Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

Chef and Food Educator Alice Waters will be giving a talk at the IMA’s Tobias Theater next Tuesday. However, tickets sold out within weeks of posting the event online. For those unable to attend her talk, this post is for you. It will give you a glimpse into Waters’ work and how she seeks to inspire. I had the delight of speaking with her about her passion earlier this year:

Interview with Alice Waters
As published in the winter issue of the IMA’s Previews membership magazine

Q. What culture do you think has the most interesting relationship with food?
While I can only speak to the cultures I’ve visited, I find the Mediterranean culture of Southern Italy has a unique balance in their relationship with food. Food is part of the fabric of life there. It’s not on the side in the form of health or fueling up. It’s connected to meaningful everyday experiences. Sitting down at the table with family and friends is precious and important.

Q. What did you learn from your grandparents about food?
Not much. My grandparents were Irish English and it seemed to me that they liked to eat quite a lot, but that’s it. They had a narrow, limited diet. My parents were concerned about diet but didn’t know how to cook. My interest in food came from working in my parents’ Victory garden, and my passion came from traveling to France at the age of 19. The experience opened up a world to me. Read the rest of this entry »

Class Pictures: Photographs by Dawoud Bey opens tomorrow night at the IMA with a conversation with artist Dawoud Bey followed by an opening party. For the exhibition, Bey photographed young people from all parts of the economic, racial and ethnic spectrum in both public and private high schools. I had the pleasure of asking Bey about his work earlier this year:

Interview with artist Dawoud Bey
As published in the fall issue of the IMA’s Previews membership magazine

Q. Can you tell us when you became interested in portraiture?
As I began to figure out what I wanted to do as an artist, I was spending a lot of time going to museums and galleries looking at work by other photographers. The pictures that resonated for me most strongly were those that were of human subjects. There seemed to me something quite powerful about a person confronting the camera, returning the attention of the photographer. Read the rest of this entry »