Docent Council Dialogue Spring 2013 Published by the Docent Council Volume XLIV No 3 Life is a Beach... 1 Inside the Dialogue There’s a Beach for Each of Us Diane Macris, President Pg 3 Spring Message Charlene Shang Miller, Docent and Tour Programs Manager Pg 3 In Memoriam, Judy Poliner Pg 4 Docents on the Move Susan Meisler, Lorraine Parsons Pg 4 At the Water’s Edge Sandy Voice Pg 5 It’s Almost Summertime Hope Vath Pg 6 Cole’s Mount Etna from Taormina Judy Barton Pg 7 Strolling By the Sea Leta Marks Pg 8 Art can be Puzzling Mary Ann Kouyoumjian Pg 9 Edward Munch’s Seascapes Susan Meisler Pg 10 Whistler’s Coast of Brittany Carol Urick Pg 11 Is Mount Desert Really about the Civil War? Sandy Voice Pg 12 Montauk I Maria Adams Pg 13 Three Artists on Painting Lillian Kezerian Pg 14 If the Light is Right Donna Bozzuto Pg 17 Art and the Sea at the Atheneum Eugenia Villagra Pg 18 Dalí’s Apparition of a Face and Fruit Dish JoAn Hagan on a Beach Pg 21 Summer Exhibitions Pg 22 Docent Council Dialogue The Dialogue is created by and for docents and provides a forum for touring ideas and techniques, publishing information that is vital to docent interests such as museum changes, and recording docent activities and events. The newsletter is published in Fall, Winter, and Spring editions. Editorial Staff Sandy Voice Co-Editor Copy Beth Malley Co-Editor Layout and Graphics Lillian Kezerian Associate Copy Editor Contributors: Maria Adams, Judy Barton, JoAn Hagan, Lillian Kezerian, Mary Ann Kouyoumjian, Leta Marks, Susan Meisler, Lorraine Parsons, Carol Urick, Hope Vath, Eugenia Villagra, Sandy Voice Cover Art: Joan Traverso Photographer: Donna Bozzuto Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 600 Main Street, Hartford, CT 06103-2990 www.wadsworthatheneum.org 2 There’s a Beach for Each of Us Diane Macris, Docent Council President Beaches! What a wonderful theme for this year’s final theme of beaches. The beach has always been important issue of the Dialogue. We’ve made it through a in my life —a place of quiet refuge to clear my head hurricane and a blizzard, and here we are on the cusp of and collect my thoughts no matter what the season, a another summer. Once again, we look forward to place to laugh and play on a sunny summer day, a place warm, sunny days and, hopefully, time to reflect on the to observe nature’s fury in the midst of a storm, and a touring year behind us and the wonders of being a place to marvel at her beauty in the early morning or at docent at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. sunset. The year had its highs and lows. There were the high What’s your beach? Is it the serene, almost empty notes of two very special exhibitions: Medieval to beach of Kensett’s Coast Scene with Figures (Beverly Monet and Burst of Light: Caravaggio and His Shore) or the crowded, pulsing Coney Island Beach of Legacy. Sadly, we recently lost Judy Poliner, a Reginald Marsh? Is it the wind-driven surf of Church’s treasured docent colleague and dear friend. We will all Coast Scene, Mount Desert or the sheltered seclusion of miss her, but will remember her kindness, her warm Whistler’s Coast of Brittany? Is it Winslow Homer’s smile, and her love of docenting and the Wadsworth stormy Rocky Coast or Bellows’ sun-filled Pulpit Rock? Atheneum. For me, I think it’s all of these. The beach has an answer for every mood. And so, I wish each of you a As I reflect on the touring year behind us and anticipate restful summer spent at the beach or wherever you, the summer to come, I’m drawn again to the individually, find peace. Spring Message Charlene Shang Miller, Docent and Tour Programs Manager Being on the beach makes me pause and slows down Pause and reflection are also useful to us as educators the frenetic pace of daily life. However, we are when we experience other art museums as visitors and certainly not at the beach just yet since our spring consider what we learn from participating in the touring season is very busy with the usual school tours, impressive array of docent trips. Docents often ask me as well as the many groups touring Burst of Light: what I think about our docent-led tour experiences at Caravaggio and His Legacy. The demands of being a other museums. The tendency to be overly critical and docent are high: to meet school curriculum standards judgmental is too easy. More constructive is thinking and the requests of teachers; to demonstrate flexibility how our own experiences as visitors help us to be better in engaging families, or a multi-aged audience (without educators. After