http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/The latest news from Crystal Bridges9391http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/http://www.crystalbridges.org/images/crystalbridges_logo.gifhttp://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=28Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:55:24 -0500     Wow! Ralph Wilson, aka "Mr. Shrine" brought art to the public in a wonderful way last Saturday.  Nearly 250 visitors to the Farmers' Market in downtown Bentonville participated in Ralph's drop-in Art Car activity.  Kids (and their eager-to-help adults) had a blast embellishing model autos with everything from plastic sharks and cows to glitter and beads - and the results were so snazzy! Crystal Bridges staff, with volunteer extraordinaire Nancy Martin, were delighted to help present this fun program with Downtown Bentonville Inc. and Eureka Springs artist Ralph Wilson.  For more hands-on summer fun, join us at the next Discover Art Program, Thursday, July 10 from 1:00 to 3:00 pm, at Crystal Bridges at the Massey.http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=26Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:39:52 -0500This is the number one most frequently asked question by visitors to Crystal Bridges at the Massey.  It is always a pleasure to share the progress we are making on our permanent facility, and the excitement of what is coming usually leads someone to ask, "When will Crystal Bridges open?" On June 15, Crystal Bridges at the Massey will have been open for one year.  Over 14,000 people have visited in that time, and many visit often to check the updates we continually make to our display of information and images about the Crystal Bridges Museum construction project.  In May 2008, we expanded this part of the Massey gallery to include our final building design model, images from the Crystal Bridges Museum collection, and additional new photographs of the construction site.  In the coming months there will be more progress on the permanent facility, and much more to share with visitors to the Massey about these developments.   So when will Crystal Bridges open?  The short answer is we already are!      Let us share the future with you by dropping in at the Massey.  http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=25Wed, 28 May 2008 12:16:59 -0500 Our current exhibition, Reconstructing Art Walk, kicked off May 16th with a Preview Party and Discover Art activities on the Massey veranda.  Keeping with the evening's theme, yellow caution tape and fluorescent construction vests caught the eyes of passers-by on "A" Street and West Central. Discover Art-ists of all ages enjoyed weaving wee baskets, decorating art bags and sculpting finger puppets.  Proving that Discover Art activities are truly irresistible, our HR manager Michelle Johnson is shown re-discovering her inner artist while lending a hand at the weaving table. Discover Art is a drop-in program for children ages 5 - 12 and their adult partners.  Check our website for future opportunities to get creative at the Massey!http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=24Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:29:38 -0500On February 28th, the High Museum of Art (Atlanta) featured Bob Workman as the inaugural speaker in the Margaret and Terry Stent Lecture Series in American Art.  The title of Bob’s lecture, Creating a Sense of Place:  Art, Architecture and Nature at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=23Wed, 19 Mar 2008 08:23:36 -0500        Thanks to all of the families who joined us for Picturing Plants: Family Time at the Massey on March 9th – we enjoyed discovering the wonder and beauty of plants with each of you!   Friends from the Bentonville Public Library, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, and the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks were on hand to help with activities for over 150 people, and we are grateful to have such wonderful partners in the community! http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=22Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:01:54 -0600  Winter Scene, View Near Clarkstown, c. 1860,   by John William Hill, watercolor and graphite on paper, 12 7/8 x 17 1/2http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=21Wed, 07 Nov 2007 08:10:31 -0600 Be sure to visit the newly-designed website for Crystal Bridges at the Massey. We’ve added a calendar feature to make learning about our exhibitions and programs even easier. Plus, we now provide an option to sign up for our informative e-newsletter, so you won’t miss a thing!    http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=20Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:32:57 -0500 Our new exhibition at The Massey - Thoreau's Walden: A Journey in Photographs by Scot Miller, opened with a full weekend of activities.  Pictured are Rachel Ackerman and Hadi Dudley enjoying Miller's work at the preview reception.  The exhibition continues through November 25th, and related programs are planned for all ages, including: Children's programs on Thursday afternoons Weekend programs for families Photography workshops, and Reading groups for adults and children.   http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=19Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:18:01 -0500 Friday night launched what will certainly be a fascinating series of guest speakers presented by Crystal Bridges, as Dr. Richard Gruber, Director of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, shared his insights into the work of William Christenberry with our audience at the Bentonville Public Library’s Wal-Mart Community room.  