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Art & Poetry

Our exhibits continue to inspire artists in our community in many ways. LaDonna Friesen, Professor of English at Evangel University, recently shared new poems written by students in her Creative Writing class after a visit to the Museum.

One such poem was inspired by William McNamara's painting, The Buffalo River, recently installed in the exhibit Water: The Artists' Essential Element.

Floating Arkansas

Rounded, infinite stones pressed up between pruning toes,   

the sweet crisp-bluegreen kiss of the hissing, rippled, blossoming river

whispers to water-logged ears.

The sun-soaked cerulean sky,

with its harsh blade edge up against the bushy tree top chin,

beats down on slow-cooking skin.

A cliff grows from the river face,

like a pimple hidden under all that chloroplast foliage,

with beautiful, ragged sides where he meets the grounded swells.

 A breath.

 Socks wrapped around unpruned toes,

all laced up behind fabric walls.

That hard-edged sun distanced with insulation,

replaced by the artificial fluorescent glow.

Standing before all those minute marks

long-since swept across a page,

a slim glass dimly reflecting me back:

 a portal,

 to that time of summer heat,

doting on rocks and waves, now

displaced and plastered on a wall.

 -James Heil, student at Evangel University

 Visit our galleries to see more poetry created by students from Evangel University. Thank you to LaDonna and her students for sharing these works!

-Springfield Art Museum

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Art & Poetry

We believe strongly that art has the power to inspire creativity in all fields. But there is a particularly special relationship between poetry and fine art.

Recently, LaDonna Friesen, Professor of English at Evangel University, reached out to share with us some recent student projects from her Creative Writing course. For the past two years, Friesen has brought her students to the Museum to write ekphrastic poems. An ekphrastic poem is a "literary expression provoked by an art work." Examples of this type of writing go back to Homer's description of Achilles's shield in The Iliad and include John Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience.

Experiencing an artwork is often very private so it can be difficult to know how our collection or exhibits affect our visitors. It becomes quite exciting when our visitors share their experiences with us.

We wanted to post these poems here, in particular as some of the works are no longer on view. The poems inspired by Roger Shimomura and Frank Owen will also be posted in the galleries.

A huge thank you to LaDonna and her students for finding inspiration in these works and for sharing them with us!  

- Sarah Buhr, Curator

Untangled       

 -ekphrastic free verse inspired by Loosened #3 by Anne Austin Pearce

Tangled in darkness

At the bottom of the sea

No light reaches the depths.

But suddenly, a burst of hope

Rising from within the soul

Brings life and color

In a rush of freedom.

The burst, so strong,

Propels her to th esurface

Where light awaits,

Her white rescue.

- Lauren Rogers

Turning the Corner

- ekphrastic free verse inspired by An American Enemy by Roger Shimomura

I found you, old friend.

Held back by tight twists of symmetrical torture

Your once rambunctious romp is now

Bound to clean lines, perfection at a glance.

Ironed straw sacks fitted to your precise frame.

Honor, brotherhood, sacrifice, duty -

Words that mean so little on the dry tongue.

Your eyes once overflowed with genuity, joy, freedom

Have blackened.

Your calloused fingers graze

Your sick-colored straw cap.

Honor, brotherhood, sacrifice, duty.

Is there even a flicker behind the eye?

Perhaps a signal, a cry for help.

Come back to me, dear friend.

Honor, brotherhood, sacrifice, duty.

Oh, what it is to be a man.

- Kara DeVito

Little One

-ekphrastic free verse inspired by We Need a Hero by Holly Wilson

Stand your ground, little one,

no matter what they tell you.

Keep writing; keep fighting

with your chest out, your fists clenched.

No matter what they tell you,

send your truth into the world

with your chest out, your fists clenched.

Brace yourself for their ideas.

Send your truth into the world.

Stay alert: the world’s ideas are highly explosive.

Brace yourself for their ideas;

don’t let the fight discourage you.

Stay alert: the world’s ideas are highly explosive.

Keep writing; keep fighting.

Don’t let the fight discourage you.

Stand your ground, little one.