participating in a tour, ask yourself. knowing who until the tour happens); to prepare for the What did I think about the experience? What did I value? specific topics of college classes; or to meet the What did I take away and retain? Why? What went well? expectations of a knowledgeable adult audience. In What did not? What would I do? How does my fact, each and every tour requires dedicated planning experience as a visitor inform my job as a docent? and tailoring to best serve each group. A Learning to Docent retirements provide moments to celebrate, and in Look tour is never as simple as it sounds; neither is a Museum Highlights tour. No tour is the same. this past year, Margaret Hoskins (class of 1992) became Emeritus. Katie Gallagher (class of 2004) left the The evaluation process provides opportunity to reflect program to focus on raising her young children. The and consider the value of our teaching and how we docent program attrition rate is remarkably low, and affect our visitors’ museum experience. Docents more given its very rigorous requirements, docents can and often than not know exactly what did not go well on a should take immense pride in their work. tour. They are their own harshest critics and do not always see what was so good on their tours. After every Sadly, we mourn the recent passing of Judy Poliner (class of 1994). Her quiet dedication and enjoyment of teaching tour, it is always worth considering what did not go were exemplary, and she is very much missed. well and why it did as well as what went well and why it worked? Something can be learned from every A 10 year anniversary is also a reason for reflecting, and situation. Evolving as gallery educators should be I wish to thank the docents again for surprising me with challenging and stimulating and never-ending. the celebrations of this milestone. I look forward to our Sometimes it is very difficult, and sometimes it is continuing the journey together! 3 deceptively easy. It is always rewarding. In Memoriam We mourn the passing of our dear friend and colleague Judy Poliner. She will be greatly missed. Our heartfelt sympathies to her family. May they be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. The Docents Do Day Trips The Docents Do Dallas to Brooklyn and Points North Lorraine Parsons Susan Meisler Our goal for docent day-trippers was to see a On the first afternoon of our whirlwind trip to variety of artworks in different places and Texas’s art mecca, Dallas and Fort Worth, we benefit from the insights of docents. In October toured the city and made three private home we visited Peabody Essex Museum, where we visits to view three private art collections. toured colonial homes from three different eras Friday morning, we had two curator tours at the and an authentic Chinese merchant’s house. In Dallas Art Museum: a highlights tour of the December, we visited the Brooklyn Museum DAM’s amazing collection and a special and enjoyed a guided tour of European exhibition tour of the current Chagall masterpieces and a special exhibit dedicated to exhibition. After lunch, we walked to the contemporary female artists, including Judy Nasher Sculpture Center for another highlights Chicago’s The Dinner Party. In March, we tour and took a walk through its beautiful traveled to western Massachusetts to visit two outdoor sculpture garden. Saturday, we went to very different collections at the Norman Fort Worth and visited the Amon Carter Rockwell Museum and Mass MoCA. Leta Museum of American Art, the Kimbell Museum Marks and I look forward to seeing many of with its terrific collection of many you next year as we plan several trips masterpieces, and the Modern Art Museum. including a trip to NYC in December. Trip Home again on Sunday. Joanne Eudy and I are suggestions are always welcome! Works of art already planning next year’s trip. plus stimulating company, what could be 4 better?! At the Water’s Edge The ocean sustains and thrills us, but as Winslow By Sandy Voice Homer reminds us in Rocky Coast where his fisherman stands at water’s edge facing down a My life is like a stroll upon the beach, stormy sea, the ocean is also that great theater of As near the ocean’s edge as I can go. war where man battles nature for or survival. This Henry David Thoreau may be what makes the beach so In the dead of winter, all thoughts turn to summer. powerful a setting for art and literary themes, Back in March, a day at a warm beach sounded particularly dystopian ones such as Gauguin’s like a blessed cure for winter chilblains.