Posts

End of an Era

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….Hey, it’s been a while. But we are back for one, final, blog post. We graduate on Sunday, and we just wanted to share some of our favorite memories at the Fine Arts Center and reminisce before we go onto our post-Colorado College lives. We are so grateful for the time we have spent here and for all that we have learned. We hope that you have learned something too! Michael Howell, the former director of the FAC internship program with Amber Mustafic and Suzy Lewis.  Internship Highlights New Mexico : We had an incredible week in New Mexico in August, staying in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. We met museum professionals from the Albuquerque Museum, Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, New Mexico History Museum, Palace of the Governors, Palace Press, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, and Wheelwright. We stayed at a super fun and cozy bed and breakfasts, like the Downtown Historic Bed and Breakfast in Albuquerque, which is famous for being the location where the plan for the atom
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Shan Kive

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One of my personal favorite things about working in the collections is uncovering. I use the word uncovering to avoid another word that wants to fall right out of the mouth due to its fun, romantic associations; "discovery." Technically, uncovering is a synonym for discovery, but I personally feel the term "discovery" has in many ways been tainted. In particular in association with a Mr. Christopher Columbus. This association is only heightened in the context of the photograph shown below. Ute Indian Camp, Garden of the Gods, Shan Kive. By Stewart Photography. Taken 1913 We recently uncovered this photo in our flat file space, and we were immediately taken in. It is incredible to be able to look at a photograph such as this one that so clearly shows our area, Colorado Springs, in the context of 1912. The physical setting is mainly given by Colorado Springs most famous landmark shown in the background, Garden of the Gods, our unique geological relic that is ac
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Under the FAC goes Out of the FAC!

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Life is best in threes. Three intrepid museum professionals. Three museums visited. Three hours of traffic on the way home. Three out of three stars given to a wonderful day surrounded by wonderfully insightful museum professionals that took massive chunks of time out of their days to meet with us and show us a unique peak into their everyday jobs. Taken at the Kirkland Museum Stop one out of three was the Kirkland Museum of Decorative and Fine Arts. Conveniently all of our stops were so close that not only did we not have to move the car, we didn't even have to leave the block. Taken at the Kirkland Museum. Registrar Becca Goodrum on left This is thanks to the Kirkland museums recent move. The museum only recently (as of March) reopened their doors and we were lucky to be able to experience the museum in this time of transition. The people who made our experience possible were Chris Herron, the deputy curator, and Becca Goodrum, the registrar. We went in before the o
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Glacial Rain, by Julia Fernandez-Pol

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Though fashionably late, I have decided it is time to announce my choice for my current favorite artwork on display! This is Julia Fernandez-Pol's Glacial Rain . It is an oil on canvas creation that was made in 2008.  What first attracted me to this work was the fantastical combination of vivid and subdued colors. They pulled me in. It is the complex and varied textual work, however, that creates a unique visual experience that makes you want to sit in front of the piece for hours.  This textual work is Julia Fernandez-Pol's specialty. She describes her focus as the "emerging relationships between rococo aesthetic, fetishized surface qualities and a core curiosity in nature, science, and light to result in a visceral experience." The Rococo, for our unfamiliar readers, was a period and style of art that took place in the late 18th century. It began in France and eventually spread around Europe. It was characterized by wildly ornate and lavi
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Stories in Yarn

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Last week, on July 5th, Jeanne Steiner's block B summer weaving class popped in for a visit to the FAC to admire seven textiles from our collection. The invitation had been in place for quite a while, and over the previous couple of weeks, we were tasked with learning proper textile handling methods, investigating weaving techniques and traditions of the American Southwest, and researching specific information pertaining to the seven textiles. Upon gathering this information, we organized a presentation for Jeanne's weaving students. Earlier in the summer we had invited Jeanne to come meet with us about what she would like us to share with the class and she encouraged us to basically talk their ears off. So that's what we did. We prepared for our talkathon through a variety of processes. First, we located and pulled each individual textile to get a better sense of the pieces themselves. To gather basic details such as the textile's locality, date, collector, d
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Emergence, a painting by Andrew Velez

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Hello! It's Amber here. This post is going to be the first of our weekly "museum picks" section of the blog, where Suzy and I will each pick a favorite piece currently on display at the FAC, and share some thoughts, photos and information about them (with copyright permission of course!) This week, I have chosen a painting by local artist Andrew Velez: Emergence , 2010, acrylic on canvas. It is currently on loan, courtesy of the artist, in our gallery of Southwest art. I was captured by Velez's sharp details that continue through the planes as they recede in space. I love the sharp contrast between the warm greens and earth tones in the foreground, and the cool icy blue tones in the background, and the balance created by this stark juxtaposition of color temperature. I love how the saguaro in the forefront is cut off at the top, giving a sense of a full, overflowing landscape, and a sense that nature is uncontainable. Velez's detailed brushwork is incredibly
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Little Dove at the Doctor

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In our last post we talked about the beginning of the journey of our Arthur Dove Fog Horns piece that began when we took it off display so that it could be assessed by a painting conservator. This post will be focusing on what we learned from watching the assessment. Conservators on the job have one main goal: to preserve the artists intent . Their job is not to strictly fix damage and clean the work, as often the issue is much more complicated than that. Often times, things that can be perceived as damage are actually just a part of the artists original techniques. An example is a 'holiday'. Not to be confused with vacation time, the term 'holiday' in the art conservation world refers to a gap in the paint that was a product of the artists style of brushwork. Without trained eyes, these 'holidays' can be mistaken for cracks or scratches. The next step for a conservator is to assess what needs to be fixed. Are there cracks that might spread without attenti
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