Podcasts about Bard Graduate Center

In this episode of The Photo Detective, host Maureen Taylor welcomes Emily Banas, Associate Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the RISD Museum, to explore the captivating world of French wallpaper. Their discussion centers on The Art of French Wallpaper Design exhibition, diving into the artistry, craftsmanship, and cultural legacy behind these historical wall coverings.The RISD Museum's collection of 18th and 19th-century French wallpaper—originally acquired in 1934—is showcased for the first time in decades, highlighting woodblock-printed designs from 1770–1840.The collection was assembled by French artist Charles Ard and American author Francis Wilson Ard, who sourced wallpapers for famed interior decorator Nancy McClelland.Visitors learn about the intricate woodblock printing method, with some designs requiring up to 20 blocks. A reproduction project by Delphi Paper Hangings brings these methods to life.Related Episodes:Episode 255: The Power of Knitting: History, Healing, and Resilience in Loretta Napoleoni's BookEpisode 241: The Threads of Life: Unraveling the Rich Tapestry of Sewing with Author Clare HunterLinks:The Art of French Wallpaper DesignSign up for my newsletter.Watch my YouTube Channel.Need help identifying family photos? Check out The Family Photo Detective ebookHave a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.About My Guest:Emily Banas is the Associate Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the RISD Museum in Providence, Rhode Island where she has been working since 2015. Her recent exhibitions span from design works on paper and contemporary enamelwork to historic wallpaper, reflecting a broad, interdisciplinary approach examining form, style, material, and use across 18th to 21st century decorative arts, craft, and design. She earned an MA in decorative arts, design history and material culture from the Bard Graduate Center in 2015, and an MA in art history and museum studies, with a concentration in decorative arts and design, from Georgetown University in 2012.About Maureen Taylor:Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective® helps clients with photo related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation's foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others.   Learn more at Maureentaylor.com I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. Support the show

When you picture lace, what comes to mind: an old-fashioned once-white piece of Victorian embellishment? The elegant, possibly itchy decoration on a wedding gown? If you are a needleworker, you might picture an array of bobbins leashed to a cluster of pins and arrayed on a pillow, or a tatting shuttle, or a steel crochet hook. All of these images would be correct—but capture the tiniest slice of the world's laces. As a PhD student, Elena Kanagy-Loux considers lace through the lenses of history, culture, and gender. How have textile artisans around the world developed lace strutures? Who was making lace—and who was wearing it? (For what matter, what is lace, anyway?) Beyond our assumptions about lace are delightful surprises: Wearing lace previously denoted power and wealth rather than femininity. Traditional lace may include a riot of color. Although they look delicate, lace fabrics can be surprisingly durable. Outside her academic pursuits, Elena takes a more hands-on view of lace. Having studied a variety of methods, she fell in love with bobbin lace, which seemed to click in her mind when she sat down at a lacemaking pillow. Like most of our readers, Elena generally creates lace for her own interest and enjoyment, though she has accepted several notable commissions: a collar presented to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Columbia Law School on the 25th anniversary of her investiture to the Supreme court, and a collar designed for the Threads of Power exhibit (https://www.bgc.bard.edu/exhibitions/exhibitions/118/threads-of-power) at the Bard Graduate Center. In addition to her own work, she teaches extensively, finding an audience of needleworkers eager to learn bobbin lace or improve their skills. She co-founded the Brooklyn Lace Guild, which offers classes as well as a community of lacemakers Elena often hears from non-makers, “Isn't that a dying art?” She replies—in her classes, her needlework, and her wardrobe (which often includes lace in her colorful, contemporary style)—“Lacemaking is a thriving art!” Links Elena Kanagy-Loux's website (https://elenakanagyloux.carbonmade.com/) Find Elena on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/erenanaomi), YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@elenakanagy-loux3846), and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@erenanaomi) Thr Brooklyn Lace Guild (https://www.brooklynlaceguild.com/), which Elena co-founded, is hosting its first exhibition, “Little Lace: The Work of Brooklyn Lace Guild,” (https://www.brooklynlaceguild.com/exhibitions) from October 10, 2024, through January 11, 2025. See the Brooklyn Lace Guild at the Kings County Fiber Festival (https://www.brooklynlaceguild.com/new-events/2024/10/12/kings-fiber-festival) at the Old Stone House, Brooklyn, on October 12, 2024, from 10 am to 5 pm. The International Organization of Lace, Inc. (https://main.internationalorganizationoflace.org/) hosts conventions and maintains a list of chapters and events for those interested in learning about lacemaking. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. KnitPicks.com has been serving the knitting community for over 20 years and believes knitting is for everyone, which is why they work hard to make knitting accessible, affordable, and approachable. Knit Picks responsibly sources its fiber to create an extensive selection of affordable yarns like High Desert from Shaniko Wool Company in Oregon. Are you looking for an ethical, eco-friendly yarn to try? Look no further than Knit Picks' Eco yarn line. Need needles? Knit Picks makes a selection for knitters right at their Vancouver, Washington headquarters. KnitPicks.com (https://www.knitpicks.com/)—a place for every knitter. Knitters know Manos del Uruguay for their yarns' rich tonal colors, but the story of women's empowerment and community benefit enriches every skein. Discover 17 yarn bases from laceweight to super bulky made and dyed at an artisan owned cooperative in Uruguay. Ask for Manos at your local retailer or visit FairmountFibers.com (https://fairmountfibers.com/). Creating consciously crafted fibers and patterns is more than just a focus for Blue Sky Fibers, it's their passion. Ever since they started with a small herd of alpacas in a Minnesota backyard, they've been committed to making yarn in the best way possible to show off its natural beauty. While their exclusive offerings have grown beyond alpaca to include wool, organic cotton, and silk, their desire for exciting makers about natural fibers hasn't changed one bit. It all winds back to the yarn, ensuring that every precious, handmade hank is lovingly filled with endless inspiration. blueskyfibers.com (https://blueskyfibers.com/)