- Meredith Lockhart

                                              Origami Messengers

                              Alone he stands with no cape or crown

                                              to defend his world.

                                          He is not trained or skilled.

                                                 His only weapons

                                             are origami messengers.

                                     Paper folded, formed, and thrown

                                      into a fray of oncoming enemies

                              Each carries his hopes, dreams, and desires

                                   flapping their wings into his world.

                                                 Some will survive.

                                                 Some will get lost.

                                             Some will be destroyed.

                                     The fleet of metal menaces rain,

                                      bombarding youth and courage

                                            with pain and remark,

                                 seeking to destroy the fragile fibers

                                        of his constructed curriers,

                                    to reduce his aspirations to ashes,

                                  and incinerate his inevitable impact.

                                         For the boy stands alone

                                            aloft his origami army

                                              as an unlikely hero

                                               to defend his world.

                                               - Nathan Bussard

Jifu Pao

-ekphrastic free verse inspired by Chinese Jifu Robe 

Orange dragons

Frilled in white clouds

Across the blue fabric

To stitch the clouds

To stitch the waves

To stitch the battling dragons

Their lithe bodies of power

Fly from sleeve to sleeve,

From neck to stomach

In their ancient dance

Chengse long wu

(orange dragons dance)

-Elizabeth Ware

Flash of Time

~ekphrastic free verse inspired by Timing by Frank Owen

The flash

            Of years

and memories

           Past

Replays in  

         Rapid

Speed—

         The fiery

Explosions

         Of love

Of passion

        Of anger

Of pain—

        The bolts of memories,

Lost with a spark.

The

Deep

Depths

Of blue

Tell a story when intertwined

With each memory.

Oh, time—

The chaos, the beauty.

Good or bad,

Time is only a flash.

Brilliant for but a moment,

Forever lost in space

But remembered in memory.

- Lauren Rogers

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Conservation Focus: "The French Fries"

You may have noticed in late August and early September that we were experimenting with a few new 'looks' for our most iconic work in the collection - John Henry's Sun Target II. Affectionately called "The French Fries," the sculpture is recognizable to most Springfieldians and serves as a public landmark.

Although we had a few concerned patrons call to express their dismay at the change in color - it was actually short-lived. We weren't toying with a new color, but simply completing restoration work on the sculpture and in the process, it went through a number of transformations.

The sculpture was acquired by the Museum in 1980 from the artist directly with the assistance of the Missouri Arts Council and the Ola E. McAdoo Bequest. Initially, the sculpture was installed much closer to the Museum's building - on the east grounds where the Musgrave Wing now stands. In 1994, it was moved to its current location when construction began on the Musgrave Wing. At that time, it was cleaned and repainted and given new concrete plinths to rest on.

Over the years, it has deteriorated due to both sun damage (fading) and general wear and tear (rust, flaking paint). Knowing that the work was in dire need of repainting, the Museum launched a crowd-funding campaign in May 2016 through the Give Ozarks Day platform - #SavetheFrenchFries.

Thanks to the tremendous generosity of Springfield residents, the Museum was able to raise enough money through these private donations to clean and repaint Sun Target II as well as two additional sculptures that were also in dire need of refresh - Ernest Trova's AV/T.S.C. and Abstract Variation, both located on the Museum's south grounds.

Before embarking upon the repaint, the Museum sent a work proposal to the artist to receive permission to clean and repaint. Fortunately, the Museum keeps lengthy files on the works in the collection so we had copies of the prior restoration work completed in 1994 as well as the proper paint color on file. After receiving the artist's permission to move forward with the project, we scheduled the work.

The work began on August 29 with a power washing on all three sculptures. The power washing, surprisingly, took the last bits of paint off of Sun Target II leaving us with the original unpainted steel surface. Then, a power grinder was used to smooth the surface and remove any rust.

Next, the painters applied an initial primer - for Sun Target II the first primer was white - a second primer, tinted yellow, was applied after that.

The last step was to apply two coats of the designated color to each work - restoring each sculpture to it's original rich finish. For the "French Fries" that meant a return to its original golden yellow hue.  

The transformation was no less dramatic on the two Trova sculptures.

