I’m writing this morning to introduce myself and to share with you some of the newest programs at the Cincinnati Art Museum.

My name is Liz Gardner and I joined the Cincinnati Art Museum this past June as the Assistant Director of Interpretive Programming. Along with my colleague, Elissa Conte, Coordinator for Interpretive Programming, I am working to bring you programs that interpret the Art Museum’s collections and special exhibitions through fresh and diverse perspectives.

To that end, I’m very excited to announce a new slate of programs starting this September that are designed to enrich your experience connecting with art here at the Art Museum.

New: Art 360

Join us for Art 360, a monthly gallery talk led by Art Museum staff that examines one object from every angle. In September, we’ll explore a painting by Mark Rothko through listening to music of the 1960s, and in October, we’ll unroll a massive tapestry in the Great Hall to talk about textile conservation. Each month will be totally different, so find us on the fourth Saturday of the month from 2-3 p.m. – you never know what we might discover together.

New: BYOC

On third Sundays from 1-4pm at BYOC (Bring Your Own Craft), create your own art in a casual, stress-free environment with like-minded individuals for what we like to call “creative fellowship.” Bring the project you’re working on (must fit in a tote bag; dry media only please!) and enjoy some feedback or good conversation. Don’t have a project you’re working on? No problem. Each month, a simple creative prompt, materials, and encouragement will be supplied to help you get going. For the first installment, we’ll be raiding our kitchens and junk drawers for objects to use in “Block Printing with Unusual Found Objects.”

New: Programs for our Special Needs Visitors

I’m also pleased to share that starting this year, the Art Museum will be offering regularly scheduled programming for visitors with disabilities. On the second Saturday of each month from 11 a.m.-12 noon, blind and visually impaired visitors can join specially trained docents for touch tours of highlights from our permanent collection, while on third Saturdays from 11 a.m.-12 noon, deaf and hard of hearing visitors will have the option of an ASL-interpreted tour of special exhibitions. Finally, on the fourth Saturday of each month from 11 a.m. -12:30 p.m., the Art Museum will offer Connect, a new program for visitors with developmental and cognitive disabilities. Connect is a multisensory, hands-on experience in the galleries followed by art making, with a different theme every month. Each program is free, but requires advance registration, so please call 513.721.ARTS for more information.

Plus, the favorites

Of course, the Art Museum will also be offering everyone’s old favorites: sketching at Studio Sunday; InDepth special exhibition gallery talks; See the Story book club in partnership with the Public Libraries of Cincinnati and Hamilton Counties; Yoga with the Masters; and live community performances through Something Different on Fridays from 12 noon until 2 p.m. And don’t forget to stay tuned for upcoming special lectures, concerts, and workshops!

You can find additional information about all of these programs and more at http://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/explore/learn/at-the-art-museum.

I can’t wait to meet you all at the Art Museum in September – be sure to introduce yourself, and feel free to contact me with any questions, concerns, or ideas! My email is liz.gardner@cincyart.org.

Best,

Liz

Ah, yes. It was a lot like the way many of our visitors come to the Art Museum to enjoy themselves, but somehow end up feeling like they have to try to take it all in at once, to appease the superior demanding art gods (and guards). The unseen and watchful forces that make you feel guilty if you don’t stand longer than you’d like in front of some work of art that, while fabulous to many, just does nothing for you. Why can’t you just walk on? Why can’t you skip the label, and just stare? Why can’t you chill with one single work? This one today, not those, not that?

Well, you can. Because you are allowed to come here and see the things you like best!