We had a blast with Honey Pluton, Rose Dommu, Cherry Jaymes and River Ramirez at The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY for our first East Coast live show! We talked all about our gender journeys, the trans community in New York, and sharing HRT on the Coney Island Ferris Wheel. Thanks to everyone who came out! Hosted by Ally Beardsley and Babette Thomas, Gender Spiral is a quest to explore the modern experience of being a human in our gendered world. Check out Honey's podcast "Up Good with Honey Pluton" wherever you listen, and find him on Instagram @honeypluton. Look out for Rose's debut novel Best Woman, check out her substack "Mall Goth" and her podcast "Like a Virgin" available on Patreon, and find her on Instagram @rosedommu. Find Cherry Jaymes on Instagram @cherry.jaymes. Check out River at their lecture/performance at Bard Graduate Center on September 11, 2024 in NYC. Also check out their substack "River's World" and find them on Instagram @pileoftears. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok, and support us at patreon.com/GenderSpiralPodcast - and stay tuned for the video recording of the live show on Patreon! Find transcripts at genderspiralpod.com/episodes

Dolls play a huge part in our childhoods. Whether it was your best friend, or it gave you the creeps, your doll probably had some role in making you who you are today. This week, Getting Curious is getting all dolled up! Freyja Hartzell joins Jonathan to talk about disability representation in dolls, why some kids harm their dolls, and what makes play so important. Plus, she shows us perhaps the creepiest doll we've ever seen. Freyja Hartzell teaches the history of modern design, architecture, and art at Bard Graduate Center in New York City. She's currently writing a new book about dolls, robots, and AI--Doll Parts: Designing Likeness. She's also working on a related exhibition called Dollatry, which will open at Bard Graduate Center Gallery in February 2025. You can learn more about Freyja's work on her website. You can find more information about Tanya Marriott, the toy designer mentioned in the episode, here. Her book, Richard Riemerschmid's Extraordinary Living Things (MIT Press, 2022) can be found here. You can find links to the audio clips played in the episode, here: Thomas Edison Talking Doll Barbie Liberation Organization  Follow us on Instagram @CuriousWithJVN to join the conversation. Jonathan is on Instagram @JVN. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Find books from Getting Curious guests at bookshop.org/shop/curiouswithjvn. Our producer is Chris McClure. Our associate producer is Allison Weiss. Our engineer is Nathanael McClure. Production support from Julie Carrillo, Anne Currie, and Chad Hall. Our theme music is “Freak” by QUIÑ; for more, head to TheQuinCat.com. Curious about bringing your brand to life on the show? Email podcastadsales@sonymusic.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of Broken Boxes Podcast we hear from Tsedaye Makonnen, a multidisciplinary artist, curator, researcher and cultural producer. Tsedaye's practice is driven by Black feminist theory, firsthand site-specific research, and ethical social practice techniques, which become solo and collaborative site sensitive performances, objects, installations, and films. In our conversation Tsedaye shares with us about her experiences in building and sustaining her art practice which focuses primarily on intersectional feminism, reproductive health and migration. She shares how her personal history as a mother, the daughter of Ethiopian refugees, a doula and a sanctuary builder nourish and guide her creative expression. “I am Building worlds that have not existed yet, for myself and for others. I want to be as expansive and imaginative as possible - to me that is freedom.” - Tsedaye Makonnen Music: Tew Ante Sew by GIGI Broken Boxes opening song by India Sky Artist Website: https://www.tsedaye.com Photograph of Tsedaye Makonnen taken by performance artist Ayana Evan Tsedaye Makonnen is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, researcher and cultural producer. Tsedaye's practice is driven by Black feminist theory, firsthand site-specific research, and ethical social practice techniques, which become solo and collaborative site sensitive performances, objects, installations, and films. Her studio primarily focuses on intersectional feminism, reproductive health and migration. Tsedaye's personal history is as a mother, the daughter of Ethiopian refugees, a doula and a sanctuary builder. In 2019 she was the recipient of a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. In 2021 her light sculptures were acquired by the Smithsonian NMAFA for their permanent collection, she has also exhibited these light sculptures at the National Gallery of Art and UNTITLED Art Fair. In 2023, she will be showing these light installations in traveling exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bard Graduate Center and the Walters Art Museum. She is the current recipient of the large-scale Landmark Public Art Commission for Providence, RI where she will create a permanent installation of her renowned light sculptures. In the Fall 2022 she performed at the Venice Biennale for Simone Leigh's ‘Loophole of Retreat' and was the Clark Art Institute's Futures Fellow. In 2021 she published a book with Washington Project for the Arts titled ‘Black Women as/and the Living Archive' based on Alisha B. Wormsley's ‘Children of Nan'. In 2021, she exhibited at Photoville & NYU's Tisch, the Walters Art Museum as a Sondheim Prize Finalist, CFHill gallery in Stockholm, Sweden and 1:54 in London. In 2022 she exhibited at Artspace New Haven in CT and The Mattress Factory and much more. Other exhibitions include Park Avenue Armory, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Art Dubai, and more. She has performed at the Venice Biennale, Art Basel Miami, Art on the Vine (Martha's Vineyard), Chale Wote Street Art Festival (Ghana), El Museo del Barrio, Fendika Cultural Center (Ethiopia), Festival International d'Art Performance (Martinique), Queens Museum, the Smithsonian's, The Momentary and more. Her work has been featured in Artsy, NYTimes, Vogue, BOMB, Hyperallergic, American Quarterly, Gagosian Quarterly and Transition Magazine. She is represented by Addis Fine Art and currently lives between DC and London.

