After a long journey to Indianapolis, Atelier Van Lieshout’s Funky Bones benches arrived last week and were unloaded on the grounds of 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and Nature Park.

Last month, 22 benches were packed in a 40 foot ocean-going freight container at the artist’s studio in Rotterdam. After an Atlantic ocean crossing, U.S. customs clearance, and a few truck trips, the container arrived at the park.

IMA staff assembled on the morning of arrival ready to unload and unpack. We opened the container to find each bench thoughtfully packed and placed within the container. As is typical with artwork in transit, extra materials were used to pad and protect each piece. However, given the size of the work, these “extra materials” amounted to a huge pile of Styrofoam.

Feeling a little guilty about leaving the Styrofoam in a dumpster for trash pickup, I began to ask coworkers if they knew of any places in Indy where we could take the foam to be recycled. Sure enough, just up the road from the IMA, we found exactly what we were looking for. We threw the first of two loads into an IMA Horticulture dump truck and headed to our destination. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Art, Art and Nature Park

Well that’s what the weather report says for tomorrow. Things are starting to pop so get out to the IMA gardens and walk around. Most of the snow is melted!

Snowdrops behind Deer-Zink are blooming.

Some of the Anemone blanda ‘Blue Shades’ in the beds around the Sutphin Fountain are very close to blooming.

Witchhazels are blooming all over the place.

Perennials are pushing new growth.

And I saw winter aconite that will be in bloom tomorrow. Hellebores should be showing color too.

So much happening. More later.

Filed under: Current Events, Horticulture, Local

I love documentaries. The more depressing, the better. The kind that hit you over the head with how the world is going to hell in a hand basket, leaving you sad and hopeless. Yep. Love it. When I asked my Twitter followers if they liked documentaries and why, I got some really great responses…

Director Chris Paine, via NUVO.net

@mitchmaxsom: Happy or sad, well-told stories that better help us understand another perspective or circumstance are beautiful and necessary

@joanofdarkknits: I watch them, but I hate them [at the same time]. I still have images burned into my brain from one on animal cruelty and one on child cruelty.

@raypawulich: They can be powerful, but if I’m going to invest my time in sitting still and watching something, I choose to be entertained.

Sure, they can really open your eyes. But sometimes, they just tell you to keep on keepin’ on. For example, I’ve been on an save-the-planet documentary kick lately, but I’ve always been pretty passionate about the environment. I don’t eat meat, I recycle, ride my bike a lot, I’ve worked for an environmentally-conscious local newspaper, and now an environmentally-conscious museum. All good things, but I have to admit, just like anyone I get lazy (I forgot my reusable grocery bag at home. Again. Oh well.) and stray from the path. Sometimes I just needed a jolt of reality to reaffirm my tree-hugging beliefs. That’s not a bad thing, right? Do what you gotta do to stay motivated. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Current Events, Film, Local, Public Programs, The Toby

Plastic makes life possible in America. I come to this conclusion after trying to live one day without it. As you can guess, I didn’t make it far. From Barbies and Legos to laptops, food containers and cars, plastic is the modern clay.

Tara Donovan, Untitled (Plastic Cups), 2008 (Photo by: Dennis Cowley/ Courtesy Pace- Wildenstein, New York)

We’re looking forward to a big IMA exhibition this April by contemporary artist Tara Donovan, who works in the medium of plastic. I’ve had plastic on the brain since watching the recent documentary Addicted to Plastic, directed by Ian Connacher:

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Art, Musings

There are countless intriguing stories at the IMA, sometimes untold. Here is one of them.

Look like a rerun of X-Files? It’s not. If you’ve been around the Museum after dark recently, you may have spotted the new LED light installation in The Sutphin Fountain. Jeff Earl, head electrician at the IMA, replaced all the original white halogen lights, many submerged underwater, with the new technology.  Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Current Events, Technology