Just because a museum can feel like Don Draper, the cool all-knowing guy who seems like he is in a position to tell you what to think or do, you don’t have to buy into it. You don’t have to be Megan trying to do what’s expected. I pass tired families trying to see it all while simultaneously trying to handle a heavy stroller, three kids and two hungry out-of-town in-laws, and I long to stop and whisper, “Psst! It’s okay to see one gallery or even one painting, and call it a day! It’s okay if you’d like to just go have coffee across from our Miró. That Miró has seen many a coffee drinker in its day. It’s okay if you want to sit with your friend in a peaceful British gallery looking at a portrait. Enjoy yourself here! It’s allowed!”

art of sound at the cincinnati art museum

This is just me, but I think it’s okay to walk in and look at the Damscus room’s million-tile color scheme and be amazed, and leave and go look at the trees in Eden Park, too. It’s okay to just come here to go into one room, and sit on a bench and chill out because you’ve had an insane week. You can do it here. It’s fine. On a busy day, one gorgeous work to savor and mull over is sometimes…just perfect. Check out the newish Icons of the Museum in the Schmidlapp gallery off the Front Lobby. It’s perfectly designed to let you discover an icon singly, on your own, your thoughtful way. You can make more connections to art from that point if you like. Got that? If you like. You can even just enjoy us on our Art After Dark final Fridays (see website) if that’s more your style.

This summer, don’t try to shove in more than you’d like. We’re not judging you. This is your Art Museum. If you want to take it one bite at a time for the next fifty years, it’s fine by us. Our admission is always FREE. Yes: it’s FREE to walk in and look around. So come here a lot, and see it one bite at a time. Choose a new favorite each time. Bring a friend, look at more. As the saying goes in Chicago, vote early, and often. We’re here for you. So is the art. Enjoy it your way.

Then, go get some ice cream at Frisch’s or Graeters or Aglamesis Brothers. The flavor you like that particular day does not have to be the city’s flavor of the month. Just yours.

Visiting Degas at the Cincinnati Art Museum

We will move into the former Art Academy building by the end of this year. I know that might seem hard to believe, given the presence of only a skeleton within the 1887 structure, but we are actually on or even slightly ahead of schedule (and below budget). We have already started ordering boxes, and those most worried about where our stuff goes have started planning our move. By the last week of December, those of us who are not preoccupied with the large crowds of visitors that usually come to the Art Museum during the holidays will install ourselves in the offices on the first and second floor of the renovated structure. By spring 2013, we will have moved the stacks into the basement of the adjacent French Wing, and we will open our new Mary R. Schiff Library and knowledge center on the third floor. Then you will be able to walk straight through the baroque and medieval galleries and into this new light-filled space overlooking downtown.

While all of this is going on, we are planning on how to reuse the spaces that will come free because of the move of the offices and the library out to the former Art Academy building. Some things we know for certain: the Cincinnati Wing will expand to the East, and what is now the Library reading room will become the core of our new education center. What are now offices next to that space will become galleries. On the ground floor, the area where the curators now have their offices, together with Artworld and the Fifth Third Lecture Hall and the Castellini Room, will become a new space for temporary exhibitions. At 12,000 square feet, it will be the largest one the Art Museum has ever had. Emersion, the firm that designed the Art Academy building renovation, is working with our Vision Plan Architects, Neutelings Riedijk, on the plans, and we have hired a consultant, Skanska, to make sure we can do all of this in an efficient and cost effective manner.

We know this will have an impact on our mechanical andelectrical systems, which we have been renovating, replacing, and updating continuously. We hired the firm Buro Happold’s New York office to study what we will need when, and we expect their report next week. We want to make sure our art has the right conditions, that our visitors are comfortable, that we use as few natural resources (and funds) as possible, and that we invest wisely in the future. Buro Happold is showing us how to do that.

While all of this is going on, we are continuing to renovate our galleries. The Icons Gallery just got its map, and soon will have more interactives, as well as a book that will act as a guide to these masterpieces. We have been improving the first phase of 6,000 Years, but delayed the second phase of that project until the fall. We want to get it right, and we also had the chance to show the Henry Ossawa Tanner exhibition, but needed that gallery space to do so. We have had many comments on 6,000 Years, and hope to use that to create a better visitor experience in those spaces. Meanwhile, we have been installing small thematic displays in the galleries: we hosted a very popular selection of pieces donated by Skip Fleischmann in the space adjacent to the Vance Waddell Gallery, and we have an exhibition on fairy tales as they show up in some of our collection. One of the galleries in the Cincinnati Wing now shows how Cincinnati artists pictured Venice. Look for more of such nodes in the next year. And look for more and better galleries, support spaces, and other places to enjoy our Art Museum in the coming years.

