Little Monsters

 

Title (Year): A Sign on Rosie’s Door (1960), In the Night Kitchen (1970), Outside Over There (1981), Bumble-Ardy (2011)

Material: Paper, Ink, Water Color

Creator: Maurice Sendak

Collection: Maurice Sendak Collection, Permanent Collection of the Rosenbach Museum and Library

As a member of the generation called “millennials” (those born in the late 1980’s and 1990’s), I grew up reading and looking at the pictures in Where the Wild Things Are. Like most people my age, and even my parents’ ages, I was a huge fan.  I saw the Spike Jonze film adaption the weekend it was released in movie theaters. People gave me copies of both the soundtrack and the DVD as gifts.  Until I visited the Rosenbach Museum and Library on October 3^rd, I did not know Maurice Sendak had ever written or illustrated anything else.  Even after watching Sendak on The Colbert Report, I didn’t realize how prolific the man had been.

The books I listed above are only a few examples of Sendak’s work that I had been unfamiliar with before my visit to the Rosenbach. Maurice Sendak has influenced both illustrators and children’s book authors for over fifty years and these works were just as influential to Children’s Literature as Wild Things.  The Rosenbach has been a repository for Sendak’s work since the 1970’s and agreed to have his work exhibited year round although the exhibitions rotated in order to conserve the materials.  A variety of Sendak’s work, from final illustrations, cut and pasted iterations and his only mural (the Chertoff Mural painted for a friend’s children) are currently on display in the Maurice Sendak Gallery in memory of the artist. His work is also on display as part of the exhibition Maurice Sendak and Stephen Colbert Interviews, Objects…and Poles!

Maurice Sendak’s career spanned over sixty-five years, so almost anyone who was read or read a children’s book during that time would be interested in seeing the exhibition. It is particularly appealing for parents to bring their children to see. It is a way for adults to engage with children in a museum that is not designed specifically for children. I would not recommend the exhibition for elementary school groups simply because of the limited space and lack of interest a large group of small children would have in the manuscript, rare books, and antiques that are also part of the Rosenbach collection. That does not mean that Language Arts and Literature teachers could not use the Sendak exhibition as a gateway to entice students in a visit to a museum that would also include seeing the works of Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Bram Stoker, and Daniel Defoe, just to name a few. The inclusion of elements donated by Stephen Colbert would also aid in engaging high school and college students with the objects in the museum as many would be familiar with the comedian and his television show.

As Assistant Program Director, Farrar Fitzgerald, mentioned during our class tour last week, not everyone understands why the Rosenbach would exhibit the Colbert objects (empty beer bottles, pens, a sandwich wrapper and deli receipt), but it is because of the elements ties to Sendak and to pop culture.  The audience that does not “get it” (the Pole exhibition) should not let that deter them from visiting the Rosenbach and experiencing the myriad other works of Sendak, especially if like me, Wild Things and I Am A Pole were the only works they had ever known.

Sittin' by the fire

Title:Fireside Chats Year: “1942” Material: Wood, plastic, glass, metal Creator: NCC Collection: Main Exhibition

In a small alcove of in the outer ring of the National Constitution Center Main Exhibition sits a cathedral radio from the 1940’s.  I’m not sure if the radio is real or just a mock-up.  It sits on a mantle surrounded by black and white photos; possibly of the couple’s marriage and their adult children.  The scene is meant to let visitors experience one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Fireside Chats,” this one is from February 23, 1942. The “experience room” is situated between the displays of items from FDR's administration (a Social Security card, the President's fedora, a Japanese plane propeller) and those of his second Vice President and successor Harry S. Truman (Truman's Hawaiian shirt). There is a transcript available for visitors to read with text from several of FDR's broadcasts.  There is also a small descriptive panel (on the visitor's left hand side when looking at the mantle) that explains that the visitor is listening to FDR's actual broadcast from February 23, 1942. 

The fireside chat display was constructed by the NCC to allow the core audience of students to experience what it was like to listen to the news via radio (Radio was "king" in the 1940's) rather than getting their information from television or the internet. I believe this was meant to be an immersive experience for the visitor, and although I enjoyed it, I can see why other visitors might be confused or "not get it." For example, if someone were to walk by and look in without stepping close enough, he or she would only see a mock living room from the early twentieth century without hearing Roosevelt's voice. Some visitors to the NCC might walk past without even realizing this is part of the Main Exhibition. (Other visitors might miss it because they are so overwhelmed by the Main Exhibition or simply be more interested in the traditional artifacts on display.)

