Art and Artifice

Archive 38 - Winter 2022

"Ryder Comes Home"

Albert Pinkham Ryder at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, Massachusetts.

Albert Pinkham Ryder - Flying Dutchman

More about Ryder at Albert Pinkham Ryder.org

ADVERTISEMENT: You will see Amazon links on this web site because I am an Amazon affiliate. If you buy something from them they might throw me a few coins and then I'll buy some souvlaki.

John Berger's Ways of Seeing is a famous art instruction on seeing art through a new awareness of elements that get overlooked or are somehow obscure for the casual viewer. The book was first published in 1972 and based on the BBC television series. The Sunday Times critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures." AMAZON

Complete Beginners Guide to WaterColor - AMAZON

"The Complete Watercolor Guide for Beginners: The Ultimate Course with Exercises and Step-by-Step Projects Perfect Even If You’re New to Watercolor" AMAZON

Art Institute of Chicago fires all the volunteer Docents

Why were they fired?

Despite the lack of remuneration—they do this to be helpful and because they love art—their training to be docents is extremely rigorous. First, they have to have two training sessions per week for eighteen months, and then “five years of continual research and writing to meet the criteria of 13 museum content areas” (quote from the docents’ letter to the Director of the AIC). On top of that, there’s monthly and biweekly training on new exhibits. Then there are the tours themselves, with a docent giving up to two one-hour tours per day for 18 weeks of the year and a minimum of 24 one-hour tours with adults/families. Their average length of service: 15 years. There are other requirements listed by the Docents Council in the ChicagoNow column below (first screenshot). Many of the volunteers—though not all—are older white women...

Story at Chicago Tribune [Paywall]

And at Evolution is True