“Goodnight Garden” (sincere apologies to Margaret Wise Brown)

In the great green garden-room
There was an elephant ear alocasia
And some blue and white balloon flowers ….”

Brilliant red of the native sourwood tree with the clear yellow of Photinia in the background.  IMA/Oldfields border garden near orchard.

Brilliant red of the native sourwood tree with the clear yellow of Photinia in the background. IMA/Oldfields border garden near orchard.

Arisaema and sourwood leaves

Arisaema and sourwood leaves

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Interpreting Delicious

I fell in love with Willem Kalf’s painting, below, after watching the ArtBabble video In the Gallery: Mark Doty. Mark is a poet who toured the gallery and talked with staff about various works in the galleries and how we see paintings. The way he described the work was particularly appealing to me.

And you can see how, I mean, it’s painted, this bravura, I mean this coil and the light and then the incredible translucency of the peeled fruit. It’s hard to imagine now how it must have looked... Well, we are always going to be looking at and celebrating that the stuff of the world, you know.

Still Life with a Chinese Porcelain Jar by Willem Kalf

Still Life with a Chinese Porcelain Jar by Willem Kalf

Recently, this work  has caught my attention again, as I’ve had the opportunity to spend a bit of time in the galleries here at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. I love the process of “getting to know” a work of art; the way it becomes like a familiar friend, and yet somehow, each time completely delightful and new.  It has me thinking about what catches my attention in each one, and some similarities between the very disparate works that I love. The first thing to come to mind? FOOD. Read the rest of this entry »

Three is a Magic Number

If you happen to be at the Indianapolis Museum of Art later today, say 5pm, you’ll have a chance of discovering Bloggers Anonymous.  It’s our third event of BA, and something pretty different from what we typically do regarding technology.  We’re actually meeting people face-to-face.  At the IMA, we kind of dig technology and spend a lot of time developing digital projects, like this blog, ArtBabble, TAP and a million other things.  We really love our work, but I guess there would be one draw back to what we do.

Hey, you get to hang out with me.

Hey, you get to hang out with me.

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Grab your cameras. Fall is upon us.

By far, my favorite season of the year at the IMA is fall.  Currently we’re right into the series of weeks where the grounds transform into this amazing color palette of reds, oranges and yellows.  I happen to start working for the IMA late September three years ago, just in time to experience the magnificence and get hooked.

Indianapolis Museum of Art Garden, Pony Bridge contributed by Terry.Tyson

Indianapolis Museum of Art Garden, Pony Bridge; contributed by Terry.Tyson

I’m not the only one captured by the seasons, as shown by the IMA Flickr Group.  As of this writing we have over 200 members and we are pushing dangerously close to 2000 images!  It’s wonderful to see the many vantage points brought together to a single point on the web.

Here’s a few photos I captured three years ago shortly after starting at the IMA.  They are not altered in any way.  I always revel in these photos and tell people about them.  So I am taking my opportunity now to share them with you.

Grab the extinguisher. This trees on fire.

Grab the extinguisher. This tree's on fire!

Check out the latest additions to the Flickr group and please join us by sharing your fall photos as well.

Can I blog about beer?

I’m such a sucker for good advertising. If a billboard catches my eye, a commercial makes me laugh, or an ad (gasp!) compels me to buy something, I can’t help but smile,  shake my fist at it and say ‘Ahhhh…ya got me!’

Sacred Spain Billboard

I mean, you can’t help but gawk at this guy as your driving down the street, right?

So we’ve seen how effective art on a billboard can be, but what about a billboard as art? Next time you’re driving south on Keystone on Indy’s north side, you can’t miss the two large billboards flanking the busy street. They feature murals with saturated colors and a loose, urban/graffiti vibe.

They are striking, artistic, and only subtly an ad.

from flickr use dieseldemon

from Flickr user DieselDemon

What’s kind of shocking about them is that they’re advertisements for Pabst Blue Ribbon. I thought they didn’t advertise? I thought that was their thing, their shtick.

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