A visit to the NCC is intended to be a learning experience rather than a leisurely stroll past some artifacts. (This is partial because so many exhibits are interactive and because the NCC only has a small collection of artifacts that it owns.) The fireside chat experience could be more fully developed. At this point, it looks like a replica.  The lighting could be dimmed to make the room look more comfortable and inviting. An artificial electric fireplace could also be added to make the room look more realistic and warm (it should be "fire-side" after all.)  As most Americans listened to Roosevelt in the evening while seated, a chair would also be beneficial for visitors while adding to the experience.  All of these items would help draw visitor attention to this space.  It would be a respite for visitors from the sensory stimulation of the Main Exhibit. Currently, the recording is of only one radio broadcast, however, to improve the visitor experience and interaction visitors could chose what broadcast is played from a list of options.

This exhibit gave me an idea for a lesson that could be used by High School Social Studies and Language Arts teachers studying WWII. First, students could write about or discuss the last news program they watched on television. This would be followed by a close reading of one of FDR's broadcasts (the broadcast that plays in the NCC when students visit).  During a trip to the NCC, the students could sit and listen to the broadcast as if they were in their living room in 1942.  Students would write an essay comparing and contrasting this experience with watching a news program on television that evening.  As a follow-up activity, the next day after discussing the essays as a class, students would then write a script from a news item (provided by the teacher) as if it were being delivered over the radio and present these to the class.

The 140 Year Old Man

The Portrait of Yarrow Mamout (Muhammad Yaro) is an oil painting on canvas by Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) circa 1819.

I have been to the Philadelphia Museum of Art so many times I cannot recall, but every time I go, I find something new. During our Museum Practicum class trip last week, I heard the story of the Portrait of Yarrow Mamout, a painting by Charles Willson Peale.  The portrait is important because it is one of the first paintings by an American of a man of African descent and of a Muslim.  I spent the classes free time trying to find the portrait before the museum closed.

The portrait had a long journey prior to being acquired by the PMA.  Peale heard of a man who was supposedly over 140 years old and painted Yarrow Mamout while on a trip to Washington, DC.  It hung in Peale’s Philadelphia Museum on the upper floors of Independence Hall.  The painting was moved several times after the artist’s death and sold in 1854.  Unfortunately, in the confusion the painting was mislabeled and sold at auction as Washington’s Servant. The buyer, Charles S. Ogden later donated the portrait to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1892.  In 1947, Peale’s descendent Charles Coleman Sellers correctly identified the painting.  The PMA deaccessioned several works from its own collection of American Art in order to purchase the portrait from the Atwater Kent and prevent it from leaving the city of Philadelphia in October, 2011.

The Portrait of Yarrow Mamout is now on display in Gallery 124 on the first floor of the PMA between a self-portrait of its creator, Charles Willson Peale, and Portrait of Anne Willing Bingham by Gilbert Stuart. I expected it to take center stage in the gallery, but instead it is hung near the corner on the same level as the self-portrait. (In my opinion, the presentation of the portraits in this way shows equality between the two men, artist and subject.)

Students of art, history, and museum studies can learn from the portrait. Peale is an important American artist, father of several significant artists, and founder of America’s first museum.  I had seen works by Peale before, but this was the first of his works I had seen after starting the Museum Education Program at the University of the Arts.  Two weeks prior to the Museum Practicum trip, we discussed Peale in our Museology class. This discussion helped inform my viewing of Yarrow Mamout.  (Students should also discuss whether the portrait would still be as significant if it was still viewed as a painting of George Washington’s slave.)

The Museum Education Department at the PMA developed an educational poster for teachers.  As a former Six Grade Social Studies Teacher in New Jersey, I would want to develop lesson plans for teachers covering colonization and the American Revolutionary periods that would cross curriculums with art (studying Peale’s work), Language Arts (reading the article about the PMA’s acquisition of the work) and possibly even science (making and using old paint) prior to taking my students on a trip to the PMA. 