This week: Turkey and Syria. As the countries reel from the devastation of the 6 February earthquake, how can communities and agencies protect damaged heritage? We talk to Aparna Tandon from Iccrom, the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property about culture's significance in the humanitarian response to the crisis. As Alice Neel: Hot off the Griddle arrives at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, we take a tour of the show's key moments with its curator, Eleanor Nairne. And this episode's Work of the Week is a Germantown “eye-dazzler” blanket, made between 1895 and 1905 by a Diné weaver from the Navajo Nation. It's part of a new show at the Bard Graduate Center in New York, Shaped by the Loom: Weaving Worlds in the American Southwest. Hadley Jensen, the curator of the exhibition, tells us more.Disasters Emergency Committee's Turkey-Syria Earthquake: dec.org.uk; a PDF of Aparna Tandon's handbook First Aid To Cultural Heritage In Times Of Crisis is available for free at iccrom.org.Alice Neel: Hot off the Griddle, Barbican Art Gallery, London, until 21 May. The book accompanying the exhibition is published by Prestel, priced £24.99 or $29.95.Shaped by the Loom: Weaving Worlds in the American Southwest, Bard Graduate Center, New York, until 9 July. An online exhibition featuring an interactive catalogue has approximately 250 items from the American Museum of Natural History's collection of Navajo textiles will be available later this month at bgc.bard.edu. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Man of No Importance at Classic Stage Theater.  S & P Luncheonette.  Bud Zero comes to the rescue.  Rare Book School and the Grolier Club.  Vittore Carpaccio at the National Gallery.  The History of Lace at the Bard Graduate Center. Jule Campbell and Sports Illustrated.  Ashkenazi DNA. Credits: Talent:  Tamsen Granger and Dan Abuhoff Engineer:  Ellie Suttmeier Art:  Zeke Abuhoff 

In this episode, Isabella interviews Michele Majer and Emma Cormack, two of the three curators of the exhibition Threads of Power: Lace from the Textilmuseum St. Gallen, which is on display at the Bard Graduate Center until 1 January 2023. The trio discuss the exhibition, the history of lace, and anonymous lacemakers. Images and sources are available at @sewwhatpodcast on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. The podcast has a website, sewwhatpodcast.com.

Lace maker and historian Elena Kanagy-Loux joins us this week to talk about the history of handmade lace and its makers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In part two of this week's episode, we turn our attention to the technology that made machine-made lace possible and speak about some of our favorite pieces in the exhibition up now at Bard Graduate Center in New York City. RECOMMENDED READING: Cormack, Emma and Michelle Majer, eds. Threads of Power: Lace from the Textilmuseum St. Gallen. New York: Bard Graduate Center, 2022. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What you'll learn in this episode:   Why we often have more information about gold than any other decorative object The difference between material culture and material studies, and how these fields shaped the study of art and jewelry What John wants visitors to take away from “Gold in America: Artistry, Memory and Power” Why history is much more global than we may think What it really means to curate, and why it's an essential job   About John Stuart Gordon   John Stuart Gordon is the Benjamin Attmore Hewitt Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Yale University Art Gallery. He grew up among the redwoods of Northern California before venturing East and receiving a B.A. from Vassar College, an M.A. from the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, and a PH.D. from Boston University. He works on all aspects of American design and has written on glass, American modernism, studio ceramics, and postmodernism. His exhibition projects have explored postwar American architecture, turned wood, and industrial design. In addition, he supervises the Furniture Study, the Gallery's expansive study collection of American furniture and wooden objects. Additional Resources: Yale University Art Gallery Website Yale University Art Gallery Instagram John Stuart Gordon Instagram Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com   Transcript:   Perhaps more than any other metal or gem, gold brings out strong reactions in people (and has for all of recorded history). That's what curator John Stuart Gordon wanted to explore with “Gold in America: Artistry, Memory, Power,” a featured exhibition now on view at the Yale University Art Gallery. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about why people have always been enchanted by gold; what he discovered while creating the exhibit; and why curation is more that just selecting a group of objects. Read the episode transcript here.  Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. Today, my guest is John Stuart Gordon, the Benjamin Attmore Hewitt Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Yale University Art Gallery. Welcome back.    I'm curious; I know you recently had a group from Christie's studying jewelry that came to visit your exhibit. I'm curious if they asked different questions, or if there's something that stood out in what they were asking that might have been different from a group studying something else.    John: Every group is different. I love them all, and I learn so much from taking groups of visitors through because you start looking at objects through their lens. Recently a group of makers came through and, wow, that was a wonderful experience, because I could make a reference to, “Oh, look at the decoration on this,” and then, “Is it chaste or is it gadroon?” “What kind of anvil are they working with?” We have to answer these questions. There are some things I can't answer but a maker can identify easily, so I'm learning things.    Maybe someone who's a collector or an appraiser is thinking about objects in a very different way, wanting to know how rare it is, if there are only a handful, where they are, how many are still in private collections, what's in the museum collection. One of my favorite tours was with a small group of young children who had a completely different set of preconceived notions. I had to explain what an 18th century whistle and bells would have been used for because they'd never seen one before. I had to talk about what kinds of child's toys they remembered from when they were kids, trying to relate. Every group has a slightly different lens, and you can never anticipate the questions they're going to ask.   Sharon: Yes, they're coming at you from the weirdest angles. In putting this together, what surprised you most about gold in America? What surprised you most about putting this exhibit together? What made you say, “Gosh, I never knew that,” or “I never thought about that”? There's a lot, but what's the overriding question, let's say.    