Over The Moon



Join us on March 24, 2012 as we celebrate our fifth anniversary to support Deborah D. Blumer Fund with our museum visitors, distinguished volunteers and omnipresent art admirers. We promise to offer our visitors opportunity to meet celebrity artists, listen to live music, engage in stimulating conversarions, learn about our educational programs, devour sparkling wines & great desserts and experience pure fun! Here's some information about Over The Moon and our other upcoming events. See you all at Danforth soon!

'Art doesn't transform. It just plain forms.'~Roy Lichtenstein

Art + Sound

Random experiments are fun since they usually surprise us with unanticipated outcomes and provide us with candid feedback for re-running these experiments with better insight and experience. I was quite thrilled to be a member of one such unique expertiment at BOSE headquarters earlier this week. As members of ever-growing Danforth museum community, we got opportunity to do a community outreach at BOSE.Our goal was simple, educate people about our museum's presence in Framingham, suggest some great engagement programs we have (e.g. Drop into Art, Bring Your Baby etc.) to BOSE and highlight the benefits of visiting museums in general to BOSE employees.

Upon reaching the event, we were pleasantly surprised upon learning that BOSE had organized a family fair inviting representatives from various groups such as Fitness Centers, Credit Unions, Vacation tour operators, Healthy Food Cos and of course us :) Quickly, we organized our booth scattering our classes brochures & member information pamphlets on our table. Our first impressions were extremely positive-we were greeted cordially by event organizers, who helped us with writing pads and water bottles to get us started.  SoonJanis (fellow docent) and Kendra (our education co-ordinator) joined me and we prepped our booth further. Thanks to Kendra's iPad, within moments we setup a slideshow showing salient artworks from our current exhibits. As clock ticked noon, the fiar was overwhelmed with inquisitive appearing BOSE employees from all departments. As visitors approached our booth (perhaps drawn by visuals on slideshow), we commenced conversation with questions such as:

• Have you heard of Danforth Museum Of Art?
• Do you know there is an art museum in Framingham?
• Have you been thinking about honing your little one's observational skills?

We were quite amazed at spotting genuine interest in ART, Museums and Creativity in general amidst BOSE employees. I personally had few memorable stimulating conversations with visitors on How museums can develop one's visual perception skills, How ESL students learn so many words during one visit to a museum and How slicing & dicing an artwork develops critical thinking ability of children. As we handed FREE passes to visitors, we communicated enthusiasm, positivity and openness to all.

As an outsider, I have always admired ultra small immaculate surround sound systems from BOSE. This visit reinforced my respect of the company where creativity & perfectionism seems to thrive naturally! We sincerely thank Jaclyn McTigue from BOSE for orchestrating this family fair where we exchanged both great ideas and smiles with spirited BOSE employees. Hope to do participate in more such experiments in the days ahead :D

[Image - MIT]

'Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.'~Plato

Thanks much Guggenheim !

Tired of being on eternal bookhold list at your local library hoping to be able to read your favorite treasured Art publication someday! Thanks to Guggenheim, now you can read digitized versions of these treasured out-of-print ART publications (some dating back to 1937!) right from your laptop, Aakash tablet or iPad for FREE!

Click here to browse reverred publications online & download their digitial prints. Happy Reading art admirers :)

'Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.' ~Richard Steele

Significance of Spirals

Ad Mom’s Coil, 2007 Etching with chine collé 

I have voiced it before that VTS touring style offers fringe benefits both to museum visitors as well as tour guides. I was quite keen to start my 2012 innings with a  visit to Danforth and thanks to Kendra (our museum's education coordinator), opportunity seemed  right around the corner. I was quite excited upon learning that I can do a Public tour on January 7th for our museum's esteemed visitors. I visited museum in advance to jot down visual clues and take a mental note of salient masterpieces in Rhoda Rosenberg's gallery.

As the tour commenced, we asked all five visitors to spend a minute or two in gallery and observe keenly. I was pleasantly surprised upon finding that all of them were drawn towards an artwork titled "Mom’s Coil, 2007". Following were some of the answers I received upon probing them with a barrage of questions:

• What do you see in this artwork? Threads, Rope, Wool, Coil, Spiral.
• How about the surface? Rough, Corrugated, Uneven, 3D like.
• How does it make you feel? Gloomy, Confused, Disappointed, Sad.
• What is artist trying to portray? Connections, Perplexed-ness, Blackhole.

Thanks for VTS style questions, within 3-4 minutes as a group we started analyzing the artwork together trying our best to ascertain what artist is depicting and why! Interestingly Dan (an elderly gentleman in our group) said the artwork was all about now omnipresent SPIRALS and we decided to exchange some ideas on what Spirals signify in real world. In brainstorming session that followed for next 20 minutes, here were some interesting observations made by group:

• Fundamentally all SPIRALS have a fixed central point from which rest of the spiral emanates farther away.
• What makes viewing spirals engaging, is that one's eyes are drawn towards the inside-out or outside-in  curliness of the spiral. But most spirals appear aesthetic to naked eye.
• Unlike other geometric shapes, spirals seem to be fluid (instead of static), in a state of dynamism.
• In Ancient Greek culture, spiral symbol signified INFINITY and a state of constant motion.
• In Ancient Celtics culture, spirals indicated birth,  growth and never ending expansion.
• Leonardo-da Vinci is known to have filled his notebook with observations about nautilus shell spirals. These observations became basis for several of his masterpieces. 
• The organic spiral seems to represent coiled-up energy waiting to be applied in appropriate endeavor.
• Spirals certainly represent connected-ness. Even our universe is depicted by a big Spiral and so are Black holes and galaxies. 
• The mother of all spirals - the Golden Spiral and its applications in nature (seeds packing inside a sunflower) are truly mesmerizing indeed.

As we wrapped up the discussion about the artwork, I briefed the group about Rhoda Rosenberg's bio and salient details of the exhibit. With that the group appreciated Rhoda's work even more and as we moved onto next gallery, we felt enriched (learning facts about spirals), engaged (stimulating discussion) and alive! Do mark your calendars and come visit Danforth this winter for exciting art events, interesting artist talks & our rewarding art classes-details here.

[Image - Rhoda Rosenberg]

"The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection"~Michelangelo

Resolutions 2012