Visit to the Archives and Gallery

Today, we visited the Clay Center to see the gallery space and discuss how exhibits are planned out. There is a LOT of work that goes into putting together an exhibit, and picking out the images is only part of it. We met up with our Clay Center counterparts, Denise, Lewis, and Kayte to find out how pieces in exhibits are grouped together, and how much space we have to work with. Do you know there is an actual mathematical equation that is used to hang artworks in exactly the right place? Neither did we!

We got a huge surprise when Denise invited us into the vault to see some of the artworks that we have chosen for our exhibit up-close. We were expecting her to have one or two pieces out in the gallery for use to see in person, but we actually got to go into the vault and look at the majority of the pieces we've selected. It was amazing to see all the art just packed away in this vault. The collection is HUGE and the technology involved with storing and protecting the artwork is impressive!

Looking at the artworks that we had seen only in small .jpgs on the Clay Center's website changed a lot of things. Seeing all the details of the artworks, from brushstrokes to the artist's eraser marks made the pieces so much more interesting. Some pieces that we had overlooked suddenly became favorites that we want included in the show. And other pieces that we liked at first seemed less fitting for our exhibit theme. It just goes to show that art is meant to be enjoyed in person, and there really is no substitute for seeing it in person.

After visiting the archives, we planned our next steps. We will build a scale model of the gallery, right down to scale prints of the artworks we want to include, and we will plan out our exhibit. We will also write labels for some of the works, create tags for the individual artworks, discuss lighting options, publicize the exhibit... wow, we've got a lot of work to do! We are grateful to Denise, Lewis, and Kayte for all their help, and for giving us an opportunity to see an art exhibit from the curator or gallery's point of view!

Wildly Wonderful and Wonderfully Wild

We have a theme! Our theme is "Wildly Wonderful and Wonderfully Wild." We are currently working to select artwork for the exhibit from the vast archives at the Clay Center. This is proving to be more difficult than we expected, with so many great works of art to choose from. In the process, we are learning about great artists with connections to West Virginia, such as Lee Savage, Jim Gibson, Anne Shreve, Julius deGruyter, and many, many more. Our goal is to select 50 pieces, but it is so hard to narrow it down.

Howdy, Neighbor!

Today, we got a visit from our Clay Center counterparts Lewis Ferguson (Director of Art and Science education), Denise Deegan (Collections Manager/ Assistant Curator) and Kayte Brannon (lead educator.) We really enjoyed the visit! They gave us an overview of the project and we shared with them some of the possible themes we've come up with so far.

To come up with themes, we all went online to the Avampato Online Gallery and created our own, personal "galleries" using the "My Gallery" feature. We then e-mailed these to Mrs. Burch so she could see which paintings we chose. Then, she asked us to revisit our choices and try to find adjectives that described our collection as a whole. We will use these adjectives to come up with ideas for themes for our group exhibit.

Some of the theme ideas so far are:

People at Work
the Suburbs
Four Seasons
Shadows
Shapes
Charleston Art
American Dream... or not
People in Color
Warm Colors/Cool Colors
Melancholy
Tranquility
Ethnic Art
City/Country

A lot of people noticed that their galleries showed contrasts between two things, like "City/Country" or "Warm and Cool Colors." We like contrast!

Square One

Hamilton, Charles Jupiter
Monkey Swim
acrylic & wood
1988 Gift of Dr. & Mrs. Richard Rashid







I am honored to announce that the Clay Center has asked Charleston Catholic art students to help curate a special exhibit, which will open on April 3, 2010. This is a fantastic opportunity for students to learn about art, and to see firsthand what it takes to put together an exhibit in an art museum. We are so fortunate to be located almost next-door to this superb collection of works by artists from Romare Bearden to Andy Warhol -- with a little local flavor from artists like Charles Jupiter Hamilton and Paula Clendenin, too. We can't wait to work with this collection and discover new favorites. We hope you will discover pieces that speak to you, as well.

Next week, we will get together in the school's computer lab and peruse the Clay Center's online catalog of art and select our favorite pieces using the "My Gallery" feature. Once we have a few favorites saved, we will begin brainstorming concepts for the show. We'll post a few interesting concepts on this blog next week.