John: It's such a nerdy answer, and I apologize for being such a nerd, but what surprised me the most was an archival discovery. Mind you, this all takes place against the background of lockdown and having way too much time on our hands and looking for distractions. I pulled a historical newspaper database that the library subscribes to, and I typed in the word “gold” and pushed enter. There were about three million responses that came back, and I just started reading my way through. Not all of them were interesting, but I was struck by the frequency with which people were discussing gold, and I was struck by the global knowledge at a very early period. I would find articles written in the 1720s in colonial Boston talking about the Spanish fleets leaving Havana Harbor with amounts of silver and gold onboard. They would describe how much gold, how much silver, was it coins, was it bars, was it unrefined. There was a newspaper report coming out of New York in the 1750s talking about a new gold strike at a mine in Central Europe. That was truly unexpected: to realize that this material was of such importance that people were talking about it on a daily basis, and that it was newsworthy on this global scale. People weren't just talking about what was going on in colonial Boston or colonial Philadelphia. They were talking about what was going on in Prussia and Bogota. I think we often think of early history as very insular, and we think of our present day as global. History has always been global, and it was a lovely reminder of how global our culture always has been.   Sharon: That's interesting, especially talking about global. I just reread Hamilton. They're talking about Jefferson and Madison and everybody going over to France and coming back. I think about the boats, and I think, “Oh, my god.” I think of everybody as staying in place. You couldn't get me on one of those boats. What a voyage. But that was global. Everybody was communicating with everybody else. So, yes, it always has been that way, but it's very surprising, the movement that has been there for so long. We could go on and on about that.    Let me ask you this: Yale Art Gallery just received a donation from Susan Grant Lewin of modern jewelry, art jewelry, on the cutting edge. At the museum and gallery, is the emphasis more on jewelry as part of material culture and decorative arts? Not every museum or art gallery would have been open to it. What's the philosophy there?   John: Yes, we just received a gift of about two dozen pieces of contemporary jewelry from Susan Grant Lewin, who is a collector and scholar. We've also received a gift from the Enamel Arts Foundation, which is a foundation that collects and promotes enamel objects and jewelry. We have a long history of collecting jewelry, and it's based on historic collections. The core of the American decorative arts collection is the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection. It started coming to the art gallery in 1930. It's this rather storied collection. It covers everything you can imagine: furniture, glass, ceramics, textiles, you name it.    It was assembled by a man named Francis P. Garvan, who was a Yalee. He graduated in the late 19th century and he gave it in honor of his wife. His main love, after his wife and his family, was silver, and the collection at Yale is probably the most important collection of early American silver in any museum. Silversmiths and goldsmiths, the names are interchangeable, and it is mostly men at that period who were making silver objects and gold objects. They're also making jewelry. As you take the story forward, it doesn't change a lot. People who are trained as metalsmiths often will make holloware and/or jewelry. The fields are very closely allied, and the techniques are very closely allied. So for us, it makes complete sense to have this very important historical collection of metalwork go all the way up to the present.   We have a lot of 20th century jewelry, now 21st century jewelry. We also have contemporary holloware because we like being able to tell a story in a very long arc. The way someone like Paul Revere is thinking about making an object and thinking about marketing himself is related to how someone graduating from SUNY New Paltz or RISD are thinking about how to make an object and how to market themselves. Often it's the same material, the same hammers, the same anvils. So, it's nice to show those continuities and then to bring in how every generation treats this material slightly differently. They have their own ideas and their own technologies.    So, the Susan Grant Lewis Collection is a very experimental work. She has said she doesn't like stones, so you're not going to see a lot of gem setting and a lot of diamonds and rubies set in gold. There's nothing wrong with them, but she's more interested in people who are more out there, thinking about how you turn 3D printing into art or how you use found materials and construct narratives and make things that are more unexpected.   Sharon: I just want to interrupt you a minute.  SUNY New Paltz is the New York State University at New Paltz?   John: State University of New York at New Paltz. Sorry, I gave you the shorthand.   Sharon: I know RISD is the Rhode Island Institute—   John: We're going to have to submit an index on how to understand all my acronyms. Yes, RISD is the Rhode Island School of Design. There are a handful of institutions that have really strong jewelry departments and really strong metalworking departments, among them Rhode Island School of Design, State University of New York at New Paltz. You can add Cranbrook, which is outside of Detroit. There's a whole group of them that are producing wonderful things.   Sharon: So, you studied decorative arts. What was your master's in?   John: I was an art historian. I was very lucky in college to have a professor who believed in material culture, and I asked, “Do I have to write about paintings?” and she said, “No, you don't.” I was very lucky to find that in college. Then I went to the Bard Graduate Center in New York. It was a much longer title, the Graduate Center for Material Culture and Design. It changes its name every two years. My master's was in kind of a history of design and material culture. Then to get a Ph.D., there are very few programs that allow people to focus on material culture. Luckily, there are more with every passing year. When I was going to school, Yale is one that's always focused on decorative arts and material culture. Boston University, their American studies program is a historically strong program that allows you to look at anything in the world as long as you can justify it. So, that's where I went.   Sharon: Was jewelry like, “Oh yeah, and there's jewelry also,” or was jewelry part of the story, part of the material culture, the material objects that you might look at? Was it part of any of this?   John: It was. I am at core a metals person. My master's thesis was written on the 1939 New York World's Fair, looking at one pavilion where Tiffany, Cartier and a few others had their big exhibition of silver, gold and, of course, jewelry. My entry into it was silver, but I had to learn all the jewelry as well. So, jewelry has always been part of my intellectual DNA, but it didn't really flourish until I got to Yale, and that would be because of my colleague, Patricia Kane. She has a deep knowledge and interest in jewelry. We have done a few jewelry exhibitions in the past, and she has seen it as part of the collection that should grow. I arrived at Yale as a scrappy, young curator seeing what was going on in the landscape, and the jewelry is amazing. One of my first conferences I went to was a craft conference. I met jewelers and metalsmiths, and it's a really approachable group. They're very friendly. They like talking about their ideas. They like talking about their work, which is really rewarding.   Sharon: What were your ideas when you started as a curator? Did you have the idea, “Oh, I'd love to do exhibition work”? Curate has become such a word today. Everybody is curating something.   