One of my pleasures is to volunteer as a docent at the Elmhurst Art Museum. There are many reasons why I enjoy volunteering. One reason is the manner in which visitors educate me with their views, their knowledge about a specific area of expertise (engineers, architects, etc.), and their own individuals stories. During one exhibit, contemporary photographs of Route 66, my primary function was to listen to, without interrupting, the stories of others.
For a number of summers the Transparent Watercolor Society would exhibit the winners of their annual national competition at the museum. And what winners they were working within restricted competition guidelines. Deep rich colors were achieved through layer upon fluid layer and white had to be the white of the paper. No direct opaque colors here.
During my tours, I would stop in front of a watercolor to discuss an artist and how he/ she achieved that unique quality of color, or some other topic. Or I would stop and explain why I like that particular watercolor. Personally, I favor paintings with a grid pattern and I would point out the grid worked in a particular watercolor, and the eroticism of grids.
The idea is that if the grid is broken it is much like a sin in Christianity, a breaking of a covenant or a commandment. At that moment one of the women in the tour told me of her experience with an art teacher who one day brought in one-hundred pictures of art and had each students pick one of, either their favorite, or one they felt they could live with. As each student picked their one art and returned to their chairs, the teacher went to him/ her and said “you’re from the east coast, you’re from New Mexico, you’re from the northwest, you’re from [fill in the blank], etc. Based on their choices, he knew where they had spent their childhood.
“Interesting,” I said. “I’m from northern Indiana and grew up among steel mills and refineries, all built on a grid.”
If you get fewer than 2,000 rejections a year, you are not working hard enough.
©Ida Kotyuk
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