Category: Art

Experiencing Savannah: Squares & Art

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We met friends in Savannah and enjoyed four days of exploring this very walkable city.  It is one of the most pedestrian-friendly small cities I’ve ever visited.  Our hotel in the historic district was centrally located between the river to the north and Forsyth Park to the south.  Neither was more than a 15 to 20-minute walk and we walked everywhere, despite some rainy and then cold weather! There are several trolley firms offering hop on, hop off tours which we considered doing but never did.

Fountain in Forsyth Park

SAVANNAH SQUARES

Founded in 1733 by James Oglethorpe who founded the colony of Georgia, Savannah teems with history and is made beautiful by its many historic squares.  Today there are 22 squares created in the 18th and 19th centuries, and each is an oasis of calm with live oaks dripping with Spanish moss, benches on which to contemplate the world, and usually a monument or a statue of a famous person from Oglethorpe himself in Chippewa Square to John Wesley near the mother church of Methodism.  

James Oglethorpe

In addition, camellia bushes and azaleas, an early blooming flush of pink, provide color.  Dotted around the squares are a number of historic churches, more elegant architecture, including the Independent Presbyterian Church with a layered green spire atop its steeple.

Independent Presbyterian Church

  Savannah’s city hall has a prominent golden dome, a beacon in the sky as one approaches the river.

RIVER WALK

Savannah’s riverfront is crammed with seafood restaurants and small shops and the once important centers of commerce, the Savannah Cotton Exchange and Factors Row.  We found this section somewhat touristy, but enjoyed our saunter along the river promenade where you can catch a ferry across to the convention center or just stop to peruse the panels about Savannah’s maritime history.  

We watched a colorful container ship come into port and then walked almost to the end of the promenade to see The Waving Girl.  Florence Martus waved her handkerchief to each arriving and departing ship for many decades.  

ART MUSEUMS

For us, no visit to a city is complete without checking out a local museum.  Here we visited two art museums.  The Jepson Center is a stunning piece of architecture, very contemporary and not at all like any of the surrounding buildings.  It’s located on Telfair Square and is one of the three Telfair Museums.  

Katniss by Katherine Sandoz

The building has lots of glass and the lobby and skylights make for interesting patterns on the lobby floor and walls.  The hanging installation by artist Katherine Sandoz adds color and whimsy.  Two exhibits, “Machines of Futility:  Unproductive Technologies” and a highly interactive one on nature and art, highlighted communication and climate change.  

The Chief Penguin and I were surprised and then delighted when we put on 3-D goggles and watched “Immerse” to see the very familiar coral reef tank at the California Academy of Sciences.  This was our work venue for seven years and immediately we were transported back in time—and space!  We then learned that Steven High, director of our local Ringling Museum of Art, served there as director for several years.  Small, small world!

We also visited the Telfair Museum of Art, the oldest art museum in the South, which was built in 1818-1819 as the mansion home for members of the Telfair family.  On the docent tour, we learned about the architecture and that this family had several plantations and owned more than 600 slaves.  The surviving member of the family, Mary Telfair, willed the house to the Georgia Historical Society expressly to become a museum. 

The Bird Girl

 It opened in 1886 as the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences and for some years was a teaching institution as well as an exhibitor.  The art collection is small, but there were some interesting pieces including the sculpture, The Bird Girl, related to the novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and a special exhibit called “Savannah Faces” by more contemporary artists.

Savannah also has a museum devoted to Prohibition and several house museums including the home of Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts. All diversions for another trip.

For details on where we ate on this foray, see my next blog.

Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Tidy Tidbits: Culture, Culture

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A WEEK OF CULTURE

General John Kelly, former chief of staff for the current president, made national as well as local news for his comments about John Bolton.  Kelly was the featured speaker at Ringling College’s Town Hall series on Monday, and when asked about Mr. Bolton said, he is an “honest man” and a man of integrity.  

At Global Affairs on Wednesday morning, former advertising executive Peter Georgescu, a Romanian who emigrated to this country as a child, gave a thoughtful talk about the tension between business and society.  He contrasted Boeing’s misguided handling of the Max crisis with Johnson & Johnson’s more humane approach to the Tylenol tampering in the 1980’s.  