John: Yes, my head is in my hands right now. One of my pet peeves is that people talk about curating their lunches. The word curate actually means to care for, so I think about the religious role of a curate. It's the same role. Our job is really to care for collections. If you care for your lunch, you can curate it, but if you're just selecting it, please use a different word.    That idea of caring for objects, that's what really excited me as a curator; the idea that so much of what we do is getting to know a collection, to research it, to make sure it's being treated well, that things are stable when they go on loan, that when things need treatment, you work with a conservator or a scientist. I was really excited by that.    Over the course of my career, I've become much broader in my thinking. When you come out of graduate school, you've spent years focusing down deeper and deeper on one small, little subject. I was still very focused on a very narrow subject when I became a curator. That was early 20th century design. I love it dearly, but over the years my blinders have come off. I love American modernism. I also love 17th century metalwork. I love 21st century glass. You realize you love everything in the world around you.   Sharon: Would you say your definition of curate is still to care for? I'm thinking about when I polish my silver. I guess it's part of curating in a sense, taking care of things.    John: Polishing your silver or your jewelry is actually one of the best ways to get to know it. We're one of the few collections where it's the curators who polish the silver. We hold onto that task because we don't do it very often, because it's better to leave things unpolished if you don't have to. But when it comes time to polish something, the opportunity to pick something up, to turn it over, to feel the weight of it, to look closely at the marks and the details, that's a really special thing, to get to know your objects so well by doing it. I give a hearty endorsement of silver polishing. It's also a great emotional therapy if you've had a tough day. But to your question, I even more strongly believe that the role of a curator is someone to care for their collections.   Sharon: I really like that. It gives me a different perspective.   John: Yeah, because what we're doing is not just physical care; it's emotional care. In today's culture we talk so much about self-care and these kinds of tropes, but that's a lot of what we're doing. We're understanding history through our objects. We're understanding the objects better to have something preserved for posterity, so it can tell future generations stories.   Sharon: That's interesting. John, thank you so much. By the way, the exhibit ends in July, but the Susan Grant Lewin Collection is open through September. You'll be busy, it sounds like.   John: “Gold in America: Artistry, Memory, Power” closes July 10. The Susan Grant Lewin Collection of American Jewelry will be up through the fall. If you miss both of those or you're in a place where you can't get to New Haven, our collections are all online. All you have to do is go to our website, and you can just click through and spend a day looking at objects from the comfort of your living room.   Sharon: Yes, and very nice photos. As I said, I was looking at them before we started. I was very interested. What was that used for? Where did it come from? I guess being in Los Angeles, I'll have to do that. I'll be doing that from my living room. John, thank you so much. This is very, very interesting. I learned a lot and you have given me a lot to think about, so thank you so much.   John: Thank you for having me.   Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.

What you'll learn in this episode: Why we often have more information about gold than any other decorative object The difference between material culture and material studies, and how these fields shaped the study of art and jewelry What John wants visitors to take away from “Gold in America: Artistry, Memory and Power” Why history is much more global than we may think What it really means to curate, and why it's an essential job   About John Stuart Gordon   John Stuart Gordon is the Benjamin Attmore Hewitt Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Yale University Art Gallery. He grew up among the redwoods of Northern California before venturing East and receiving a B.A. from Vassar College, an M.A. from the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, and a PH.D. from Boston University. He works on all aspects of American design and has written on glass, American modernism, studio ceramics, and postmodernism. His exhibition projects have explored postwar American architecture, turned wood, and industrial design. In addition, he supervises the Furniture Study, the Gallery's expansive study collection of American furniture and wooden objects. Additional Resources: Yale University Art Gallery Website Yale University Art Gallery Instagram John Stuart Gordon Instagram Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com   Transcript:   Perhaps more than any other metal or gem, gold brings out strong reactions in people (and has for all of recorded history). That's what curator John Stuart Gordon wanted to explore with “Gold in America: Artistry, Memory, Power,” a featured exhibition now on view at the Yale University Art Gallery. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about why people have always been enchanted by gold; what he discovered while creating the exhibit; and why curation is more that just selecting a group of objects. Read the episode transcript here.  Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is a two-part Jewelry Journey Podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week.    Today, my guest is John Stuart Gordon, the Benjamin Attmore Hewitt Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Yale University Art Gallery. The Yale University Museum and Gallery is the oldest art museum in the western hemisphere associated with the university. John is going to be telling us today about one of the gallery's current feature exhibitions, “Gold in America: Artistry, Memory, Power.” We'll hear all about the exhibit and John's journey today. John, welcome to the program.   John: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I apologize; my endowed title is a total mouthful.   Sharon: No, no. Who is Benjamin Attmore Hewitt?   John: Benjamin Attmore Hewitt was a clinical psychologist who helped bring the idea of statistical study to psychology, and he was also a collector. He was an avid collector of federal furniture, and he was associated with the art gallery. He, in the early 80s, was a guest curator on an exhibit on card tables that we did called “The Work of Many Hands.” In the incredibly small world department, I'm joining you from my living room, where if I turn and look out my window, I'm looking at the house that he used to live in across the street from me.   Sharon: Wow! Was that an old house that was built on federal plans or is it a modern house, the one he built or that that he has?   John: It is a beautiful, Georgian-style house. It's quite gorgeous, and you can imagine it was perfect for his federal period collection.   Sharon: It sounds gorgeous.   John: It's just one of those small-world things, right? I ended up moving across the street from person who endowed my job.   Sharon: Sounds gorgeous. So, tell us about your career path. Tell us how you ended up at the Yale University Art Gallery.   