Tacoma Art Museum Docents Blog TAM Docents Blog: 09/12/2004

need someone for 10/9

I'll be out of town the weekend of October 9th and I need to find someone
either to switch shifts with me or take my shift that morning. Thanks,
Barbara

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Art Resource Center suggestion

Dear Docents:

At the Art Resource Center volunteer meeting last night, the ARC volunteers made the excellent suggestion that as part of your general museum tours you bring the group into the ARC whenever possible (vs. just pointing it out from the education wing). ARC volunteers can give a short introduction to the resources available.

I think this is a good suggestion for two reasons: first, if people physically come into the ARC we count them in our ARC attendance, which goes out to funders in our grant reports. Second, and more importantly, my guess is that if people actually enter the space they are more likely to remember it and hopefully visit again.

I would also recommend doing the same with the Open Art Studio.

Given a group’s timing constraints, this won’t always be possible, but please keep it in mind.

Thanks

Tara

Tara Young

Associate Curator of Education

TACOMA ART MUSEUM

1701 Pacific Avenue

Tacoma, WA 98402

253.272.4258 x 3016

tour signs change

Dear Docents,

I wanted to let you know of a change to the signage for tours, suggested by our Director of Communications. Starting October 1 ALL tours will start at the front desk. Visitor Services will let people know this as they come in. This should streamline things and eliminates the need for the sign holders throughout the building. I think it will also make it easier for you to gather people for tours since people tend to congregate in the lobby anyway. I remember hearing this idea from a number of you a while back, so I think it will work well.

We will stick with the current signage for the next two weeks or so but will eliminate the in-gallery signs as of October 1.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks

Tara

Tara Young

Associate Curator of Education

TACOMA ART MUSEUM

1701 Pacific Avenue

Tacoma, WA 98402

253.272.4258 x 3016

Wall-Eye May Have Helped Rembrandt's Vision

BOSTON (Reuters) - Rembrandt, the 17th-century Dutch master known for
his skill in using light to carry perspective, may have been
wall-eyed, a U.S. researcher proposed on Wednesday.

An analysis of 36 self-portraits of the great painter suggest he had a
strabismus -- a misalignment of one eye that caused it to point
slightly outward.

This condition, popularly known as wall-eye, may have given Rembrandt
van Rijn an advantage in translating three-dimensional scenes into
two-dimensional paintings, said Margaret Livingstone, a Harvard
Medical School (news - web sites) neurobiologist.

"It illustrates that disabilities are not always disabilities. They
may be assets in another realm," Livingstone said in an interview.

"I like the idea that there may be a biological basis for different
talents, even if it's something as dumb as a lack of depth
perception."

An inability to see with world with normal depth perception can be an
advantage to an artist, who must flatten a view to render it
accurately, Livingstone said.

Art teachers often advise students to close one eye when they compose
a painting. Livingstone and Harvard co-author Bevil Conway looked at
36 self-portraits painted by the prolific artist. In 23 out of 24 oil
paintings, Rembrandt's right eye gazes to the right while the left eye
looks straight ahead, they write in a letter in this week's issue of
the New England Journal of Medicine (news - web sites).

Livingstone said because the paintings were done looking in a mirror,
the left eye is probably the one that was off center.

A dozen etchings he did of himself show the other eye off center. But
left and right are reversed in an etching, which is made by scratching
lines on a metal plate and using the plate to make a print.

Livingstone said the works show Rembrandt's errant eye to be gazing
off center by an average of 10 degrees.

As a result, Rembrandt probably could not see in stereo, which
requires the proper alignment of the two eyes. About 4 percent of the
population suffers a similar problem.

Only one oil painting shows the correct orientation of the eyes. "We
wonder whether Rembrandt painted it from an etching, or whether it was
painted by a student looking directly at Rembrandt, and not at a
mirror image," the researchers wrote.

--
Regards,
Sanjeev Narang

***

email: ask (at) eConsultant dot com
www.Sanjeev.net

tomorrow/Friday FYI

Hi All:

FYI for tomorrow evening’s training (Thurs Sept 16) we will be starting in the CLASSROOM and moving to the galleries. For Friday morning we will be starting in the EVENT SPACE and then going into the galleries.