Hey parents, I am speaking directly to you. Are you in an absolute panic about what to do with your children this summer? Well, breathe easy and panic no more; the Cincinnati Art Museum’s Summer Camp is the answer to your “what do I do with my child while I am at work” woes.

Our successful summer camp program is a great opportunity for children ages 6-8 and 9-12 to explore the collection of the Art Museum for an entire week. Each day is full of looking at, talking about and making art. By the end of the week, you may have an artist or budding curator on your hands.

Do your kids love the Night at the Museum movies? Children who attend camp will also get the rare opportunity to be at the Art Museum on a Monday when we are closed to the public. We are not going to say if anything comes to life when we are closed to the public, but we can say your kids will see some pretty interesting stuff while they explore the galleries.

So here is the skinny on Summer Camp:

• Eight weeks packed with exciting art projects, indoor and outdoor activities, gallery visits, and more designed for children ages 6-8, and 9-12.
• Option to register for one or multiple sessions
• Weekly interactive performances from Happen, Inc.
• Highly skilled educators
• Weekly art exhibition celebrating campers’ accomplishments with family and friends
• Camp runs Monday-Friday 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.
• Convenient before and after camp care is available between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 and 5:30 p.m.
• For More Information Visit: http://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/component/content/article/65-youth–families/190-summer-camp

Tickets and Registration

• Art Museum Members: $175 (Family level or above); non-members $225 (prices per weekly session)
• Before-camp care: $6 per child per day; After-camp care: $10 per child/day
• Call (513) 721-ARTS for registration.
• Enrollment is limited to 30/session. To reserve a space, full payment must be received.
• Registration fee includes all art materials and daily snack. Campers must bring their own non-perishable lunch.
• Refund policy: A $15 charge will be applied for all cancellations before May 1, 2012. No refunds will be granted after May 1, 2012.
• Camp Themes
• SOLD OUT June 11-15: Color Me Crazy (6-8 year olds): Grab your paint palettes and take a ride through the rainbow as we explore the crazy color all around us.
• June 18-22: Sense This (6-8 year olds): Taste, smell, feel, listen, see–and learn all about art. Use your five senses to discover every aspect of our collection.
• June 25-29: Animal Architecture (9-12 year olds): Ever wonder what it would be like to live in a bird’s nest or a beaver dam? Come and take a look at the beauty found in animal and human architecture.
• There will be no camp the week of July 4th
• July 9-13: Dancing Through the Decades (9-12 year olds): Time to get your groove on and take a journey through the decades as we learn about history, art, and music of various time periods.
• SOLD OUT July 16-20: Many Faces of Me (6-8 year olds): Feeling silly, or happy, or excited? Well, put on your creative face and make a piece of art about it as we explore the ins and outs of portraiture through all types of media.
• July 23-27: Movin’ and Groovin’ (6-8 year olds): Shake your sillies out and come dance with us! Discover the different sounds that instruments make and how we can create our own art that makes music.
• July 30-August 3: What’s Your Story? (9-12 year olds): Calling all storytellers to this magical week where we will take a journey through our imaginations. Find out the stories behind the pieces in our collection and make your own!
• August 6-10: How’d They Do That? (9-12 year olds): Jump into a week of creativity as we use different tools to make unusual art. Learn how the pros do it, and create your own sculptures, paintings, prints and more.

Tiffany developed a technique called plating where numerous pieces of glass are layered to create depth, shadows, and to manipulate colors viewed in transmitted light. The Art Museum’s windows contain up to four layers of glass. During conservation, it was necessary to partially disassemble the windows in order to remove layers of thick coal soot from the surface of each piece of glass. Cleaning the glass is an important step in preventing deterioration, but it also allows one to see the colors that Tiffany intended.