John: Yes, it was a dream job for me. I grew up in San Francisco. I grew up in a household that loved art, so I'm one of those lucky people that grew up from childhood thinking art isn't scary; art isn't strange; art is something to be enjoyed. I always knew I wanted to be in the art world somehow. I went to Vassar College in Poughkeepsie for the history of art program. When I graduated, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but my first job was at Christie's auction house, and that was an amazing experience. You see everything when you work in an auction house. It's the fabulous things that get the headlines in the paper, but it's everything else that gives you an education. That was an incredible training for my eye.    I'm a slow thinker. I like taking my time. I like spending time with objects. The constant hustle and bustle of the auction world was a little too much for me, so I went to grad school. I went to the Bard Graduate Center in New York and got my master's. Then I had an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of my colleagues there, the curator Amelia Peck, once said that if you would like a job at one of the great collections, you need a Ph.D. So, I said, “O.K.,” and I went to Boston University for a Ph.D. in American Studies.    The whole time I was thinking, “I want to get a Ph.D. so I can get a job at a place like the Yale University Art Gallery,” because its collection is legendary. It was the collection that so many of my professors used when they were teaching their survey courses. It was a collection I knew, and it was my aspirational job. One day while I was studying for my orals, my college professor called me and said, “A job has opened up at the Yale University Art Gallery. You need to apply for it.” Being a grad student, I was like, “Oh, I'm a little busy right now. Maybe next week,” and she was like, “John, don't be stupid. These jobs don't come up very often. You really need to apply.” I was very lucky. I got the job. That was 15 years ago, and I have been there ever since.   The collection is extraordinary. The museum was founded in 1832. It was one of the oldest museums in the country. Its American decorative arts collection formed very early on but really got going in 1930, so it's also a very old collection. In the 1970s, one of the former curators, Charles Montgomery, felt it needed to go clear up to the present. So, our collection really spans centuries, and with that kind of span, you never get tired.    Sharon: It does. I was looking at your exhibit of gold online and I'm going, “Oh my god, this is going back.” I was looking at the gold collar you have and I thought, “This is really old.” What was that? The 3rd or 5th century or something like that? I can't even remember.   John: The museum's collections are encyclopedic. It goes from ancient Babylon up to the present day. Luckily, my slice of it is just the American, which is enough of a handful. There are two of us in our department, Patricia Kane and myself, and between the two of us, we need to cover pre-contact to the present in every medium. So, it's enough to make your head spin some days.   Sharon: What is it about the decorative arts that attracted you as opposed to another area of history that you could also go into museums for?   John: That's a great question. I loved the idea that decorative arts are like a lens into our world. Everything we make and own is a lens, but decorative arts have a way of telling you stories about the way we used the technology that went into making them, what a particular culture or a time period found important, as you make objects to fulfill needs and to fulfill aspirations. I loved the idea that you could take anything from a necklace or a teapot or a chair, and if you look at it enough ways, you could know a lot about the goals and dreams and technologies and resources of a given time period. I loved that idea, reverse-engineering culture through objects.   Sharon: That's interesting, yes. How did the gold exhibit come about? Was that something you and Patricia had been thinking about, or was that a directive from on high? How did that come about?   John: The gold exhibition came about because of the pandemic, to be completely honest. Two years ago, the museum closed down, like many museums did at the beginning of the pandemic, and our exhibition calendar went out the window. Loans were cancelled, exhibitions were cancelled, and the director of the Yale University Art Gallery, Stephanie Wiles, put out a call for in-house exhibitions, exhibitions we could work on in our spare time. We didn't know how long this was going to last. We thought we were going be home for a few weeks, and she wanted exhibitions that would be easy to slot into the calendar when the museum reopened and that would really shine a light on our collections, because those would be easier for the curators to research.    When I arrived at Yale in 2006, sitting on the shelf above my desk was a slim, little catalogue to an exhibition called “American Gold” that was done in 1963. I loved that little catalogue. I read it many times. I loved the material. Much of the material was drawn from Yale's collections because Yale has one of the strongest collections of early American gold. I thought, “Someday, maybe I'll revisit this.” It seemed amazing that no one had revisited this idea of gold since the 1960s because so much had changed about we think about the world, how we think about objects, what kind of theoretical models we use, and I thought I would do that exhibition at some point in the distant future. Then when our director said, “Are there are any ideas out there?” I said, “O.K., maybe I could do this now.” I suggested it, and it was a real treat. So, it was something that grew out of a spontaneous need but became a wonderful, wonderful research project.   Sharon: So, the objects for the most part are taken from your collection as opposed to loans, O.K. Tell us about the exhibit “Gold in America: Artistry, Memory, Power.” Tell us more about the whole exhibit. What do you want people to learn from it?   John: I was fascinated by the idea that gold is so compelling and so entrancing. There is something about this material that has been fascinating to humans for millennia. You think about the Egyptian pharaohs with their coffins covered in gold. Gold is the reason for so many wars and invasions, and all this is a sign of status. What is it about this material that has so much weight? I started talking to many of my colleagues, asking about the gold in their department, and we realized we could do a global show. It could be gigantic. It started getting away from me, and I realized, “O.K., let's just focus on one very narrow portion of this global story. We'll just focus on colonial American experience.”    As I started looking at those objects, I was struck by something rather uncanny. In the history of decorative arts, most objects are anonymous. We don't know who made them. We don't know who owned them. We don't know how they traveled through time. With metalwork, we do tend to know a bit more because there are makers' marks. There's a whole history of guild systems that are looking at the purity of metals, and with gold we know even more information. I think probably more than almost any other material, we know who made gold objects and who owned them, and it's because they often are inscribed or engraved somehow, or family histories come down with them. I found that so fascinating. That became the structure for the show, really thinking about these objects that have histories and why they were owned, why they were made, why they were cherished, thinking about this important material and how it intersects with human life over the span of a few centuries. That's what I want visitors to take away.    