New partnership brings Open Door Gallery to WAM

One of the most important priorities at the Worcester Art Museum is to increase accessibility so community members of all abilities can discover the joy of connecting with art at the Museum. I’m pleased to announce that an exciting new partnership with VSA Massachusetts, an affiliate of the Seven Hills Foundation, creates a new gallery space for artists with disabilities. Called the Open Door Gallery at the Worcester Art Museum this bright area, overlooking the Stoddard Garden Courtyard from the Higgins Education Wing, provides a meaningful opportunity for these artists to show their works, while at the same time enhancing the Museum’s offerings in the Higgins Wing.

The first exhibit, currently on view, is “Life Cycles,” an exploration of the series of changes that take place in the life of an organism. The featured works examine the nature and psychological vocabulary of this life cycle and its relationship to culture, history, tactility, material and artistic output. The exhibit is free and open to the public during regular Museum hours. Please enter through the Lancaster Welcome Center.

As part of the VSA MA/WAM partnership, participants also frequently visit the Museum galleries, where they find inspiration and connect further with the ideas and images from over 50 centuries of creative expression. Increasing accessibility for people with disabilities increases accessibility and understanding for everyone. We are proud and delighted to welcome VSA Massachusetts to the Worcester Art Museum and invite you to discover their amazing creative gifts in the Open Door Gallery at WAM.

- Adam R. Rozan, Director of Audience Engagement

WAM’s new Medieval Holidays décor is festive--and educational!

If you’re a regular visitor you WAM, you’ll notice a new spin to our annual holiday season programming. To compliment the upcoming reopening of our Medieval Galleries, we are focusing on a major institutional strength: our medieval holdings and the stories they tell. “Medieval Holidays” is a collection-centric twist on our traditional holiday programming, right down to revamped, historically accurate décor throughout the facility. The new decorations incorporate three main elements that link directly to medieval traditions: holly, ivy, and wheat.

Holly and Ivy are the plants most strongly associated with the medieval celebration of Christmastide (the holiday season between Christmas and the New Year). In pagan tradition, both holly and ivy are believed to have astonishing powers. The ceremonial placing of a benevolent plant above a doorway is an ancient practice, which is common to many cultures and time periods. This philosophy is echoed in the Museum’s upper and lower Renaissance Court, embellished with seasonal decorative elements of apples and walnuts.

Moreover, “the red-berried holly was given a masculine persona in the Middle Ages, in contrast to the black-fruited ivy, which was considered to be feminine. Holly, native to most parts of south and central Europe, was credited by the Roman natural historian Pliny with the power to protect and defend against witchcraft, lightning, and poison. Ivy was dedicated to Bacchus and was believed to prevent intoxication and confer the power to prophesy. (Maude Grieve, A Modern Herbal, 1971.)” (The Cloisters Museum and Gardens)

By the Middle Ages, holly and ivy had been thoroughly Christianized. Ivy was identified with the Virgin, and the red berries of the holly with the blood of Christ.

Wheat is included throughout our medieval décor as an allusion to the Eucharistic symbolism of the transformation of the Christ Child into the bread of the Mass. A giant sheaf of wheat stands central in the Chapter House and also on the grand Newell posts in the Renaissance Court.

Don’t miss WAM’s special holiday medieval décor, on view through January 1, 2017.

Learn more about our Medieval Holidays celebration

- Katrina Stacy, Associate Curator of Education

WAM’s 3rd Annual Gingerbread Castle Competition

This December, WAM once again continues a beloved tradition inherited from the Higgins Armory Museum – the Gingerbread Castle Competition!  A host of local bakers, professional and amateur alike, will present their confectionary masterpieces in Stephen Salisbury Hall from December 11 to 18. Come by the Museum to admire them and vote for your favorites. The awards ceremony will be held on Sunday December 18 at 3:30pm. 

Winners will be awarded the following prizes:

People’s Choice: WAM Membership and Medal

Best Youth (12 & under): WAM Youth Art Class and Medal

Best Business Partner: choice of Gift Business Partner Membership or Gift Family Membership

Best Professional: $250

Runner-up Professional: Medal

Best Amateur: $100

Runner-up Amateur: Medal

Interested in competing? We welcome castle architects of all ages and abilities. Castles will be judged in four categories; professional, amateur, Business Partner and youth. Use your imagination to interpret “castle” however you wish – the only rule is that all building materials must be edible. Deadline for submissions is November 28. 

Click here for more details or to download an application

Learn more about WAM's Medieval Holidays

- Megan Blomgren Burgess, Public Event Coordinator

   

Now On View: WAM Annual Faculty Exhibition

The Higgins Education Wing will exhibit artwork created by faculty members of the Studio Class Programs department from November 4, 2016 – January 19, 2017. Our Annual Faculty Exhibition presents 38 works of art by 23 artists who currently teach and assist at the Museum in the areas of painting, mixed media, printmaking, and more. The exhibition features a wide range of visual practices, spanning many genres and media.

