is the same no matter what tools are in use. Two competitors will swap a file back and forth in real-time, adding to and embellishing the work. Each artist gets fifteen minutes to complete a “volley” and then we post it to the site live. A third participant, a writer, provides play-by-play commentary on the action, as it happens.

There were a lot of interesting designs that came out of this contest.  I thought it was really exciting to see how each designer was able to take a quick 15 minutes and really add their own style to the work.

One of my favorite series of images came from this ‘volley‘ where Chris Glass and Aaron Draplin ended in a draw.  This fall they will be having another challenge so keep an eye on the the site if you liked what you saw from this series.

Art is quite pervasive at GenCon, from the richly illustrated manuals of role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons to the decorated cards of collectable card games such as Magic: The Gathering. Even the war games that sprawl over multiple tables feature sculpted miniatures, some of which are painted in painstaking detail by the players. And of course, we can’t leave out the creative fashions put together by live action role players (also known as LARPers) and cosplayers. For those interested, the costume contest is on Saturday, though you will undoubtedly see people in costume downtown throughout the event.

There is even an art gallery at GenCon that features paintings and sketches mainly in the genre of fantasy, many of quite high quality (at least compared to my skill) and most available for purchase. And speaking of purchasing, one of the best reasons to visit GenCon is to check out the dealer hall, where hundreds of shops sell dice, games, t-shirts, videos, comics, costume garb… pretty much anything a game enthusiast might desire. Video game companies even have a presence that has been expanding annually.

All of this is fascinating of course, but board games are the reason that I go to GenCon. Board games have been a part of human culture for thousands of years. Those available today comprise a spectrum from games based on simple rules that bear out complex competitive strategy like the games of Go or Chess to games like Arkham Horror, where the complex rules define interesting game mechanics that pit players in a collaborative challenge against the game itself.

As with other types of games, there are a number of aspects of a board game where design is important. The physical materials that make up a game can be elegantly simple, like stones on a wooden board, or made up of intricately carved wooden pieces placed on a board printed with gorgeous artwork. The concept of a game can be based on history, on novels or movies, or be completely original or abstract. Then there is the most important aspect of a game… the mechanics.

A game’s mechanics can be defined by simple or complex rules, and their design can simulate real-world experiences such as trading, resource management, and evolving systems, or fictional elements such as magic and time travel. The best games, in my opinion, have balanced mechanics that allow for a variety of strategies.  And lately I’ve become more interested in well-designed cooperative games.

Hopefully I can find a great new game to add to my collection this year.