Most people think—well, we can actually do this right now. Sharon and everyone listening, just to yourself, think of three words that come to mind immediately when I say gold. Free associate. What are those words that come to mind? Sharon, I'm going to put you on the spot. What three words come to mind?   Sharon: It's like a blue elephant. What do I think? Shiny, valuable and decorative. In terms of jewelry, I think decorative. Those are the words that come to mind.   John: Shiny, valuable, decorative. I asked this question of a lot of people. Everyone I met for a while got that question, and value came up a lot. Then there were a lot of judgment terms, things like beauty or tacky. They were either positive or negative terms. People have an emotional, visceral reaction to gold. What I want people who visit the show to do is to move beyond those initial associations. We're drawn to it because it's valuable and we think it's beautiful, or we're skeptical of it because we think it might be gaudy. But I want them to really look at the objects and learn why someone might own something or why someone might want an object made out of this material. It's to move beyond those initial words into words about legacy and heritage or patriotism or pride, to get to that second layer. It's to let people know O.K., I'm going to think twice about what a gold ring might symbolize because I've looked at a gold ring that was all about mourning and commemorating the dead, or I've looked at something like a gold spoon that seemed a little flashy, but we know it was made by a Huguenot craftsman escaping religious persecution in New York, yet it was owned by someone who made their money selling slaves. Ideas of freedom and persecution are wrapped up in this material. There are so many stories that, once you start asking the objects, the stories come back to you in a way that I hope makes people pause when they leave the museum and see something else in their life. “Oh, that's an interesting idea.”   Sharon: I think what strikes me is the fact that when you're talking about gold, artistry, memory and power over the years, the wars that have been fought, I think of the Aztecs and Incas, where it was so cherished. We talked a little about this. Material culture, material studies. You'll have to explain the difference. That sounds like something I didn't grow up hearing. Maybe because you're in that world, it's something you've heard about for a long time. But what is material culture and material studies, and how does it relate to this?   John: That is such a big question. I'll try to do some honor to it. The idea of material culture as an academic field—and I'm sorry; I have to put on my dorky academic for a second—but the idea of material culture really came out in the 1960s and 1970s with this larger idea of a new history, a way of looking at the reinterpretation of historical sources, historical stories, questioning who has the right to tell history. It was a way to get away from just looking at the histories of wars and rulers, documenting dead white men written by more dead white men. Material culture is a way of looking holistically at the objects that are produced by a civilization and thinking about the everyday person or the person not on the throne. What can be learned from the things that are not just the dates of rules and wars? That field really transformed art history, history, American studies, anthropology, archaeology. It opened up various fields of study so that you could write an entire book about the development of the Coke bottle and have a valid historical discussion about everyday objects.    What's been fascinating—I grew up in this world. To me, material culture is my language. I grew up being taught by people who were on the front wave of this, so I'm totally indoctrinated. In recent years, I've seen a subfield emerge just called material studies. It makes chuckle a bit because it's like material culture with the culture taken out, which is probably not true, but it's really just going into the actual “thinginess” of objects: thinking about the marble that a statue was carved from, or thinking about the wood used to make a chair and diving deep into this elemental level of what the material of our world is, where it comes from and what stories it tells.    In terms of gold, your mentioning the Incas is, I think, a rather important reference, because where was the gold coming from? If we take an Inca material studies approach to this, we think about how, for many years, the Mediterranean in Europe, they weren't reusing and melting down and recycling the gold that was coming out of a very limited number of mines. Then suddenly, the Spanish discover or stumble across the New World, and they see these cities with temples filled with gold and palaces filled with gold, and they start looting them. As the conquistadors are conquering Central and South America, they're stripping the gold out, and then that gold is being melted down and being sent back to Europe. What does it mean to have this material that's so inherently fraught with conflict?    What does it mean for a silversmith in Boston in the 18th century? He's sitting on the edge of an empire working a small amount of gold that's incredibly valuable because he has to get it from London. He's aware that the Spanish have all this access to gold through the New World, and it's circulating around him. Then how does all of this change when gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill in California in 1849, and suddenly there's a whole new and incredibly large source of gold? It's augmented by further strikes in Colorado, and the West begins creating more gold. Think about this material, how its rarity is tied to conquest and imperial control.   There are some scientists who have been thinking, “Can we do tests on material to find out if there are little isotopes in the metal that can tell you whether the ring you're wearing today is gold that was from Northern California or from Afghanistan? Can we begin to map out the world and map out trade routes all based on scientific inquiry and matching scientific testing with archival research?” Your very quick dive into material culture versus material studies, it's endlessly fascinating.   Sharon: I know people get their doctorates in material studies around things like that. I should have asked you this at the beginning. Did you consider yourself an artist when you grew up with all this art? Before art history, were you creative? Were your parents in the creative end of the arts or were they teaching?   John: Being an artist was option number one, and I pursued that. Making art was a really important part of my childhood and developing a sense of identity. Then I learned about art history. I just loved art history, and I had to make that decision: would I go to art school or would I go to a liberal arts college? For me, art history won. I loved being able to parse out these stories and to look at objects and paintings and sculptures and think about all the different references. But having that history of making, I think, is very important. I have a lot of empathy for the skill and the creativity that goes into making.

