Villa College Night '09

Live music in the Inner Peristyle

Anyone who has ever had the chance to attend an after-hours party at the Villa knows that as beautiful as the place is in the daylight, nighttime transforms it into an almost magical place. This week we hosted our annual "College Night" event, attended by faculty and students from universities all around Southern California. Giving tours on College Night is always a fun experience, because the students are there to have a good time and they come into the galleries with a laid back curiosity that makes for great discussion. Aside from offering tours of conservation labs and various galleries in the museum, we had lots of great food and drinks, live music by the Boulder Acoustic Society in the Inner Peristyle garden, and historical reenactors from Legio VI Victrix wandering around the museum portraying Roman soldiers and civilians (including Pliny the Elder and a medicus equipped with a real wax tablet) in full costume and gear. It was a long work day, but a very enjoyable evening.

Glass and gem handling gave guests a chance to learn how ancient glass was made and how engraved gems were carved.

Two Legio VI actors, a soldier and this betrothed, wandering the Outer Peristyle garden at sunset.

Me, giving one of my gallery talks on the "mystery of the red shroud mummy."

The Inner Peristyle after dark.

I missed Pliny the Elder, but I did manage to get my picture taken with two of the soldiers from Legio VI. It was a photo opportunity not to be missed!

Looking vs. Seeing

Every so often in my time as a museum educator I have had the opportunity to teach blind and low vision groups. The most recent opportunity came this summer, when a group from the Braille Institute in Santa Barbara came to the Villa. Sadly, in the past blind or low vision groups have not found the museum a very accommodating place. People can be impatient with blind visitors, perhaps not realizing at first that they cannot see. Other problems can occur with seeing-eye dogs, if security officers are not properly instructed in how to deal with them. Sometimes there is also an attitude that those without sight cannot really enjoy a museum which, after all, is a place designed to offer a visual experience. How could someone without sight truly "experience" such a place?

In preparation for this group's visit, one of our education coordinators worked closely with a representative from the Braille Institute in order to prepare for their visit. I have to say, Eidelriz did a wonderful job. This group was composed of artists, so for our lesson we planned to discuss ancient painters. Eidelriz began the lesson with frescoes in the theater gallery. As she talked about ancient frescoes, she passed around "touchables" such as lime putty (in a plastic baggie), small examples of modern frescoes, paint brushes, and minerals for the group to handle. Touchables are what you might call Eidelriz's specialty, so she was eager to see how our touchable collection could help improve the museum experience for blind and low vision visitors.

Eidelriz in the museum with the group

The fresco portion of the lesson went off like gangbusters, and we moved on to my part of the lesson--discussing painted sculpture. I chose to talk about our little three-foot marble sculpture of Venus in the Basilica, because there are still traces of pigment within the folds of her drapery, and we know she was painted using the encaustic technique (mixing hot wax with powdered pigment). Not only was it a different medium, but it was a chance to discuss a different painting technique. The only significant difference in my conversations with blind and low vision visitors compared with sighted visitors is my effort to over-describe the object we are discussing. Once I described the statue, we passed around beeswax and discussed how it was used to make paint, and I told them more about the history of the sculpture. Also, when preparing for the lesson the day before, I had the idea of encouraging the group to touch the marble columns on either side of the statue. Those columns are just part of the architecture, so they are fair game for touching. By touching the columns, the group got a good idea of the cool, slippery smooth surface of marble and why encaustic painting might have been a good technique for the artist to use with that medium.

Thanks to the touchables, the time in the galleries went very well. Afterward the group gathered in the education studio to do some painting of their own. Eidelriz created a small workspace for each person, taping paper to the table and using masking tape to create a border they could feel framing the area they were to paint. Each person also received paint brushes and a palette (i.e. a paper plate). Each pile of paint was labeled with a different number of dots along the edge of the plate, enabling the blind painters to distinguish between the different colors.

Inside the Education Studio

At the end of their time in the studios, we asked some of the participants the question I posed earlier: How could someone without sight really experience a museum, a place primarily designed to be a visual experience? One woman in particular had some great things to say. She said everyone has a different way of learning and experiencing the world. "I can't see, but I'm still learning something. And maybe one day things will be better and we can feel everything."

A painting made by one of the participants

Single Again

Well, kind of. A week ago Eric left for a month-long research trip abroad to study artifacts he will be discussing in his dissertation. Consequently, I have the month of October to myself. Now, I'm sure most women might feel a bit down at the thought of such a long separation, but I appreciate solitude and planned to make the most of it. That is, until Murphy's Law kicked in: I put Eric on a plane and then promptly got sick, falling victim to a vicious cold. Interacting with the public so much at work makes colds part and parcel to the whole teaching gig, but this one distinguished itself by robbing me of my voice about two days in. So not only can I not teach, but I can't call anyone to lament my circumstances. Of course I know I don't really have anything to complain about, but having no voice is very frustrating and this cold has put a serious crimp in my plans.

I'm sure my voice will return soon, but in the meantime I've been forced to slow down a little. It has been awhile since my last post because I've spent most of my spare time these past few weeks working on a book proposal and writing a sample chapter to accompany it. Nothing may come of it, but the concept has been met with some interest. The idea was inspired by my teaching experiences in the museum and my love of ancient history. If I ever have news to share on that score, I promise to go into more detail. Until then, keep your fingers crossed!