After about three weeks, the work was complete and we are now in the process of adding new signage to all of the sculptures on our grounds in addition to exterior lights for Sun Target II.

Thank you Springfield for helping us to maintain and preserve these works for future generations!

Sarah Buhr, Curator

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New Acquisition: Roberta Stoneman Baker

Through the generosity of a local donor, the Museum has recently added a number of new works to the permanent collection. One of these is particularly exciting in its unique ability to enhance the Museum's collection and its local art history - a plaster maquette of the figure of Eve by Springfield artist Roberta Stoneman Baker. 

The maquette depicts a nude Eve, from the Old Testament story of Adam and Eve, in the throes of temptation, just about to take a bite from that infamous apple as the serpent slithers up her leg.

A maquette is essentially a working model, often associated with sculpture but also used in architecture and any other application that requires the creation of smaller 3-d models before the construction of a final product. For the artist, the maquette is useful for determining scale, form and composition and is nearly always created out of inexpensive materials. In this case, artist Roberta Stoneman Baker used plaster to create the form. While the body of the figure is quite detailed, other portions of the model are less so - there are very little surface details on the face and the serpent.

Detail: Maquette of Eve by Roberta Stoneman Baker

We are particularly excited about this acquisition because the Museum already has Baker's completed sculpture of Eve, created in its final form in mahogany, in the collection. This work received a purchase award in the Museum's 17th Annual Exhibition in 1947.

Roberta Baker in the lower image, on the right with Eve. (from the Springfield-News Leader, April 1947) 

Adding the maquette to the collection allows us to analyze Baker's working methods. It is interesting to note that the maquette is much larger than the final sculpture, either due to cost (mahogany is more expensive) or due to the artistic decision to scale-down the figure. The final sculpture is of course more refined with a fully rendered face and further details delineating the scales of the serpent. There is a more extreme bend to the figure's neck, drawing further attention to the serpent below. Comparing these two objects gives us a visual glimpse into the artist's working process.

Maquette of Eve on the left; finished sculpture on the right.

Baker was a local Springfield artist who taught art at Springfield High School. She created a number of outdoor sculptures in the region including large scale work for Shepherd of the Hills and a famously vandalized sculpture at Phelps Grove Park.

The Museum is excited to have this new addition to the collection. And we are happy to note that the mahogany sculpture of Eve will soon be on exhibit, on loan to the History Museum on the Square in their summer exhibit From Paintbrushes to Pincushions: Women's Artistry in the Ozarks.

- Sarah Buhr, Curator

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Richard Hunt, Triangulum, 1974, cor-ten steel, welded. Collection of the Springfield Art Museum.

Collection Highlight

Many who visit the Museum may have seen this sculpture located on the north side of the amphitheater. This work is titled Triangulum and was created by Chicago-based sculptor Richard Hunt.

Hunt grew up in Chicago and was encouraged by his parents in his artistic pursuits from an early age, enrolling in a summer program at age fifteen at the Junior School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He eventually received his bachelor's degree there where he won a number of scholarships and awards for his work.

Hunt opened his own workshop in 1953 where he began producing sculpture that was essentially figural, reflecting classical themes. His Hybrid Figures series, made in a range of materials from copper and iron to aluminum and steel, refer to the natural, living forms of plants, animals and humans.

A major commission in 1967, Play, marked a turning point in Hunt's career. The proposed sculpture was so large that his studio could not physically accommodate it, so for the first time he began working with the aid of assistants and machines in a metal fabrication shop. This began what Hunt considers as his "second career" - that of a public sculptor.

While studio sculptures evoke the spontaneous hand of the artist and tend to be more introspective, Hunt's fabricated sculptures made for public spaces allow the artist to conceive of his work in terms of broad spatial, material and interactive possibilities, frequently taking on a life of their own as they twist upwards and outwards. His public works necessarily respond to the dynamics and vernacular of the particular community for which it was created. "Artists no longer must imitate nature, but are free to interpret it," he has said. "Sometimes I try to develop forms nature might create if only heat and steel were available to her."

Sarah Buhr, Curator