Plated layers before cleaning

Plated layers after cleaning

During conservation we counted how many pieces of glass were in each window. One window alone had more than 580 pieces of glass!

Come see the exhibition! Not only are the windows absolutely stunning, but you can learn more about plating and other techniques used by Tiffany Studios and the conservation process.

-Megan Emery, Associate Conservator of Objects

Edward H. Potthast, Man and Child on an Ox Cart, c. 1900, oil on wood panel, 12 x 16 x ¼ in., Cincinnati Art Museum, 2005.114. (top)

Microphotograph of highlight on ox rump. (bottom)

Close examination can provide clues about an artist’s working method, such as the materials used and how the paint was applied. In many of his works it is possible to see that Potthast intentionally flattened areas of impasto during the painting process. For example, the white highlight on the brown ox’s rump has been pressed down, but there is texture in the paint strokes applied on top.

It is hoped it will be possible to determine if certain paintings were executed in plain air, rather than the artist’s studio. Sand or other debris imbedded in the paint can be an indication that a work was executed outside.

-Conservation Department

The result is The Collections: 6,000 Years of Art, the first half of which opened the beginning of this month. We have taken several thousand of our works of art and put them on display in a manner that evokes the ways we pack, inventory, and study them. This is, of course, only a small fraction of our collections of over 60,000 works of art, but we will be rotating pieces into the galleries (especially light-sensitive ones such as works on paper and textiles), and in the spring will open the other half of this exhibition across the hallway. Together these exhibitions will let you see a lot more of a collection we hold in trust for this community at one time than was ever possible in the past.

The display of The Collections does raise the question of how you actually show art. After a great deal of internal discussion, we decided we needed to bring variety into our presentations. We want to do this not just for variety’s sake, but because we all use the experience of art in different ways at different times, and according to the different kinds of art at which we look. There should be an opportunity for intense contemplation or focused discussion, as there is now in the Schmidlapp Gallery. There should be a time and place to see a great deal of material in series, such as the many teapots on display in The Collections, or in juxtaposition, as there is in the painting area of this new display. You should also be able to see works of art in a measured rhythm, arranged according to some logic –whether chronology or style, or who made it, or medium—as you can in many of our other galleries. We also think that sometimes it makes sense to develop a theme that becomes evident in the assembly of different works of art, and you will be seeing some of those themes activated in the Art Museum in the future.

Looking at art in all these different ways means having a different attitude in your looking, though we have been careful to design these displays so that you can still focus on most of the works of art in good light, at eye-height, and well-framed –the generic and default way you should be able to look at art in an art museum. The relationship to the space around you, to the other works of art, and to information are what now change in these different displays. Those alternations free you to think about art as part of a culture, a way of making, a continuum of forms, or just as a singular thing of beauty.

These installations are experiments, and we hope to learn from them as we go along. We have already figured out one thing: that we need a lot more information. We will be producing more signs for the Schmidlapp Gallery, as well as the interactives that show you where you can find pieces related to the eighteen icons on view are on their way. For The Collections, we are producing a book with information on all the works of art that will be available in the gallery, adding more wall texts, and improving the iPad app (which will soon also be available online).

The one issue that will not be address through these additions is whether these new displays treat the works of art with appropriate respect. The Schmidlapp Gallery turns each work into an icon, and in so doing removes it from the historical context in which most art museums (including this one) usually show such artifacts. In The Collections, the opposite happens: you have to look at what we think is an important work of art without many of the usual framing devices. For us, the questions both of these approaches, as well as some of the others we will be unveiling over the next year or two, raise get to the point of what an art museum does: at least in part, it makes the artifact into what we think of as a work of art through the way it displays that object or image. By varying how we do that, we want you to be aware of that process, and maybe even to be part of it.

Aaron Betsky, Director