As working professional artists and educators who balance their own art making with teaching at WAM, the faculty exhibition allows students, the community, and the public the opportunity to experience the diversity of approaches each artist employ. WAM’s Studio Class Programs faculty is a strong and diverse group, exploring a range of traditional and contemporary mediums and themes.

View the exhibition and meet the artist at this special closing reception on Thursday, January 19, 5:30-7pm. The exhibition is free and open to the public. The Higgins Education Wing is open Sunday–Saturday, 9am-5pm.

Click here for more information about faculty and their classes.

Image: Nan Hass Feldman, Yao Women in the Autumn Fields

- Ashley Occhino, Manager of Studio Class Programs

New - Ed Emberley Curriculum Guides

This past summer, teachers from Worcester’s Jacob Hiatt Magnet School partnered with WAM to create curriculum tied to the Kahbahbloom exhibition. These curricula, which are specific to various grade standards in Kindergarten through 2nd grade, are available on the Museum’s website:

· Glad Monster, Sad Monster: A Book About Feelings 
· The Story of Paul Bunyan
· Ed Emberley's Great Thumbprint Drawing Book

Jacob Hiatt Magnet School students, staff, and families are excited to have the opportunity to engage with the work of Ed Emberley who is still alive and is a resident of Massachusetts, in intimate ways. They have been examining the prolific body of Emberley’s work in art classes, and this has allowed them to bring to life their own ideas by creating and illustrating. Ed Emberley is an artist who sees the world through the eyes of a child. He is the perfect artist for elementary art students who often see the world through lines, shapes, and forms. Through Emberley, they are able to make connections and synthesize basic elements of Art into their own reality. The trip to WAM will be the highlight for students. To see Emberley’s work up close after seeing it in their studies will be a rewarding experience.

Learn more about KAHBAHBLOOOM: The Art and Storytelling of Ed Emberley

- Jyoti Datta, Principal, Jacob Hiatt Magnet School

Helmutt on the Move!

Have you met Helmutt? Helmutt is an armor-wearing boar hound statue; his armor is based on the plate dog armor of a hunting hound of Emperor Charles V. Leonard Heinrich, who was the armorer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, made Helmutt’s armor as a gift to John Woodman Higgins in 1942. In his 74 years, Helmutt was a crowd favorite at the Higgins Armory Museum, greeting visitors and even other dogs. Helmutt has also been featured in the news many times over the years. Below are some of our favorite press clippings.

Now that Helmutt’s new home is here at WAM, he’ll continue the tradition of greeting Museum visitors of all types. He will be popping up all over the Museum visiting different works of art, especially those with other animals. See if you can find Helmutt each time you visit WAM!

Look for clues on our Facebook page
#whereinwamishelmutt



- Megan J. Blomgren Burgess, Public Events Coordinator

Winter Cover Contest Winner: Linda Spencer

Linda Spencer’s luminescent oil painting, Winter Train over Seven-Mile River, East Brookfield, appears on the cover of WAM’s Studio Art 2016/17 winter catalog. Her winning entry was selected from a number of submissions, all by current and former Studio Art students.

Spencer’s painting — a mesmerizing display of muted light and soft colors that aptly captures early New England winter — began with a brisk walk behind the Massasoit Art Guild studios in East Brookfield. The light was exceptional so she took a number of photographs and then headed to the studio to paint.

“People asked me, ‘Where is that stunning location?’ and I told them it was just out back. You don’t have to travel far to find beauty.”

Why would, Spencer, an artist and art teacher, decide to take classes at WAM’s Studio Art program? The answer is not complicated, she says. “If you work and you’re busy, you won’t paint if you don’t take a class.”

Spencer, who coincidentally lives in Spencer, taught art at the Quabbin Regional High School in Barre for 35 years. During those demanding years, she took Studio Art classes to bring fresh ideas to her classroom. At the same time, she developed her own preferences and style as an artist. And it was at WAM that she came into her own as an artist.

“I took my first plein-air painting class with Susan Swinand at WAM. I love plein-air. Now that I’m retired, I paint much more.”

Painting is restorative, engaging, challenging and, yes, even therapeutic.

“I’ve always loved the outdoors,” she says. “It’s the fresh air, the sense of being there. The wonder of looking at everything. To quickly capture what you see is quite a challenge. You have to focus so much on what you’re doing. For the time that you’re working, it’s almost like a vacation, though I’m always exhausted afterward. It’s a lot of work — taking what you see and limiting it to a small canvas.”

In art, Spencer says, “there’s no right or wrong. Art is a safe place to be. My students gained tremendous confidence that carried over into other parts of their lives. You take risks, see some successes there, and then you’re willing to take more risks, try harder, try something else.”

“Be fearless,” she says. “Don’t worry. You can always try again.”

View all of the winter cover contest entries on WAM’s Facebook page

Browse Worcester Art Museum Studio Classes

- Ashley Occhino, Manager of Studio Class Programs