Thanks

Tara

Tara Young

Associate Curator of Education

TACOMA ART MUSEUM

1701 Pacific Avenue

Tacoma, WA 98402

253.272.4258 x 3016

books are in

The textbooks are in and you are welcome to pick them up anytime. I’ll leave them at my desk and you can take one and leave a check made out to Tacoma Art Museum for $65.

Thanks

Tara

Tara Young

Associate Curator of Education

TACOMA ART MUSEUM

1701 Pacific Avenue

Tacoma, WA 98402

253.272.4258 x 3016

RE: Hudson River reading group: The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

Hi Everyone,

Thanks to Heide for spearheading the book club. Discussion of Last of the Mohicans will be our training topic for Wednesday November 3 and Monday November 8. Participation in the book club is optional. However, it is recommended for those of you in the UWT certificate program, because of the attendance requirement at training.

Please email me back and let me know if you’re going to participate.

Thanks

Tara

Tara Young

Associate Curator of Education

TACOMA ART MUSEUM

1701 Pacific Avenue

Tacoma, WA 98402

253.272.4258 x 3016

-----Original Message-----
From: Heide Fernandez-Llamazares [mailto:heide_fll@hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, September 13, 2004 2:23 PM
To: tamdocents@googlegroups.com
Subject: Hudson River reading group: The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

To everyone who is interested in participating in a reading group:

I have finally decided that the book for the Hudson River School reading group will be "The Last of the Mohicans" by James Fenimore Cooper.

The reasons for this choice are:
(1) Thomas Cole painted a series of scenes from the novel, one of which is included in the upcoming exhibition.
(2) The book is an action story that also illustrates the period's attitudes toward nature and the native american, both of which were already vanishing at the time. It also presents a new type of "spiritualism" that was not simply about Christianity. All of these issues were also very relevant to the Hudson River School.
(3) It is a fairly readable book, and an American classic, that will interest a wide readership. (hopefully)
(4) It's very affordable and easy to find.

The single negative aspect of this book is that it is approximately 400 pages in the paper-back -- which is lengthy, but it is an easy read, if I remember correctly.

I wasn't able to find any books that were directly about the Hudson River School, and that I felt were also appealing for general reading and discussion.

For the discussion group in November, I will come up with a list of topics, and I'll email those to everyone a few weeks in advance.

In terms of getting a copy of the book, it should be very easy to find at bookstores (new or second-hand), and I'm sure that every library will have a copy too.

It's available at Amazon.com for $5 to $10 for a paper-back copy. It's also available on Amazon.com as an "e-book" for $2.75 but I don't think it is printable, so you would have to read it on a computer screen.

Here is a short synopsis of the "The Last of the Mohicans" by James Fenimore Cooper:

In 1757, the third year of the French and Indian War, Hawkeye, a colonial scout, and his friends, Chingachkook, a chief of the Mohicans, and his son Uncas risk their lives to guide two English sisters through hostile territory and evade the evil Huron, Magua, who is determined to destroy them.

At the centre of the novel is the celebrated 'Massacre' of British troops and their families by Indian allies of the French at Fort William Henry in 1757. Around this historical event, Cooper built a romantic fiction of captivity, sexuality, and heroism, in which the destiny of the Mohican Chingachgook and his son Uncas is inseparable from the lives of Alice and Cora Munro and of Hawkeye the frontier scout. It also tells of the cynical exploitation of the native tribes, setting Indian against Indian, Mohican against Huron.

If anyone in the docent group has any comments about this book-choice or about anything else related to the reading group, you can email me directly or call me at 761-1094.

Heide Fernandez-Llamazares
heide_fll@hotmail.com

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can anyone take or trade my wed. sept. 15 shift?

I suddenly have to be out of town from sept.14 to 19. Can anyone trade a shift with me?

I do the Wednesday morning shift, and it's not very busy usually. I can probably trade a shift with someone.

Heide Fernandez-Llamazares.

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Hudson River reading group: The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper