Farewell

On this day, my last at the Villa, I'd like to share with you a farewell poem written by a former colleague of mine who left the Villa back in 2009. I liked it then, and I like it even more now that I have to say my own goodbye.

Farewell
Sirens
In their mournful wake
Bid me their farewell
As I sail eastward
Into the dark and nebulous passage
Charted by no map in the world
But the one carved into my heart.

I still remember
A lonesome villa by the sea
That seems quite so long ago...
For even memories can get old
But the heart withers not
Neither is it afraid of age’s blows
Nor fades away in the hours’ passing storms.

Smiles and whispers,
Tears and laughter,
Some as fleeting as a lovely sunset
Some lasting like the sights
Of those beautiful gallery teachers
Let me be drunk in those reveries
Beneath the Dionysos’ sky.

Regards and thank you all
For the memories
Bright and rare,
For the stories
You’ve chosen to share,
For the white and travertine,
And, why not, for the coffee and lemon tea.

Farewell...
To the marble halls,
To the winter’s early night falls,
To the spring’s rousing signs,
To the garden full of thyme,
To the summer’s brightest rays
To the autumn’s lovely gray.

To the sirens’ melodies fine,
To the clouds in the bluest sky,
To the yellow marble steps,
To the gallery teachers gorgeous,
To the rows of sycamores,
To the strands of soft willows
Bless me now, Hermes, I shall go.

--Myat Noe (2009)

At the Natural History Museum

Eric's birthday was this past Wednesday, and this weekend he wanted to celebrate by taking Liam to the Natural History Museum. He has lots of fond memories of visiting the museum from his childhood, and now he wants to share it with Liam. Of course, I love museums too, so this was a treat for the whole family. Until today, the only museum Liam had visited was the Villa, making this trip his first to the Natural History Museum. We arrived at the museum early, thinking to get in a good visit and still fit naptime in for Liam around midday. It turned out to be a good strategy all around, because as early-birds we had many galleries to ourselves when we first arrived. 

Although Liam was at times more preoccupied with attempts to extricate his favorite "ca-cas" (translation: goldfish crackers) from the diaper bag, as you can see from the pictures he did break free from the bondage of his stroller and engage with some of the exhibits. His favorite galleries were the dioramas and dinosaur halls, but the touchables gallery, where he could touch all of the exhibits, was the biggest hit. At his age touching is so important to learning and connecting, so that space was by far the one in which he was the most engaged.

Museum person that I am, I have to say that one of the things I enjoyed most about our visit was the novelty of just being a visitor. It was also great to have a family outing and spend some time together after so many weeks of Eric working weekends. Given the success of our first visit, I have no doubt we will be making another trip to the NHM again soon!

Daddy and Liam check out the African elephants.

Touching animal skins with Mommy in the touchables gallery.

Big dinosaur, little visitor.

My, what big teeth you have!

Really, Mom? Another picture?

A future paleontologist? A forensic anthropologist, perhaps?

Within These Halls

Ancient survivors are gathered protectively within these historic halls.

Made elite by the accident of their preservation, here representatives of earthly alien

   civilizations stand sentry;

Objects peculiar and enigmatic to the crowds of gazers who float directionless and dazed

   through the cool airy corridors and vaulting galleries.

In this exceptional place aloof remnants of remote pasts, though silent, actively seek

   to live again in mortal imaginations.

Most passing minds remain dark; the murmuring gazers are nearly all cursory

   in their explorations.

Pallid, rigored bodies of cold marble, bronze festering with inexorable green decay, and

   jagged shards—the orphaned red and black wreckage of once-elegant flowing clay lines—

Remain insensible and meaningless under fleeting, incurious glances.

And yet the survivors are not frustrated in their pursuit.

A skilled and studied few walk among the gazers, speaking history, sparking understanding

   and recognition and igniting new, living meanings in the minds of those who draw near.

The very breath of their words resuscitates these ruined remnants of past centuries, and the

   survivors breathe once more.

If only for a moment, the passions, beauties, terrors, and toils of a distant and dead antique

   live again.

AMW

August 2012

How Do You Look at Art?

These days with summer ending and school starting up again, it has been a little slower around the museum.  Last week I was giving a gallery talk to two visitors (yes, just two), and one of them commented that they were about to take a trip to Italy and asked, "Can you give us any tips about how to look at ancient art?"  It was an excellent question, given that not all museums have the kind of in-gallery educational programming you find at the Villa, and these visitors wanted to be prepared to get the most out of their experience on their own.

It just so happens that over the summer we educators at the museum had just had a discussion amongst ourselves on just that topic--how do you look at art?  We divided forces and each group came up with a "top ten" list of tips on how to look at art in a museum setting.  The list below, which I shared with those visitors that day, is the result of my group's efforts.  Naturally, every museum professional will likely have a different take on the subject, but I think the list below is direct and simple and therefore easily used.

1. Remember to read the label LAST.
2. Do not enter a museum or gallery with the intention to see everything.
3. Go to an artwork that interests you or attracts you.
4. Find the best vantage point (try different ones).
5. Take your time and challenge yourself to look longer.
6. How does it fit into the surroundings?  (Take a look at the gallery installation and what other artworks are on display in the same gallery.)
7. What details draw you in?
8. What is it made of?
9. What do you understand and what don't you understand about it?
10. Be open to silence and conversation--balance your own reflection and sharing your thoughts with others.

Keep in mind that these are just suggestions, not hard and fast rules, but they will get you off to a good start if you're interested in getting a little something more from your next museum visit.

Teaching Philosophy

Recently I was asked to write a teaching philosophy for a staff ed. session on teaching theory at work.  "Staff ed." sessions are the museum's version of internal professional development exercises.  While I'm all for professional development, I confess that interminable discussions on museum education theory are, for me, the professional equivalent of eating my brussels sprouts.  Maybe it's my Midwestern no-nonsense practicality, but I find that you improve your skills at a task by doing it, not by talking about doing it.  Theory has its place, of course, and can be used as a tool to improve an educator's teaching skills, but I see many educators fall in love with theory, discussing theory, and listening to themselves discuss theory.  When this love affair with theory takes over, these discussions quickly descend into intellectualizing theoretical sessions that are ultimately of little or no practical use.  

My view on the matter is that, at best, education theory is plain common sense, and often is not all that helpful to me when I'm in the trenches teaching everyday.  In any case, I don't think of myself primarily as an educator--I think of myself as an historian who makes history accessible to people and enjoys sharing it with them.  So, having no formal training in the field of education, and having absolutely no idea how to go about writing a personal "teaching philosophy," you can imagine with what wild ecstasy I greeted the assignment.  However, rather than take the assignment as an instruction to clumsily try and pretend to an education background I don't have, I decided to sit down and just bang out my opinion of what it is I set out to do when I get up in front of a group of people in the museum.  To my surprise, I knocked out a document that I rather like, so I thought I would share it with you.  


Whether it would meet the approval of someone with professional training in education, I don't know--but it spells out my genuine take on how and why I approach talking to the public about ancient history the way I do.  Not art, mind you--history.  I am firmly in the camp that ancient artifacts are first and foremost historical and archaeological evidence.  Thinking of them as "art" prioritizes aesthetics over history and archaeology, and when you get down to is really just us re-appropriating these objects for our own purposes in our modern culture and society.

******

The core of my teaching philosophy is this:  to make the ancient world meaningful to my audience by demonstrating how the distant past is relevant to our world today.  And, in making the past relevant to contemporary society, to create a genuine appreciation of ancient history in people and provide them with a new perspective on the past.  Ultimately, when a person’s time with me is done, I want her to leave thinking about the past in some way that is different than the way she thought about it before.  For example, a key idea I always emphasize and try to help the public understand is that ancient “art” in many cases was not created as “art” but was created to be functional.  By bringing this important concept to their attention, I want to not only get them to understand the original functional nature of the artifacts we are discussing, but to open their eyes to the fact that the objects we spend so much time looking at and admiring on an aesthetic basis were often not created to be viewed as art or to be seen by mass audiences.

Good teaching should have more to do with questions than with answers.  The value of a history teacher lies in her ability to engage her audience with the material and encourage them to develop their own questions about the objects, the way they have functioned through time and how we continue their stories by finding our own meaning in them, the past, and how museums such as the Getty Villa present the past to the public. When I stand in front of an audience, my goal is not to weigh their thinking down with names and dates that in themselves offer no thoughtful insight into the ancient world, but to provide a social and historical context for the objects around them and show them how to use factual information to understand history and ask questions about why and how things happened the way they did.  

Yet teaching history must be more than just posing questions and encouraging the audience to pose them.  I must also use the artifacts and other historical evidence to show people how they can be used to support answers to our questions.  The public often approaches history with the idea that it is about learning the “truth” of what "really happened" in the past, but I set out to express to them the idea that history and archaeology are disciplines marked by contested theories and interpretations which are always open to reevaluation  and refinement based on new evidence, new perspectives, or new understandings of existing evidence. 

As an historian, I also consider it my responsibility help the public learn how to think independently within the museum—discouraging them from floating through the galleries as a passive learner and instead encouraging them to actively engage educators, labels, and other didactic resources, whether by questioning or critical thinking.  This is a skill which must be developed through example and practice, and it is my hope that my teaching helps people to refine their existing skills in this vein, or to begin in that moment to develop them, and thus create visitors who are more alive to the possibilities of educational experiences in a museum.  In this way, I endeavor to teach visitors how to take ownership of their own learning experience.  Therefore, to transform a visitor’s learning experience in the museum from a passive to an active one is another key component of my teaching philosophy.

Through formulating questions, articulating ideas, close looking, and discussion, the ultimate goal of my teaching is to create the framework for a rewarding intellectual exchange and a meaningful learning experience in the museum.  As is the case with so many aspects of the human experience, the ideal museum learning experience is something that escapes strict definition--but, like pornography, you know it when you see it:  that tell-tale spark of recognition, or discovery, or even revelation in the eyes of your audience.  For me, those moments when I have managed to share my love of ancient history in a meaningful way with others are the moments that motivate me in my teaching and make what I do a worthwhile professional pursuit.

Letters from Students

I think most people would agree that it is always nice to get thank you notes. One of the most entertaining aspects of my job is getting to read the thank yous that sometimes come in from students I taught during their visit to the museum. Teachers tend to turn the project into an assignment that helps students with their letter writing skills, so many of the thank yous arrive grouped in packets of letters from students. I thought I would share some selected excerpts with you from the most recent packet of letters I received--reproduced here just as the students wrote them.

"Dear Ms. Amber...When we were talking you just told us to be quiet and you didn't get mad at us even a little bit. All of the stuff was cool. I hope I could come again."

"Dear Amber...My favorite thing was the beautiful garden and the pond with the fishes. I learned how to make mummys, and how Hercules restled the tiger and got his skin. The visit to the museum helped me because it reviewed the stuff that we learned in the classroom."

"Dear Amber...Thank you...you took us to see the culpture of the sirens. You showed us the shandalers with Mudusa next and after that you showed us the mummy. Finally you showed us that hallway were you let us sit down. I also learned how Mudusa and how see became that beast. This helped me understand some of my questions like do gods and goddesses have emotions. The answer was yes."

"Dear Ms. Amber...Thank you for helping us out! Thank you for taking the time to read my letter, time being limited and there being so many other letters. Thanks again, and hopefully I'll be back soon!"

This one, I think, is my favorite:

"Dear Ms. Amber...Thank you so much for walking us threw the Getty Villa museum. I enjoyed going their very much. I hope you have a nice life."

What Do You See?

Even before I started teaching at the Villa, this statue (pictured below) was always one of my favorite artifacts in the museum. Now I don't have any sort of attachment to the Neolithic period, but I do think the glimpses into the distant past that artifacts like this one offer are rather fascinating. It's also somewhat liberating to talk about artifacts from a time for which we have no written records. The lack of sources from these ancient people explaining or offering us insight as to who or what this object represents means there will always be a mystery about it. Given that freedom, I usually kick off my conversation with visitors by inviting them to take a thoughtful look at the piece and ask, "What do you see?" Frankly, I think the answer is pretty obvious--just show this to any junior high kid and see what kind of reaction you get--but in most cases people are shy about discussing sex with a group of strangers. They all want to have their curiosity satisfied, but no one wants to be the one to ask.

So, what do I see? I see a hermaphroditic deity. The museum curators have chosen to identify this figure as a "fertility goddess"--an identification that focuses on the double entendre of breasts and vulva in the center of the statue and the squatting position of the legs. (Way back when, women squatted to give birth. Really, if you think about it, squatting makes much more sense--you want to work with gravity, not against it by laying on your back.) However, the curatorial explanation of the object as well as an academic article I found which specifically discusses this statue completely ignore what I consider to be the patently obvious phallic head and neck of the statue. If you take those features into consideration, I think it's a lot harder to think of this figure as simply female. Just taking into account what we can see, I think it's quite probable this deity was meant to represent both male and female. If it is the case that this statue is meant to represent, not just the creative power of the female, but the combined creative power of male and female, it likely would have made the image a much more potent and effective one from the perspective of its ancient worshipers.

Of course my analysis of this prehistoric object is just as subject to debate as that of the curators, but at least it doesn't ignore the obvious!

Cypriot fertility deity, 3000-2500 BCE

A Very Special Top Ten

Interacting with the public on a daily basis can be a pleasure or a pain. So much of the pain side of things could be eliminated if more people practiced a little courtesy and consideration. Recently I decided to attempt to define proper museum behavior. Below is the list* that emerged from my exasperation--

Top Ten Ways to Not be a Pain in a Museum Educator's Ass:

10. Do not stand in front of someone in a wheelchair. Just because someone is in a wheelchair does not mean he or she is a piece of furniture.

9. Do not assume your speaker is a docent volunteer or a student.

8. Do not ask the speaker, "So, is this a good tour?"

7. Do not interrupt or ask a question in an attempt to show the group what you think you know. We are not interested in contests and will be happy to simply take your word for it that you know everything.

6. Do not arrive late and then ask for a recap when the speaker asks if there are any questions.

5. Do not ask about other objects in the gallery when they have nothing to do with the subject of the conversation.

4. DO NOT TOUCH.

3. DO NOT TOUCH THE EDUCATOR.

2. If you are listening to an educator in the galleries, listen--do not stick your nose in a label and read. Chances are the educator knows more than the label does.

1. DO say thank you when the tour ends.

Keep in mind this is only the top ten--but it will get you off to a good start.

*With thanks to my colleague, Kristen, who helped me decide which items truly belong in the top ten. The sarcasm, alas, is all mine.

The Chimaera of Arezzo

Chimaera of Arezzo (pictured here on display in Florence), Etruscan, ca. 400 BCE

"The Chimaera...a raging monster, divine, inhuman--a lion in front, a serpent behind, a goat between--and breathing fire. Bellerophon killed her, trusting signs from the gods."

Homer, The Iliad

The Chimaera of Arezzo exhibition is, for me, one of the most anticipated exhibitions of the year. Unlike many other special exhibitions at the Villa, I had opportunities to attend scholarly talks on this show long before it opened, so I had a great preview of what it would be about. Also, it is a pretty big deal that Italy has allowed such a nationally treasured artifact to travel to L.A. This exhibition marks the first time this Etruscan bronze sculpture has ever traveled to the United States. On top of all of this, the great myth attached to the Chimaera of Arezzo is a wonderful tale that appealed so much to people over the centuries, the story eventually made its way into our modern Western culture and iconography (albeit in a somewhat modified form). All of these elements make this installation one of the most interesting and memorable I have yet seen at the Villa.

Homer's account (dated to the 7th c. BCE) of the myth of the hero Bellerophon and the chimaera is the first evidence of writing we have from ancient Greece. The fact that this myth shows up so early in Greek literature suggests this was both an antique and popular tale, even then. The myth tells how Bellerophon, mounted on the winged horse Pegasus, is able to fly above the Chimaera beyond the reach of its flaming breath and cast down a spear from above to kill the monster. The image of Bellerophon flying above the monster, spear at the ready, was depicted on everything from large vases to miniature oil jars to engraved gemstones. These containers and luxury items were traded throughout the Mediterranean world, carrying the story of Bellerophon and the chimaera with them.

Calyx krater, Faliscan, ca. 370 BCE

Thus, an antique tale from Greece made its way west to Italy, where Bellerophon's defeat of the chimaera became the most commonly depicted heroic triumph. The Ertruscans in particular were quite taken with the imagery. The most stunning representation of the chimaera we have from Etruria is the Chimaera of Arezzo. The statue is imposing by itself, but scholars think it likely was only part of a monumental offering made to a religious sanctuary. Most representations of the chimaera include Bellerophon flying above, mounted on Pegasus, ready to launch his spear and kill the monster. Scholars believe the Chimaera of Arezzo must have once been paired with an equally impressive bronze sculpture of Bellerophon on Pegasus, which would have been displayed above it. Although the Chimaera was found in a votive burial with numerous bronze statuettes, no evidence of this sculpture was found, so its existence remains only an educated guess.

If an artifact has a documented history, I find visitors are just as curious about the "modern" history of an artifact as they are about its ancient context and history. As it happens, the modern history of the Chimaera of Arezzo is one of the most well documented of surviving ancient works of art. It was discovered near the Italian town of Arezzo in 1553 and quickly became the crown jewel in the antiquities collection of Cosimo I de Medici, Grand Duke of Etruria. He saw the sculpture as a magnificent testament to the legacy of Etruria, which he claimed for himself. (Naturally!) Cosimo saw himself as Bellerophon and referred to his enemies as "chimaeras." That is, he intended to defeat his enemies as thoroughly as Bellerophon had dispatched the chimaera. Cosimo's adoption of the Chimaera into his collection made the sculpture famous, and ever since it has been one of the most celebrated works of art from Italy's ancient past.

St. George and the Dragon Detail of an Illuminated manuscript, French, about 1410 CE

One of the aspects of this exhibition I like is how it brings the myth of Bellerophon and the Chimaera full-circle. Though the myth declined in popularity during the Roman imperial period, the myth endured in western areas of the Roman empire--and even in some eastern areas, as recent archaeological discoveries have shown (see the illustration of the mosaic floor, below). By the early Christian period, images of this pagan myth were sometimes even paired with Christian symbols. The Medieval image of St. George impaling a fire-breathing dragon seems to be a derivation of the Bellerophon myth transformed into more Christian terms. That is, good, represented by St. George, defeats the dragon, which can be seen as a representation of the devil. This is illustrated in the exhibition by the display of an illuminated manuscript (see above) from the Getty Research Institute's collection. The Villa curators never miss an opportunity to deepen and broaden special exhibitions with manuscripts from the GRI. The GRI's holdings are truly vast, and I am glad our curators here use them so effectively.

A less tangible issue addressed by the exhibition is why the popularity of Bellerophon eventually declines in Greece but becomes exceedingly popular abroad, especially in Italy. One scholar has suggested that Bellerophon becomes an anti-hero in Greek ideology because of his tragic end. In the accounts of Homer and Hesiod, Bellerophon was brought to ruin by Zeus for having the hubris to mount Pegasus and attempt to fly up to Mt. Olympus in order to join the gods there. In Italy, on the other hand, it seems there was no strong central ideology influencing the perception of Bellerophon. Instead, religion in Italy was more of a private, individual practice, and so Bellerophon became venerated as one who could travel between worlds (that is, the earthly realm and the divine realm) and could therefore mediate with the gods on behalf of the dead. This idea is illustrated by a gold ring in the exhibition, which scholars suggest was created specifically to be worn by a deceased individual in the hope that Bellerophon would intercede on his behalf before the gods and aid him in his journey to a life after death.

Roman mosaic floor dating to ca. 260 CE found in Palmyra, Syria

As much as I like this exhibition, I am disappointed in one respect. The mosaic floor shown above, found in Palmyra, Syria, is not a part of this exhibition. This in itself is not a major disappointment, since curators are often unable to get loan approval for every object they want to include from other museums. Also, it occurs to me that in this case, the floor is possibly still in situ, right where the archaeologists found it. Even so, instead of leaving the object out completely, curators chose to display a scale facsimile of the mosaic. What bothers me about this decision is that the number one question I get from visitors is, "Is that real?" By that they mean, "Is it really ancient or is it a copy?" One of the most shocking things I learned when I stepped into a museum gallery as an educator is that many, many people think that museums only display copies of works of art. I am happy to change their perspective and assure them that when they are in a museum they are looking at the real thing, unless it is specifically stated otherwise on the label. Now, of course the facsimile in the exhibition is marked as such, and it is a great illustration to view in the context of the exhibit. Still, I can't help but be a little disappointed that this time, when a visitor asks me, "Is it real?" I have to say no.

Be that as it may, this is an exhibition not to be missed by Southern California museum goers. The Chimaera alone would be well worth the drive to Malibu, but when you add the Golden Graves of Vani to it, you have an irresistible pairing. There will be more from me on Vani in a later post--I am still slogging through the archaeology of the site, so I need a bit more time before I can have a decently informed opinion.

Catching Up

March turned out to be a rough month. For nearly the whole month I fought a nasty, nasty bug that just kept evolving from one affliction to another until finally the doctor agreed he should probably give me something to help me beat it. One of the little carrier monkeys who come through the museum with school groups infected me, I'm sure. It was one of the fiercest bugs I have caught in a long, long time. Even so, at this point I think it is safe to say I'm going to live. In fact, I feel pretty much back to my normal healthy self. So I have spent most of this week trying to catch up with my life, which somehow seems to have just gone on without me.

It is a good thing I was feeling healthier this Friday, because that morning I had two of the worst school groups I have had in a long time. I am happy to say that for the most part I have really positive experiences with school groups. However, I have come to the decision that 8th-12th graders are most likely to be something of a lost cause. My first group on Friday was an 8th grade group. Even better, their teacher had selected the "Art of Persuasion" lesson topic, which is meant to present art and architecture as means to persuade and shape opinions. This topic is absolutely something these students could understand--particularly with my comparisons with today's world. Unfortunately, oftentimes 8th graders simply refuse to speak because no one wants to take the chance they are going to seem foolish in front of their peers. For some reason I do not recall, at this age nothing matters more than what your peers think of you.

Anyhow, the lesson did not start off well. I took them to our "Men in Antiquity" gallery to compare a portrait head of Augustus with an earlier Roman Republican era portrait head of an old man. Once we arrived at the stop and they (pretty much) stopped talking, I realized some joker in the front had his iPod playing so loudly we could all hear the music coming from his pocket. I took care of that issue, but no matter what I did to develop a conversation about the portrait heads, I failed to get them to do more than stare at me with faint smiles on their faces. I am not afraid of silences, so I let them hang for awhile before I struggled on, hoping they would cave. They did not. Sadly, the rest of the lesson was essentially that same experience.

So that was discouraging. My next lesson was a more typical "Daily Life in the Ancient World" lesson with a class of 6th graders. Sixth graders are better than 8th graders in the sense that they are usually still willing to talk to you, so I expected this second hour of teaching to be better. It was better--the students were willing to talk about what they were seeing and asked some great questions. The trouble came when I brought them to the "Athletes and Competition" gallery to show them our Boxer's mosaic. Even though the mosaic was part of an ancient floor, curators chose to display it on the wall of the gallery. It is much easier to see it that way, and it also keeps it off of the floor, which is never a good place for something rare and valuable. Still, even on the wall, it is a tempting target for eager little fingers.

I have to say, I rarely have trouble with students touching artifacts at the Villa. It was a constant issue at LACMA, but here at the Getty I noticed it is much more rare. Well, Friday was that day of rare exceptions, and we had barely begun talking about the mosaic when a student reached out and touched the mosaic. I immediately gave them a forceful, "Do NOT touch" reminder. Half a minute later another student reached out and touched the mosaic. "I said don't touch! Was that not the first rule they talked to you about?" They nodded their heads. I continued. While we were talking, a student walked around from the back of the group and touched the mosaic. At that moment I pretty much lost it, and my raised voice threatening to remove the group from the galleries brought security sailing across the room to back me up.

I probably should have taken them out of the museum, but I felt guilty for losing my temper and stuck with the lesson. I am afraid my remaining school groups this year will pay for this group's violation of trust, however. It is an act of trust to set these antiquities out before people so they can see them, and it's disheartening how often it is violated. Just the other day one of my fellow educators told me some woman actually set her purse on one of the artifacts while she bent down to fix her shoe and had to be asked repeatedly by security to remove her purse! Such obliviousness constantly amazes me, and unfortunately it makes me ever less inclined to trust the public.

Sad, but true.

Excavating Egypt

Last week I finally had a chance to drive the two hours or so down to San Bernardino and check out the "Excavating Egypt" exhibition at California State University's Fullerton Art Museum. Originally I was supposed to go with Eric and our friend Kandace, but Saturday morning Eric woke up feverish with the flu. Since I work most weekends, this was my last chance to see the exhibit, so Kandace and I stuck with our plans. Not to worry, we left Eric well-supplied with cold medicine, cough drops, and tissues. (He's feeling much better today, in fact, so hopefully he's over the worst of it.)

I had never been to the Fullerton Art Museum before, despite its boast that it has the largest collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities west of the Mississippi. (Really?) It is a very small university museum, and obviously isn't used to a lot of traffic from visitors--the museum parking lot only has eight or so parking spaces marked "visitor." The dinky venue aside, I was looking forward to seeing the exhibit, which features finds made in the 19th century by pioneering Egyptologist William Flinders Petrie. The artifacts are on loan from the Petrie Museum of University College London, which houses over 80,000 ancient Egyptian and Sudanese artifacts.

The majority of the museum's collection was formed from artifacts Petrie (above) excavated during his prolific career in Egypt. He excavated at dozens of sites, and the Petrie collection is distinguished today as one of the most important Egyptological collections in the world, not just because of the quality of the collection, but because most of the objects come from documented archaeological contexts. As I tell visitors almost every day, many artifacts in museums across the world do not have documented archaeological contexts. Since most objects in the Petrie's collection do have such a context, we know so much more about them than we would otherwise because we know exactly where they were found.


So, you can see why I was looking forward to seeing this particular exhibit. The objects did not disappoint. They were some of the best ancient Egyptian artifacts I've seen outside of Egypt. I enjoy the sculptures and reliefs, but I have to say I'm usually most taken with the objects that represent the trappings of daily life--personal things someone wore or used so long ago. Jewelry, games, cosmetic jars, dolls, and so on. I have to say, though, the bronze pieces really caught my eye. I'm so used to seeing bronzes with the typical dark patina of centuries or green bronze disease, I was definitely impressed with the excellent condition of many of the bronze artifacts in this exhibit. You gotta love that dry desert climate. The flask below was my favorite bronze piece. It was made from a single sheet of bronze, hammered into shape. The workmanship is amazing--the metal was hammered into 1/40th of an inch in thickness.


As much as I enjoyed my chance to see these artifacts, the museum educator in me was front and center as I wandered through the galleries. The first thing that struck me was the text panels, which were loaded with text. That's what they are for, of course, but most of the time you want to limit the length as much as you can. People are not going to stand for five minutes in front of a text panel to read it. In fact, most visitors never read beyond the first paragraph. Text panels and labels can be great points of contention, so I'm just going to chalk these up to the fact that this exhibit had a very academic bend to it and was specifically intended for university audiences. The other two things that caught my attention have to do with the issue of display.

One choice that confused me was displaying a lion head "water spout" high up on the wall, way above the display cases. I get the idea--display it high up just as it would have been if it were in context on the edge of a temple roof. The problem is, a lot of visitors simply missed it because it was so high up, and even if you saw it you could not see it well because it was so high. Also, I spent a lot of time looking at that lion head, and I saw a solid sculptured head with no sign of any hole to act as a spout. The identification seems based on comparison with another lion head spout excavated at Lisht. I'm still not sure this means this lion head needs to be identified as a water spout. The photo below is not that great because there was very little light available, but it gives you an idea of how the lion was displayed in the gallery.

Kandace tried to take a picture of me pointing to the lion head, but there wasn't much light.

The other display choice that raised an eyebrow for me had to do with the one mummy portrait in the exhibition. If you take a look at the image below, you will see the protruding display case is surrounded by a wooden picture frame. Okay, so because this is a "portrait" it needs a picture frame? It's an amusing little addition, but unnecessary and misleading.

Overall, I definitely think the quality of the objects outweighs any negatives, and I'm glad I had the chance to see them before they leave town. And, I'll always be a fan of Petrie's archaeological legacy. I mean, this was a guy who lived in a tomb and was rumored to have stripped naked to explore cramped tomb shafts. That's a kind of hardcore archaeology that will never be again. He also anticipated the significant need to squeeze every bit of information out of even the smallest scrap of evidence from the past before it became the modern archaeological standard.

"The past is vanishing before our modern [eyes, it] changes yearly and daily. There is ever less and less to preserve and everything possible must be garnered before it has entirely vanished. The present has its most serious duty to history in saving the past for the benefit of the future." Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie

Orpheus, Hetairai, and Sirens, Oh My...

There is an interesting new exhibition opening at the Villa this week. While the subject of the Getty Villa's collection is Classical antiquity, this new exhibit features contemporary art. This is a particularly interesting and challenging teaching opportunity for me because I am by no means a fan of contemporary art. The exhibition I'm referring to is "Jim Dine: Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets)." The concept of the exhibit is that Jim Dine, a contemporary artist, created an exhibit after being inspired by objects in the Getty Villa's collection. In particular, he took his inspiration from "Poet as Orpheus with Two Sirens," "Statuette of a Dancer," and "Statuette of a Dancer Playing the Lyre."

All of these are ancient Greek artifacts made out of terracotta and are believed to come from southern Italy. The Orpheus and sirens are large, semi life-sized figures, but both dancer statuettes are less than twelve inches high. All of them at one time were brightly painted. The dancer figurines were possibly votive offerings to deities or funerary offerings to the deceased. The Orpheus group, according to the Getty, came from an ancient Greek burial in southern Italy. It has been suggested that the Orpheus figure is the deceased dressed as Orpheus, thus identifying himself with Orpheus's musical abilities and--maybe more likely--Orpheus's return from the gloomy Underworld. (Orpheus was one of a very few ancient Greek heroes that returned to earth after venturing into the Underworld.) Sirens, of course, are strange bird-woman creatures of Greek mythology who sing a "siren song." The sirens' song was so beautiful it was said to hypnotically seduce sailors and lure them to their deaths by causing them to shipwreck on the rocky shores of the island on which the sirens perched.

Statuette of a Dancer

Greek, 330-200 BCE

Statuette of a Dancer Playing the Lyre

Greek, 200-100 BCE

Poet as Orpheus with Two Sirens,

Greek, 350-300 BCE

This Orpheus group evoked in Dine's mind the idea of a poet surrounded by his muses. (This was his creative inspiration, but remember sirens are not muses.) The dancers took the place of the sirens surrounding the poet, and from that image he created his own artistic arrangement. You can see the images of his work installed at the Villa and a short film of Dine discussing the project here. Dine's artistic vision manifests itself in four eight-foot-high painted wood female figures modeled on the dancer figurines arranged around a seven-foot-high self-portrait head. The walls are covered in a poem by Dine, handwritten in charcoal. An audio recording of Dine reading his poem plays in the background. His poem wasn't written explicitly for this project, but it was written while he was working on it. As hallucinogenic as most contemporary art seems to me, I get this exhibit in the sense that I see that Dine is expressing a connection and communion with ancient artists.

In this instance, I think my perspective is disadvantaged with the archaeological truth behind the objects which inspired him. I've already mentioned that his central inspiration for the project, the Orpheus group, is a poet flanked by sirens--malevolent creatures that lured men to their deaths--not muses. Also, all of the objects he took as his creative focus are made of terracotta, and were created from molds. So, the idea of "communion" with the ancient artist loses its romanticism if you know Dine's counterpart 2,000 years ago (or so) was just slapping clay into a mold and firing the figurines in a kiln. Add to that knowledge the fact that these dancers do not at all represent muses. They likely represent hetairai--high-end, courtesan-type entertainers--who danced and played music as a way to demonstrate their cultured talents to their elite clientele. So, you can see how this knowledge kind of takes me out of the artistic mind-set...

However, I understand that Dine is separated from a detailed knowledge of the archaeology of these objects, which allows him to simply let his creative impulses carry him to his vision. For me, instead of seeing a contemporary artist communing with ancient artists, I see a twenty-first century man looking at this ancient artifacts completely through the lens of his own creative experience. The poem jotted on the walls of the exhibit is largely autobiographical, and in this literary expression as in the artistic expression, he sees himself as Orpheus, a poet: "Once brightly painted/I am a southern Italian singer and prophet/Listing to the left of my companions."

Dine's work is visually intriguing, and I can find some meaning in it (unlike a lot of other contemporary art), so in that sense I enjoy it. I was thinking about my own response to his work, and interestingly, I think I would be more accepting of his artistic license if his creative expression was limited to the poem. For some reason the added visual element narrows my window of artistic appreciation.

I didn't intend for this entry to be quite so long, but this has actually helped me clarify my own reaction to the exhibit, and I feel better now about presenting this show to the public. Attempting to assign any meaning for Dine's work for someone else would be doing the visitor and his art a disservice. Besides, as I think I've established here, the central meaning I find in it is the artist's unfamiliarity with the history of the artifacts that inspired him--and the average visitor isn't going to find such information all that helpful in their attempts to understand Dine's work. That being the case, all I can do is present them with the history of the project and then step back and allow them to gauge their own thoughts, reactions, and opinions.

All things considered, I think there is enough creativity in archaeology without contemporary artists adding to the mix. If you have an opinion about contemporary art being shown at a museum dedicated to antiquity, leave a comment--I'd like to hear what you think...

Onion Rings?

One day last week I brought a sixth grade school group to our last stop on their one hour tour of the museum, themed “Heroes, Gods, and Monsters.” The last stop I planned was a staple on the “HGM” tour—a very well-preserved statue of Heracles (that’s Hercules to all of you Latin speakers). Whether they’ve studied the story of Heracles yet in school or not, most kids are familiar with this hero and his story courtesy of the Disney movie. We had a very good discussion about Heracles wrestling and defeating the Nemean Lion, and I began to answer some final questions. As I was about to wrap things up, one little boy who I had seen start to raise his hand a few times finally raised it high. I called on him. “Why is he naked and where is his pee pee and what are those onion ring things?” The class teachers were standing at the back of the room and they immediately looked anywhere but my direction. Chickens. Just so you know, the part of the question that gave me pause was not the naked question—I get that one all the time. By this time I’ve had so many conversations with strangers about naked guys and missing penises, it doesn’t faze me one wit. What genuinely confused me was the onion rings. I had no idea what the heck he was talking about--maybe he was hungry. After all, it was almost lunchtime. I tried to figure out what he was asking, but he wouldn’t point out what he was talking about. Eventually a student next to me said, in barely a whisper, “Between his legs.” Oh. Realization dawned and I said, very matter-of-factly, “He’s naked to show that he is a hero, his pee pee got knocked off, and THAT is hair. Time for lunch!” The look on that poor sixth grader’s face when I said “hair” told me that puberty was going to come as a very nasty shock to him.

Geez, and I thought the naked question could get dicey sometimes. At least that is easily explained: Nudity (that’s how we describe it in art history—“naked” has, well, connotations) in Classical art means something. It means you’re probably looking at a hero, a god, or an athlete. It also was a way artists showed off the beauty of the male body, which was in their mind the most beautiful form the human body could take. Sorry, ladies—you are, in the words of an ancient Greek author, “deformed males.” Anyhow, pubic hair is another issue altogether, especially when you’re talking with a sixth grader who obviously has no idea of the pubescent horrors that await him.

Teachers accompanying school groups are always very worried that the students are going to ask about the nudity—God forbid kids should ask about what’s right in front of them. I’ve found if you answer the question matter-of-factly and don’t act shocked or scandalized, the kids don’t think much of it. Besides, I would never want to discourage a student from asking a question by making them feel as if they’ve done something wrong by asking about something they’re genuinely confused about. Just this Friday another gallery teacher got an email from a teacher about a student who had drawn a sketch of a nude on the project she had them work on in the museum. The email asked our gallery teacher if she had given the student permission to draw an anatomically correct male. Our teacher responded, saying the student was likely just drawing what he saw in the museum and yes, she had told the students to use the art they had seen as inspiration for their drawing project, although she did not specifically suggest they draw a nude. The response I think this narrow-minded educator deserved is much more to the point:

Dear Teacher,

Grow UP!

The Garden Path

This is the last day of my monthly three day weekend. I charged out of the office so fast on Friday I left an Amber-shaped hole in the wall as I left. Earlier this week, on Wednesday, we had two gallery teachers out sick on the same day. There are only four of us, so that meant half of our force was decimated. So, it was a crazy morning, but it also turned out to be one of the most beautiful sunny days we’ve had here in awhile. After lunch, I asked one of the other teachers if she’d like to go for a walk in the gardens to take advantage of the weather, and she thought it was a great idea. We ended up playing hookie for a good hour and a half, wandering through the gardens, chatting about nothing in particular, and soaking up the sun. It was a relaxing diversion after the craziness of the morning. The Villa's gardens are awesome. I can't believe rich people get something like that all to themselves.

These days aside from the usual teaching I'm also simultaneously preparing for a staff ed. session on Greco-Roman Egypt, teaching the UCLA ancient Egyptian religion class, and trying to study for the exhibit opening next week called Color of Life. These changing exhibits are fun to have at the museum, but it's a little stressful when they first arrive and you have only a short amount of time to learn enough about it to teach and discuss it intelligently with the public. This new exhibit features polychrome (multi-colored) sculpture from the ancient world through contemporary art. The academic premise of the show isn't very sound, but I think the public will like it.

Now that I have the exhibition catalogue for this show, I've been reading through it. Looking at some of the objects, I'm really wondering how we're going to handle any school groups we might bring into those galleries. Nudity is one thing--I can handle that--but one object, the Anatomical Venus , is quite another. It looks like a serial killer has carefully and dramatically exposed her innards--and she's pregnant. Disturbing. She was a wax model originally created in the 18th century CE to be a scientific, anatomically correct model for doctors to study. As such, she can be opened and closed. Her face is truly jarring--she looks dead or drugged or both. Even though the Venus is the stuff of nightmares, I prefer dealing with that wax model compared to contemporary art because at least the Anatomical Venus has an historical context. For the most part I loathe contemporary art, but it appears sometime soon I'm going to have to find something good and/or interesting to say about it because this show contains contemporary sculpture too.

I just realized yesterday that the 28^th of February, came and went and I didn’t even think about the fact that it marked five years since Eric and I have been together. Of course we’ve only been married a year, but if we’re counting time served (and I do) it’s been five. With a little luck and careful application of the right drugs, I think we just might go another five.

Cyclops Takes a Stake to the Eye

It's hard not to talk about what you do all day, so I'm sure a lot of what I end up posting here will be about what I spend most of my time doing--museum education. Usually people find it interesting to learn that museums (if they can afford it) have teachers. But considering museums are supposed to be educational institutions, a teaching staff makes perfect sense.

One of the regular teaching responsibilities we teachers have is keeping up with the monthly "Spotlight" objects. Every month, one object from the museum's collection is chosen to be "spotlighted" in a daily 15-20 minute gallery talk. The idea is to allow an opportunity for a more in-depth focus on one object. Spotlight talks are nice because the object changes every month, so it offers an opportunity to learn something new every month.

March's Spotlight object is a Etruscan pithos (a large storage jar) featuring the scene from The Odyssey where Odysseus blinds the cyclops Polyphemos. As you can imagine, a story about a man-eating cyclops taking a stake to the eye is a real crowd pleaser, so I think this is a fun object to feature. It's also nice to explore one object further because you never know what interesting trivia that may come up. For instance, with the pithos I learned something interesting about the myth of Pandora's box. As the story goes, Pandora was given a jar and instructed by Zeus to keep it closed, but she was unable to overcome her curiosity and opened it anyway. When she did, all of the evils of the world escaped from the jar. She was quick to close it again and managed to keep one element inside--Hope. Well, it turns out that the original Greek word used was "pithos" not "box." The 16th century CE mistranslation of "box" stuck, but nonetheless it was Pandora's pithos. So, if you ever find yourself on Jeopardy, remember--it was Pandora's pithos.

I am, if nothing else, a mine of useless information. Still, sometimes useless information has a way of becoming useful. For instance, if you ever find yourself stranded in an abandoned church in the Bavarian Alps during a blizzard, starving, searching for something edible and finding nothing but an old dirt encrusted flower pot and a daffodil bulb, you might find it very useful at that moment to know that daffodil bulbs are poisonous. For instance.