Information  and photos taken from the Philadelphia Museum of Art website.

http://www.philamuseum.org/press/releases/2011/893.html
Accessed September 23, 2012

http://www.philamuseum.org/acquisitions/
Accessed September 25, 2012

 

 

The Weeping Girl

The Weeping Chorus, 2012, engraved and painted glass, by Judith Schaechter

 

In a small cellblock, # 14 of ESP, there is a small window featuring a small girl in a blue dress with yellow shoes.  She has tears streaming down one side of her face. The window is one of three (there is also a mother and a sister pictured in other windows) in the Weeping Chorus, a stained glass installation by Judith Schaechter on display at the museum for the 2012 season.  The window is made of two layers of glass with paint that has been fired on. The bluish tones from the sun shining through the glass illuminate the room, contributing the eerie, tragic and claustrophobic feeling I experienced in the decaying cell in which the glass is displayed.  The look on the girl’s face expressed not only pain, fear, and sadness on losing her father or brother to the prison system, but also on the difficult life she is now also destined to have.

This a striking image for visitors to ESP, who see the now stabilized high walled ruin as just another haunted house and would not be interested in art installations. Being locked up in Eastern State Penitentiary did not just affect the inmates within its walls, Schaechter’s Weeping Chorus reminds visitors of the fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons, and daughters that suffered when a man or woman was imprisoned there. 

 

ESP will be starting official school tours this season and in my opinion, this window should be included on any tour along with the sculpture Elsie at Five Years Old, by Susan Hagen.  It is important for students visiting the museum to be able to make real life connections.  Teachers may be interested in using the stained glass and sculpture as prompts to engage students in a discussion about how they or how they might feel about living or knowing someone living in a corrections facility.  They may ask students to compare the difference between the girl depicted in the window, whose relative has been sentenced there to “Elsie” who actually lives there because she is the warden’s daughter.

My Grandmother's Piano

My Grandmother’s Piano

I have amassed quite a collection of antiques over the years.  Some were purchases at yard sales and others taken out of the neighbor’s garbage.  Some were bought at expensive antique stores, while some were picked at the Duxbury Massachusetts Transfer Station, also referred to as “The Treasure Chest” (Duxbury is across the bay from Plymouth and sits on the originally land granted to Miles Standish).  Most of my pieces, however, were inherited from grandparents and other relatives.  Each of these items has a higher emotional value than what they are worth on “Antiques Roadshow”.  Just looking around my room there is: a collection of maroon “leather bound” novels, an elaborate vanity my aunt gave me when she moved to Florida (the matching armoire is in the living room because it is too heavy and too tall to carry up the stairs), my grandmother’s bedroom furniture I inherited when she died. The room would be a beautiful if I could ever keep it clean. 

Downstairs, on the other side of the living room, behind an oversized couch is my favorite piece of furniture.  There sits my great grandmother’s John Wanamaker piano. It belonged to my great-grandmother, Joann Woodward (of the Quaker Woodwards of Moorestown).  She married William Rhawn, descendant of the banker of the same name (as in Rhawn Street and the Rhawn mansion, Knowlton, in Philadelphia). My grandmother, Sally, and her siblings took lessons on it as a child.  My own mother and aunts played the piano as children.

 No one in my house knows how to play it.  I still wish I had asked my grandmother for piano lessons. It is currently being used to display picture frames.  Usually, when visitors walk in the house, they ask about the photos and don’t notice a piano.  The woman in running shorts is my grandmother.  She died of cancer.  The piano belonged to her.  The other photos are of my cousins, my cousin’s children, my brother, and I. After my grandmother died and my grandfather moved, he gave the piano to my cousin for her small children. It sat in her dining room. When she moved, she put it out for trash.  I couldn’t let her throw it away; it was like putting part of my childhood out on the curb.  So, my mother and I went and moved it into our house before the trash men came. I paid two-hundred dollars to have it tuned.  Unfortunately, some of the keys still don’t work properly.  The repairmen said it would cost several thousands of dollars to have the innards of the piano replaced so it would work properly.  Someday, when I can afford it, I would like to have the piano restored.  I may never learn to play it, but I want my children to enjoy banging on the keys, as I did as a small child visiting my grandparents’ home.