At Thursday’s Sarasota Orchestra concert, we heard several unfamiliar pieces in a concert that, to me, seemed somewhat flat.  After intermission, Sarah Chang redeemed it with an exhilarating rendition of Dvorak’s Violin Concerto in A Minor.  

Bachi de setola by Pino Pascali (1968)

Lastly, we made our inaugural visit to the new Sarasota Art Museum with my visiting sister and brother-in-law.  We were all delighted with both the gallery spaces and the art on display.  An eclectic exhibit of works by various artists under the title, Color Theory, on one floor and a career-spanning exhibit of Brazilian-American artist Vik Muniz’s collages and photographic works.  

One of the most stunning pieces is an installation of plexiglass plates with colored film on them that reflect light in intriguing ways. It’s by Christian Sampson, a Ringling College of Art & Design graduate.

Vita in Motu (Christian Sampson)

Muniz used many media from plastic toy soldiers to peanut butter and jelly to sugar to junk.  I found his horse head (plastic soldiers) and his collage of Jerusalem especially appealing. If you’re local, this new art destination is a must visit!

Jerusalem from Postcards from Nowhere, 2014 (Muniz)

RECENT READING

Family Dynamics

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

What happens when you witness a traumatic event as a young teen?  How does that impact your adult life in ways you never expected?  Keane’s novel explores the friendship between two cops and their families who are neighbors for a short period of time.  That relationship is ripped open by a horrible tragedy, and yet, the teenage boy and the neighbor girl who was his closest friend marry each other.  The consequences of the earlier tragedy echo and haunt them all, parents and adult children, through the next twenty years.  Can one forgive an injury caused by someone who is mentally ill?  

Keane’s novel is a delicate and nuanced exploration of hate, love, remorse, and confusion as Peter, the teenage son of the perpetrator, and Kate, his neighbor and later wife, suffer long-lasting fallout from the event.  Keane has Irish heritage and this plus her own life experiences are reflected in these characters.  A novel that will linger in your mind long after you’ve read the last page.  (~JWFarrington)

Notes: All photos by JWFarrington. Header photo is Blossom by Tony Feher (2009) at the Sarasota Art Museum.

Out & About: History in North Carolina

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VISITING NORTH CAROLINA

How I spent my summer vacation.  Wrong season, how I spent Thanksgiving week.  The Chief Penguin and I were in North Carolina to visit my sisters and their families and spent time in both Greensboro and Chapel Hill with brisk walks to Greensboro’s Bog and Centennial Gardens, excursions to Winston-Salem, to the marvelous McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington Village, and to the Kidzu Children’s Museum for a morning with three lively little girls.  

REYNOLDA HOUSE MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

Located in Winston-Salem, the former home of R. J. and Katharine Reynolds, of tobacco fame, is worth a tour.  The house was built in 1917.  R. J. died in 1918, and Katharine only lived until 1924, but she was both enterprising and ahead of her time and founded a school for the black children of the staff.   Of greater interest, perhaps than the house, is the range of special exhibits on offer throughout the year in the museum wing.  This season it is:  Leyendecker and the Golden Age of American Illustration.  J.C. Leyendecker and his brother, Frank, were both artists, but J.C. had the more notable career.

Couple on Horseback (1904)

Over his lifetime, J.C.  produced 322 covers for The Saturday Evening Post in addition to ones for Collier’s Magazine and illustrations for Arrow collars and men’s clothing.

Arrow Collar Man

  J.C. also introduced the idea of using a baby to represent the beginning of a new year and drew 40 New Year’s covers for the Post.  

Created in the early part of the 20th century, his depictions of African Americans and everyday people reflect the racial and social climate of the time.  This is a fascinating exhibit on many levels.

THE CAROLINA INN

Carolina Inn anticipating the Christmas season

Built by a University of North Carolina alumnus, opened in 1924, and later gifted to the university, this charming inn in Chapel Hill is a paean to the achievements of its faculty and alumni.  Throughout the halls are plaques and photographs testifying to the accomplishments of the many individuals who were educated here.  You feel a bit like you will turn baby blue in hue before you leave!  