Dr. Gruber, a recognized art historian and leading scholar in the area of Southern art, has worked extensively with William Christenberry, and has in fact traveled with him on many of his annual journeys to Hale County, Alabama. He shared stories of those hot August pilgrimages, of Christenberry’s early career as a painter, his development as a photographer, and his work as a sculptor. Weaving a sense of place, time and memory into his talk - the underlying themes in Christenberry’s work – Gruber enhanced our understanding of this important American artist.  William Christenberry: Photographs, 1961-2005 remains on exhibit at Crystal Bridges at the Massey through August 26. http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=18Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:36:23 -0500On Monday, July 23, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow opened New World:  300 Years of American Art.  Gracing the grand façade of this major art museum are three banners; a detail of Willem de Kooning’s Composition, 1955, the graphics for the exhibit; and a detail of Crystal Bridges’ own Charles Willson Peale George Washington, 1780-82.  (For more information on the exhibition visit the Pushkin’s English language website at http://www.museum.ru/gmii/defengl.htm.)    An image on TheMoscowTimes.com web site from July 24 shows Hollywood star Jeremy Irons with Pushkin Museum director Irina Antonova sitting on the back of Iron’s motorcycle in front of the museum on Monday.  In the background can be seen our own George in all his glory.  It seems that Irons and Dennis Hopper “rolled into Moscow on Monday after a three-day motorcycle journey from St. Petersburg” to attend the opening of the exhibition.  Leave it to Tom Krens, Guggenheim director extraordinaire, to add a bit of glam to the occasion.  We in Arkansas couldn’t be more pleased! http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=17Wed, 11 Jul 2007 15:44:53 -0500 The community’s response to our summer program of children’s classes at Crystal Bridges at the Massey has been wonderful! Our young participants have explored the William Christenberry exhibit, discussing photography, architecture, storytelling, memories and more, and then returned to the classroom to create some amazing art projects. These photographs were taken during "See the Art, Be the Art" and "Southern Architecture."        Our partner in presenting these classes is the Education department of The Shiloh Museum of Ozark History, in Springdale. Many thanks to them for their help in making our inaugural series of children’s classes a wonderful success!         Information about upcoming programs is available through our Massey website including offerings for adults, like "Films @ the Library" this Friday evening.                 http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=16Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:49:40 -0500Sometimes the stars are in alignment. When the Walton Art Center asked us to consider presenting William Christenberry: Photographs, to assist them during a period of re-organization, we jumped at the opportunity. In many ways, it is the perfect exhibition to introduce our new Crystal Bridges at the Massey space as it enables us to present the work of a prominent artist whose subject matter focusing on the rural South resonates with our own surroundings. Moreover, his photographs documenting change and transformation in several rural Alabama counties and small towns are nearly the perfect counterpoint to Northwest Arkansas’ phenomenal growth over the past few decades and especially in recent years. Nevertheless, these works are useful, and in Christenberry’s view, often affectionate, reminders of who we are and where we came from. And while it might not be literally true for everyone, most Americans who currently reside in urban settings can trace their roots within one or two generations to small towns and farms whether in Alabama, Arkansas or even New York. This inaugural exhibition featuring works by William Christenberry is a highly focused glimpse into the artist’s larger career. Organized by the Aperture Foundation in New York, the selection of photographs, many exhibited in this touring show for the first time, conveys a strong sense of the artist’s life-long subject--rural Alabama and it’s “containers”—houses, barns, juke joints, birdhouses and even grave sites—that portray various forms of transformation and eventual disintegration over time. For good or ill, they are the physical remnants and shards of shifting economic and social conditions throughout the rural South since the late 1950s. Along with 58 mostly color photographs, several “found objects” in the form of hand-made signs from Christenberry’s own collection are included in the exhibition alongside photographs of these signs in their original locations on dilapidated buildings and leaning fence posts. For Christenberry the actual signs are art works in their own right, expressions of deeply held beliefs and attitudes closely attached to a particular sense of place. There is also a mixed media sculpture with a unique recipe of encaustic and beeswax slathered over a wood house-like structure entitled, "Memory," a white, dissolving, ghostly model of several buildings seen in adjacent photographs. Like his near contemporaries and fellow artists from the South, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, or even more directly, the Southern writers he so admires including William Faulkner and James Dickey, Christenberry is an alchemist transforming the base materials of life’s quiddity into high art. http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=15Mon, 18 Jun 2007 10:21:52 -0500Over 2,300 people participated in the opening day of Crystal Bridges at the Massey!  