Seven

Since 2001, this day has always inspired reflection. Reflection on the events of a day I know I will never be able to forget and how it changed our world, but for me it has also become a time of personal reflection. Quite unintentionally, September has become a month marking the anniversaries of some of the most defining days of my adult life. On September 11, 2002, I signed the lease on my first apartment in Los Angeles, and so it's a day I remember as the beginning of my time in L.A. On September 24, 2006, I married Eric. September 9, 2007 was my first day at the Getty, which in my mind marks a significant advance in my professional career. So, as you can see, for me this is a month of anniversaries.

A lot can happen in seven years. People always ask if I feel like a city girl now that I've been here for a few years. "Not really," is my usual response. I have gotten used to this city, but I don't think I'll ever reach a point where I feel attached or sentimental about it. Rather, in the last seven years I've become something else: Someone who is just as comfortable cruising up Sunset Boulevard as the four mile road back home. Someone who has taken many a VIP group of big city executives or celebrities through major museum exhibitions but knows just as well what it's like working on the line at Donnelley's. I'm glad I've acquired that versatility, but moving away from one's roots can make them harder to hang on to, and that can be a depressing reality. Over the last seven years I have given that idea a lot of thought, and ultimately have taken a lesson from one of my favorite novelists, Sharyn McCrumb, who is a self-described Cosmic Possum. What in the bloody blazes is that, you ask? As McCrumb puts it,

"The term, coined by Tennessee poet Jane Hicks, (Blood and Bone Remember: Poems from Appalachia, Jesse Stuart Foundation Press, 2005) refers to people of Southern mountain heritage who have acquired modern sophistication without losing touch with their regional origins." She continues, "For Cosmic Possums culture is not an either-or proposition. The trick is to move into the future without letting go of the past, because if you lose your cultural identity, you have nothing to sustain you in the modern rootless world which lurches from one ephemeral trend to another."

Now, I come from the plains of Illinois, not mountains of southern Appalachia, but the point is well-taken. Living in L.A. can be a very homogenizing experience if you let it. People in the city tend to look with disdain or condescension at any region of rural America, and it can be very tempting to simply make yourself into the image of whatever "ephemeral trend" is currently raging. But you can choose to take a different perspective. One good thing about being in a city full of people who are from somewhere else is that you learn to value, take pride in, and appreciate the gift of the past and your own story of "Back where I come from..." That is the outlook I've chosen to take, and based on the frequency with which I'm asked "You're not from around here, are you?" I must be getting it right.

So if--regionally speaking--I'm not exactly a Cosmic Possum, what am I? In 1980 (the year I was born) the schoolchildren of Illinois voted to make the whitetailed deer the state animal. The whitetailed deer does seem appropriate--it's certainly the animal you're most likely to see tripping over the roads and through the cornfields of my native Cumberland County.

...Yeah, that'll do--I'm a Cosmic Whitetail.

Touchable Venus

The newly installed "touch statue", depicting the goddess Venus leaving the bath. It is a replica of a work by 19th century sculptor Antonio Canova.

Ever since the Villa reopened in 2006, the Education department has been working to develop a "touchables" program at the museum. The idea of touchables in art museums has been around for awhile, but it has gained real popularity in recent years. We have been incorporating touchables like paint brushes, sculpting tools, minerals, and so on in our daily teaching for some time now. This month we raised the touchables program to a whole new level with the installation of a "touch statue"--that is, a statue that visitors can touch. The "touch statue," of course, is not an artifact but a modern replica. Actually, if I want to be strictly accurate it is a replica of a replica of a replica. Did you get that? Yeah, me neither. When you say it out loud it sounds like you need a little flow chart to understand it. Let me attempt to clarify: The statue is a late 20th century CE replica of an 19th century CE copy of a 2nd century CE Roman copy of a 4th century BCE Greek sculpture of the goddess Aphrodite. In other words, we copied an 18th century sculpture that was a copy of an ancient Roman sculpture that was a copy of an ancient Greek sculpture.

I hope that makes sense. Anyhow, this touchable statue was recently installed in the West Belvedere at the end of the Outer Peristyle garden. Part of the fun of working in a museum is getting to see what goes on behind the scenes, so I thought I would share a little of it with you with a look at the installation of the new touch statue.

Venus in the stone laboratory, being stabilized & secured for her move to the West Belvedere.

Moving through an underground passage at the museum.

A careful ride down the ramp in the Outdoor Classical Theater.

Down another ramp into the Herb Garden.

Through the Herb Garden.

Finally, at the West Belvedere.

As you can see from the pictures, the Villa site isn't exactly designed for easy installation of objects outside of the museum galleries. Venus' journey to the West Belvedere was cautious and slow. Part of the motivation of placing her so far from the museum itself is to make sure visitors view this location as totally separate from the museum space, where touching is most definitely taboo. Keeping it out of the museum galleries helps to ensure that there is no (potentially confusing) exception to the strict "do not touch" policy inside the museum. The idea we hope to communicate is that the this is a space outside the museum where touching is allowed.

Now, maybe you are less cynical than I and this thought has not occurred to you up to this point, but I have to say I was pretty amused that a statue of a nude woman was chosen as a "touchable" statue. I mean, is it just me or is inviting people--ahem, especially men--to touch a statue of a naked woman just inviting trouble? (One word: Breasts.) And the fact that Venus happens to be posed in such a way to suggest she's trying to cover herself from the viewer only adds to my opinion that the choice of this Venus as the touch statue is just all sorts of wrong. I would love to say I trusted visitors not to be lewd, but given the irresistible combination of being able to touch and take pictures, I know better.

I'm sure this won't be the last you hear of the Villa's touch statue. Once the programming around it gets going there will be stories to share--of that I have no doubt.