It’s easy to notice that Adam Ames and Andrew Bordwin are funny.  Watch the first 45 seconds of this interview for proof.  But if you pay attention, you’ll discover they are also serious and profound thinkers.

Adam and Andrew are artists who focus on collaboration, competition and masculinity.  The first piece they did together, Dance, was a video of Andrew physically dominating and humiliating Adam during a wrestling match.  Dance made me afraid to be a part of their team building project.  I didn’t want to end up humiliated.

Adam and Andrew – or Type A – were commissioned by the IMA to create something for 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park.  They decided to work within the basic methods of Experiential Education and create a team of IMA staff (at least one member from each department of the museum) to team build.  The sessions included games, discussion, and a high ropes course.

My mind was off and running.  I imagined a reality television competition.  Coworkers dressed for the office, running through a challenge course.  I thought they would try to make us compete against each other or prove that masculinity exists in the office, too.

During the first meeting in spring of 2008, I got a bitter taste of experiential learning.  Each member of the team received a card with an image on it.  Without speaking or looking at anyone else’s image, we had to place the cards in order so they told a story.  It was like playing charades, but the person guessing the answers can’t speak either.  I was frustrated and caught off guard.  Type A was taking this team building seriously.

Even though I realized this, I didn’t “get” the project until our team vetoed the design for Type A’s sculptural installation.  Team members argued the design had nothing to do with our experiences.  I remember thinking, “They are the artists.  Why are we arguing with them about their work?”  But Type A wanted our input.  They wanted true collaboration.

Over the next few months, we played games, solved problems and talked about work and art.  The games loosened everyone up and led to honest discussions.  We started with small ideas.  “What should the goal of this game be?”  And let them grow.  “What are your work goals?  Your life goals?”

One of my work goals was to make a documentary.  In 2007, my coworker Dan Dark was busy making Maya Lin:  Above and Below.  I wanted to direct the next one.  We thought Type A would be the perfect subject.  Their art and career deserved to be closely examined.  We were already recording tons of team building footage, and we knew Adam and Andrew would be natural on camera and give us tons of access.  We asked Type A if they were interested, and they agreed to let us make the film.

In the end, my initial fears were wrong.  I didn’t end up humiliated (although you can jump to 22:30 on the film to see me looking foolish).  Type A approached the project in a completely sincere way.  They truly collaborated with every department in the museum and allowed team discussion to have a real impact on their final sculpture.  I approached this project a skeptic (and a little paranoid), but they won me, and the rest of the team, over.  I’m proud of the documentary they helped make.  Thanks to everyone involved!

Please enjoy the documentary below:

Trees in 100 Acres

Shortly after I wrote my first blog on the history and current stewardship practices of the Park, I found out about an award the IMA had won in regard to those very efforts, through the Indiana Urban Forest Council (IUFC).  The IUFC is a nonprofit organization committed to educating the public and addressing key issues pertaining to Indiana’s urban forests, and is a great resource for information on establishing healthy and sustainable tree communities throughout cities across the state.  Additionally, they annually recognize efforts that are made by other organizations and individuals who are also actively committed to this goal, and this year we received the Outstanding Project Award which acknowledges the positive impact 100 Acres is making to the Indianapolis urban forest.  If you’re wondering how the opening of a park that is heavily represented by its art exhibitions could qualify for such an award, check out my previous blog which explains the efforts that have been focused on the care and restoration of the site itself, as well as the IUFC press release.

Director of Horticulture, Chad Franer, accepts the Outstanding Project Award for the IMA

2008 aerial photo of 100 Acres and IMA campus

Thank you, Indiana Urban Forest Council, for your support and recognition.  We are grateful for the opportunity to spread the word about the Park for the benefit it brings to the Indianapolis community, and for the continuation of our responsibility to better the Park in species diversity and environmental management.

Mulberry along 100 Acre’s meadow in fall

1. Ball-Nogues Studio: Gravity’s Loom - Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues have been the guests of the IMA for the last week installing their site-specific work made of multicolored string. This week, don’t miss your opportunity to get up close and personal with the artists and the IMA’s design and installation crew as they install the work in the Efroymson Entrance Pavilion.  The team will be working throughout the day and in open view of visitors, so stop by and check out how this exhibition comes together. The show opens to the public this  Friday, but if you’ve got time, come by Thursday evening for a preview and artist talk.

2. Distance closes this Sunday. Kids and adults alike have been mesmerized all summer by Jeppe Hein’s rollercoaster-like track in the Forefront Galleries. Stop by this week for your final chance to follow a white, plastic ball as it rolls through 3 different rooms on the IMA’s fourth floor. This exhibition is a can’t miss, but hurry…you’ve only got 6 more days to see it!

3. Bring your family and friends to 100 Acres this weekend. I just checked the forecast and the weather looks perfect for a picnic! Bring a frisbee or a football and play around in the Park’s meadow. Interested in a tour? Every Sunday, there is a docent-led walk around the Park from 11 a.m. to noon.

(Don’t forget the Museum is closed on Mondays, but 100 Acres is open 7 days a week, including Labor Day.)

OK, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, but those are 3 good reasons for our friends in and around Indianapolis to come to the IMA this week.

Want more? Visit our calendar to see a full list of programs and exhibitions.

This is part of Jeppe Hein’s Bench Around the Lake which overlooks the White River. Just to the right, across from that stone pillar out in the river, is a USGS stream gauge. You can see the readings from this gauge on the IMA Dashboard. As of this morning, it’s reading about 14.3 feet, which is 2.3 feet above flood level (according to the National Weather Service). I walked down to the surface of the water, and if the river were about 6 feet higher it would come up to the bottom of the bench.

This is a bench that overlooks the lake, and Andrea Zittel’s Indianapolis Island. You can read Michael and Jessica’s take on the flood over at Give and Take. I went down to the water here, and it would reach the bench with another three feet of depth.

The lake is doing a great job showcasing the design of Kendall Buster’s Stratum Pier. When the water level was at its peak last night it was probably submerging the lowest platform. This morning it appeared to be resting right on top of the water.

The biggest surprise came when I glanced over at Tea Mäkipää’s Eden II. The lake had completely submerged the deck of the shack, which is usually accessible via a few stairs.  The water came almost all the way up to the placard. The relationship between Eden II, climate change, and flooding makes this situation poetic, in a wabi-sabi sort of way.

And finally, here’s a little reminder that the path around the lake is not always circumnavigable. Ahead in the water you can see another of the benches, which overlooks Eden II to the right. What you see here is the lake submerging the path. Further ahead there is an inlet which connects the river to the lake, but obviously I wasn’t able to check out the situation there with my bike in tow.

The Monon & The White River

What better place to start than at the Monon trail White River overlook? This is on the first leg of my ride, as I’m warming up.

The Monon & The Canal Towpath

Not too long after that, I turn off of the Monon and start riding down the Canal Towpath. I usually have to be ready to dodge the dozens of ducks and geese that are sleepily wandering about, but I didn’t see many today.

Broad Ripple on the canal

Broad Ripple is also looking pretty sleepy at this point in the morning. Up past this bridge is the blue bridge that crosses the canal next to College. After crossing at the light there, the towpath turns into a gravelly surface (which had puddles this morning) and continues on the south bank of the canal.

Towpath Canal Crossing

This the view from the bridge where the towpath crosses back over to the north side of the canal. We’re getting close to Butler now.

Canal Near Hinkle Fieldhouse

Here’s the sun coming up over Hinkle Fieldhouse. Great game last night, Bulldogs! I sometimes see athletes running across this bridge and down the towpath… maybe I’ve seen some of the guys on the team and didn’t even know it!

Canal near The Christian Theological Seminary

Here’s another bridge where you can see the Christian Theological Seminary in the distance. I’ve been inside and I can report that they have a very impressive organ.

Canal near 100 Acres

A little later on there’s a wooden bridge that goes underneath the Michigan street bridge. The 100 Acres Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park is just to the right of the trail up ahead. At this point, though, I’m headed to the museum, so I turn around at the end of the bridge and head up the ramp to Michigan street.

Michigan Street & The White River

This isn’t technically on my ride, but just a little north of the ramp up to Michigan is the bridge that crosses over the White River. As the river bends to the right in the distance its passing by 100 Acres, forming the northern border.

42nd Street Gate

Okay, this one isn’t a bridge or a waterway, but it’s an important landmark. This is the gate at Michigan and 42nd street, which is a nice entry point for bikers.

Woodstock Bridge

This is a little bridge just inside the gate that’s on a road called Woodstock according to Google Maps. You can see Lilly House to the right and the entryway to The Orchard on the left. The greenhouse is also on the right.

Front Lawn at the IMA

I like to ride around to the front of the museum for this view. And now it’s time to get to work!

To give you an overview of what someone who works in museum marketing does , I thought that I’d outline my typical day. In order to do that, I recorded my activities throughout the past Monday. While some of you were relaxing (or partying) on your Columbus Day off, I was hard at work with my fellow colleagues at the IMA.

Image taken from ugotbling.com

COLUMBUS DAY, OCTOBER 12, 2009*

8:27 Arrive at office. Plug in laptop.

8:35 Sip coffee and respond to emails sent over the weekend.

8:50 Research the 100 Acres: Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and Nature Park for IMA  Magazine article.

9:15 Write interview questions for article to send to Ed Blake, the  landscape architect for 100 Acres.

9:32 Email interview to Ed Blake.

9:37 Discuss signage in Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion with Marketing Manager.

9:42 Register for Next Audiences Summit.

9:52 Review marketing budgets from last 2 years.

10:22 Read NYT’s article about the Louvre’s attempt to ‘Loosen Up.’

10:34 Get distracted by Jamie Oliver article in NYT’s Mag.

10:39 Review Web site content. Put together work plan to present in the afternoon’s Web team meeting.

11:22 Read Geoff Von Burg’s blog entry.

11:31 Email this week’s TV schedule for Sacred Spain commercials to Max, curator Ronda Kasl, and Nugget Factory.

11:38 Check attendance numbers from the weekend.

11:39 Organize opening weekend debrief meeting for Sacred Spain.

11:45 Polish up communication pieces for potential Winter Nights and Summer Nights media sponsorships.

12:18 LUNCH (Lean Cuisine and Fage Yogurt).

12:38 Watch Gentleman Broncos movie trailer.

12:41 Send movie trailer to Dan Dark.

12:44 Change Twitter name from @IndyArtGirl to @MegLiffick.

12:50 COFFEE.

1:00 Catch up on emails from the morning.

1:30 Web Team!

2:50 Review and edit Group Tours corporate mailer for Sacred Spain.

3:15 Respond to email from Contemporary Curator Lisa Freiman about the prestigious national award that her husband received. Congrats, Ed!!!

3:17 Create an initial inventory of marketing materials that can include media/corporate sponsor recognition during 2010.

4:02 Continue to draft 2010 marketing plan for Public Programs.

4:48 Brainstorm about communication ideas for TAP.

5:21 Respond to remaining emails.

5:42 Leave office. Head to gym.

6:13 Check email while running on treadmill at gym. DANGEROUS!

6:16 Attempt to respond to an email while on treadmill at gym. EVEN MORE DANGEROUS!

8:15 Read IBM’s social media guidelines while watching Will Ferrell on Man Vs. Wild.

8:30 Close laptop. No more work for the day.

*Please note that I have left out some details such as phone conversations, specific email correspondences, bathroom breaks, and Facebook and Twitter checks.

Next up (Oct. 28), I’ll tackle the ginormous topic of branding a museum. Stay tuned.

I use a great tool called AutoStitch to create these panoramas from individual photos. You just have to manually adjust your focus and exposure and then rotate in place while shooting away. As long as there’s some overlap between shots and the lighting is consistent, it does a pretty good job of merging photos automatically. For this scene, I had to stitch a few groups independently and then stitch those mini-panos into the full panorama. You can see above that the lighting had changed due to shifting clouds and the complexity of the bushes even thwarted my own pattern matching capability. The photos that I took a few weeks ago stitched a little more easily and capture a more cheerful vista.

That’s not the end of my tale, however. I continued walking around the lake, expecting that I would be able to make a full revolution because the weather had been pleasant for quite a while and I had been watching our stream gauge reading drop daily in anticipation of a nice stroll. Unfortunately, when I got to the inlet that connects the river with the lake, I found that I wouldn’t be able to ford it while keeping myself dry below the knees. Not unless I had an olympic-class long jump.

You can now learn some basic geology about the White River and 100 Acres on the IMA website, thanks to our collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey. There’s still more information to come about floods and we’re also looking into adding some guidelines that will help IMA staff and visitors determine when the park is flooded.

From what I’ve learned, the inlet is more complicated – the water level there depends on the amount of water flowing in the river, the amount of water that has entered (from both the river and precipitation) and exited the lake, and the rate of evaporation. If we can solve that puzzle we’ll be able to determine when it’s possible to hike all the way around the lake. For now, just keep in mind that even after a few days of fair weather the inlet may be too wide to cross without getting wet.

When I started at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in the fall of 2004, the opening of the Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park seemed so far in the future it was laughable to me that we even had meetings about it. Fall 2009 seemed like an eternity away. For God’s sake, I thought to myself, I’ll be nearly 30 years old when the park finally opens! Now with the recent proliferation of my first gray hairs, 30 doesn’t seem that far away, and with the plans for the park taking shape neither does opening day.

The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park has always seemed a bit ambiguous to me. With the solidity of the Museum and its galleries and history of Oldfields-Lilly House & Gardens, the Art & Nature Park seemed like the elusive Holy Ghost of the IMA’s trinity. Scheduled to open in the fall of 2009, The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park has a history that goes well beyond my time at the IMA. Discussions about the use of the space have been ongoing for decades. However, over the last few months, plans for the park have really come together and as we get closer and closer to the opening date, I can now see more clearly the future of the 100 acres of woodland, wetland and meadows adjacent to the Museum.

Want to learn more about the Art & Nature Park?

1. I would suggest visiting the Art & Nature Park section of the IMA’s Web site to read up on the basics. Find out what has been done already. Learn about the inaugural artists commissioned for the park. And discover some of the goals and plans for the space.

2. I highly encourage you to come to the Art & Nature Park Public Forum tonight at 7:30 PM at the IMA. Here’s the official description of the event: Maxwell L. Anderson, the Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO of the IMA, will welcome the audience and give an overview of the vision for the Park. Mark Zelonis, the Ruth Lilly Deputy Director of Environmental and Historic Preservation, will present an overview of the nature found at the site. Lisa D. Freiman, senior curator of contemporary art and director of the Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park, will present an overview of the artist projects and the visitor center.

Following these brief presentations, those present will have the chance to ask questions of key players about plans for the park. Special guests will include representatives from neighborhood groups and representatives from environmental organizations.

3. I would love for you to share your thoughts on our blog. Let’s start an online dialogue about The Park. To date, what have been your experiences with The Park? What interests you the most about the space? What are your concerns and comments about the project? Please feel free to share your thoughts here.