Visitors of all ages stopped by to view our inaugural exhibition William Christenberry:  Photographs, 1961-2005. Chief curator Chris Crosman gave several informal gallery talks throughout the day, and Janelle Redlaczyck, curatorial assistant, led families through their own photography project making "sunprints".  It was clear from the level of interest and the comments received that our audiences are going to make good use of our interim gallery and programs while the museum is under construction.  Ongoing hours of operation are Thursday and Saturday, 10 to 5, Friday 10 to 8, and Sunday 1 to 5.  Program details are posted on our web site.   http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=14Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:13:50 -0500I had the good fortune to preview the new Steven Holl designed Bloch Building of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City recently.  This was my first view of the completed project, though Margi Conrads, curator of American art, had given me a hard hat preview earlier during construction.  As has been noted by Richard Lacayo in the May 31 issue of Time, and numerous articles in the Kansas City Star for recent weeks, the architecture is spectacular.  Innovative, distinctive with a singular presence, but thoughtful, graceful and of a scale that makes its exploration a novel adventure.  As has been said, in a time when art museum architecture often competes at the expense of the art housed inside, Holl’s design -- and the Nelson-Atkins’ curatorial sensitivities -- makes for a rarely seen harmony between building and contents.  An added surprise was the seamless integration of the architecture into the landscape.  This urban park flows on top of the Bloch Building and out onto the great south lawn of the original building.  It is a sophisticated, urban expression of our own desire at Crystal Bridges to create a place where art, nature and life intersect.http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=13Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:50:26 -0500The Museum’s portrait of George Washington by Charles Willson Peale has been on an “around the world” tour for the past several months, most recently in Beijing and Shanghai, China, and is about to experience “Washington crossing the Baltic” in the words of Liz Workman who is coordinating travel between China and Russia. The painting is part of a ground-breaking exhibition organized by the Guggenheim Museum in partnership with the Terra Foundation for American Art, entitled, Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation. It is the first historical survey of American painting to be shown in either China or Russia and in the fall the exhibition will also travel to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain after it closes at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.   Among the iconic images in American Art, Peale’s portrait was commissioned, possibly by Washington himself, as a gift to a French nobleman, the Marquis de Chastellux, serving under General Rochambeau. The Marquis is considered one of the key strategists at the Battle of Yorktown as indicated by the French naval ships blockading the harbor in the lower left section of the painting. Chastellux also served as translator among Washington and the French commanders and became a close, personal friend of the general. Indeed, for most of the past two-hundred plus years George Washington has been living in France, owned until 2004 by descendents of the Marquis. Of course, when the painting finally returns to this country and to Bentonville, it is unlikely we will want him touring any other foreign countries for awhile as the painting takes its place among the master works of the permanent collection.        http://www.crystalbridges.org/Blog/?id=12Wed, 30 May 2007 16:41:59 -0500Today is the second anniversary of the announcement of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.  At that time, an award-winning web site was launched that has served as a fundamental communications tool for our efforts to provide information about this project.  It has served us well, but is now being replaced with a new site with more dynamic graphics, a more powerful press area, and the ability to post blogs to keep those interested in our activities up to date. We are very pleased that the new web site will allow people inquiring about volunteer and staff positions to directly register that interest with us.  It will also provide significantly greater access to ongoing information about the progress of construction as site photos are posted.   And it will be the porthole to the activities about to commence in Bentonville when we open Crystal Bridges at the Massey on Saturday, June 16 during Bentonville's ArtWalk event.  If you are in the area, please join us that day as we open our exhibit space with photos and models of the construction project, as well as our opening special exhibition, soon to be announced.  A fantastic team of architects, engineers, contractors and consultants has been established to facilitate the design and construction of this world-class facility.  A core staff is working hard to build a collection worthy of the building; all lead by our mission to create a special place where art, nature and life intersect for everyone.