There is lots of history recorded here, and it’s significant to note that while blacks worked in the hotel, the first black guest, for lunch, not overnight, was Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963.  Such a short time ago—so much has changed for the better, but not everything.  Fast forward to the present day, and I enjoyed watching family groups arrive for Thanksgiving Dinner, all ages and multiple generations, white, Hispanic, and black. 

It is not Christmas yet, but our family group was delighted with the inn’s creative, whimsical, and fun displays of the Twelve Days of Christmas.  The days were scattered out of order around the lobby and main floor, and my older granddaughter and I made many treks around finding each number and then reading about the artist.  

Five Golden Rings

Highlights for both granddaughters were Two Turtle Doves (live ones), Four Calling Birds, a display that included four ticking cuckoo clocks, and Five Golden Rings, five desk telephones spray painted sparkling gold. 

 It provided great post-breakfast entertainment along with this year’s tree with its theme of “visions of sugar plums.”

RECENT READING

America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray & Laura Kamoie

This is the first of two Colonial period historical novels by this pair. I read their most recent one, My Dear Hamilton, first and enjoyed it so much that I was drawn to this one about Thomas Jefferson’s daughter, Martha, known to him and her siblings as Patsy.  Patsy’s mother died when she was only nine and she promised her mother that she would always take care of her father.  That promise to care for her father and, by extension, guard his legacy, led her to sacrifice her own happiness and to keep dark and dangerous secrets.  

The authors did extensive research for the novel and have used quotations from the archive of Jefferson’s correspondence to begin every chapter.  As the novel opens, Jefferson has died, and Patsy is going through his papers and deciding what letters may be kept and which ones destroyed in order to preserve his reputation as a great statesman. Through the years, we see Patsy mature from childhood to teen to adult as his helpmate, his confident, and as a skilled political hostess in Paris and Washington.  Later, as the wife of a Virginia plantation owner, she manages hearth and children (ten in all) at their home and some of the time at Monticello, always attended by slave labor and the ever-present Sally Hemings.  The result is a rich portrait of a woman who both chafed against the strictures of her time and simultaneously, ignored or denied unpleasant truths.  Reading this I came away with a perspective on a less noble, flawed Thomas Jefferson.

Note: All text and photos ©JWFarrington. Header photo taken at Kidzu Children’s Museum.

Rome Adventure: Vatican Tour

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STUNNING ART

We initially signed up for the 7:30 A.M. small group tour of the Vatican Museums.  But, upon further reflection, it seemed too much with jet lag et al, to go that early.  So we changed the tour time to a more civilized 9:45 and then walked to the meeting point.  Seeing the art was worthwhile, but the overall experience is exhausting and strenuous. Our group totaled 22 plus our guide, Julie.  We thought the group size would be no more than 12!  Julie was superb—well informed, organized, and kept us moving!  And we had little radios and earpieces which made it possible to both hear her clearly and stay focused on the building and the paintings.

But, and it’s a big but, the Vatican allows so many thousands (and I mean thousands!) of people to be in the buildings at one time that you are always in a packed crowd and have to move very slowly up and down the many staircases and contend with tiers of folks in front of every significant work.  Doing this for three and a half hours is wearing!  As a former museum educator, I fault them for cramming in so many people.  They charge a high price and the crowding detracts from one’s enjoyment.  Our tour also included the Sistine Chapel (also packed) and the interior of St. Peter’s.  About the only spaces  that weren’t wall to wall people were several of the Raphael Rooms.

Detail in the Raphael Rooms

Mornings in Rome are lovely and we enjoyed the walk to the Vatican and also another walk this morning.  There are not as many people on the street, businesses are just gearing up for the day, the piazzas, Navona in particular, and the Pantheon are less full, and the light is lovely.   

Section of a map in the hall of maps in the Vatican Museums

Note: Text and photos by JWFarrington (some rights reserved).