Did you know that a graphic designer created the first over-the-counter pregnancy test? How did giving birth become medicalized? What does culturally appropriate care look like? Michelle Millar Fisher has worked as an educator, curator, and historian in universities and museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, and the MFA Boston where she is currently the Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts. Her work focuses on the intersections of people, power, design, and craft. She has co-authored many books, essays, and exhibitions including Design and Violence and Items: Is Fashion Modern?  Amber Winick is a mother and design historian. She holds an MA in Design History, Decorative Arts, and Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center, and a BA in child development and anthropology from Sarah Lawrence College. She has received two Fulbrights, and has lived and researched maternal and child-related designs, policies, and practices around the world. She has expertise in the designed systems, environments, and objects that empower (and disempower) us, particularly around birth, family leave, caregiving, schools, and early childhood.

Photographers and their images were critical to the making of Mozambique, first as a colony of Portugal and then as independent nation at war with apartheid in South Africa. When the Mozambique Liberation Front came to power, it invested substantial human and financial resources in institutional structures involving photography, and used them to insert the nation into global debates over photography's use. The materiality of the photographs created had effects that neither the colonial nor postcolonial state could have imagined. Filtering Histories: The Photographic Bureaucracy in Mozambique, 1960 to Recent Times (U Michigan Press, 2021) tells a history of photography alongside state formation to understand the process of decolonization and state development after colonial rule. At the center of analysis are an array of photographic and illustrated materials from Mozambique, South Africa, Portugal, and Italy. Thompson recreates through oral histories and archival research the procedures and regulations that engulfed the practice and circulation of photography. If photographers and media bureaucracy were proactive in placing images of Mozambique in international news, Mozambicans were agents of self-representation, especially when it came to appearing or disappearing before the camera lens. Drawing attention to the multiple images that one published photograph may conceal, Filtering Histories introduces the popular and material formations of portraiture and photojournalism that informed photography's production, circulation, and archiving in a place like Mozambique. The book reveals how the use of photography by the colonial state and the liberation movement overlapped, and the role that photography played in the transition of power from colonialism to independence. Dr. Thompson is currently an Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History and Visual Culture at Ryerson University's School of Image Arts. In January he'll join the Bard Graduate Center and Bard College an Associate Professor of Visual Culture and Black Studies. Sara Katz is a postdoctoral associate in the history department at Duke University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

In 2020 the Baltimore Museum of Art appointed their first native curator, Darienne Turner, Assistant Curator of Indigenous Art of the Americas. Her hire signaled a commitment by the museum to promote and interpret the art of indigenous peoples of the Americas. A member of the Yurok Tribe of California, Darienne is one of the few native curators of native art in U.S. museums. In our conversation, she discusses her role and the challenges in presenting and collecting native art in an institutional context and her responsibility to tell the stories of native peoples thoughtfully and reverently.  When we spoke with Darienne in December 2020, the museum was partially closed. The only spaces open to the public were the gift shop and a portion of the first floor where her first exhibition at the museum, Stripes, and Stars: Reclaiming Lakota Independence (October 11, 2020 — March 28, 2021), was installed. The exhibition presented a small selection of objects from the museum's collection produced by the Lakota peoples of South Dakota. Confined to reservations by the late 19th century, the makers of these objects incorporated the American flag in their detailed beadwork. On caps and vests worn by children, boots, pouches, and a monumental hood for a horse, these emblems of the flag served as a talisman and a way for the Lakota youth to participate in cultural activities which had previously been outlawed. Her exhibition was the first in what we hope will be many that celebrate the achievement of native makers of the Americas.  The Baltimore Museum of Art is one of the leading U.S. encyclopedic museums committed to collecting and promoting inclusivity. Being a majority-minority city, Baltimore and the museum is a model for the future of U.S. culture and institutions.Learn more about the museum and her exhibition here:Exhibition page: https://artbma.org/exhibition/stripes-and-stars-reclaiming-lakota-independenceExhibition Installation Videohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrgHLLqglkoTalk with Darienne Turner and Sheldon Raymore, member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Nation and multidisciplinary artist and performer, on the occasion of the exhibition Stripes and Stars: Reclaiming Lakota Independence at the BMA.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIycn3OzPMUPress: 'We Were White and Sleepy Before'—The Baltimore Museum of Art's Radical Makeover – Wall Street Journal, 11/22/19.About Darienne:Darienne is the Assistant Curator of Indigenous Art of the Americas at the Baltimore Museum of Art, is a member of the Yurok Tribe of California, and has taught in MICA's Graphic Design Department since 2017. She earned a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and an M.A. in Design History & Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center. She is the curator of Stripes and Stars: Reclaiming Lakota Independence (2020) and has contributed to exhibitions at the Bard Graduate Center, Walters Art Museum, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, and Yellowstone National Park. Her essay "Terrestrial Gateways to the Divine" was featured in the Ex Voto: Agents of Faith exhibition catalog, named one of the Best Art Books of 2018 by the New York Times.Episode recorded on December 16, 2020.

Remarkable stories of Jewish women through the objects of their lives. The Art of the Jew­ish Fam­i­ly: A His­to­ry of Women in Ear­ly New York in Five Objects (Bard Grad­u­ate Cen­ter), winner of The National Jewish Book Award in three dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories: the Ger­rard and Ella Berman Memo­r­i­al Award for His­to­ry, the Amer­i­can Jew­ish Stud­ies Cel­e­brate 350 Award, and the Women Stud­ies Bar­bara Dobkin Award. In The Art of the Jewish Family, Laura Arnold Leibman examines five objects owned by a diverse group of Jewish women who all lived in New York in the years between 1750 and 1850: a letter from impoverished Hannah Louzada seeking assistance; a set of silver cups owned by Reyna Levy Moses; an ivory miniature owned by Sarah Brandon Moses, who was born enslaved and became one of the wealthiest Jewish women in New York; a book created by Sarah Ann Hays Mordecai; and a family silhouette owned by Rebbetzin Jane Symons Isaacs. These objects offer intimate and tangible views into the lives of Jewish American women from a range of statuses, beliefs, and lifestyles—both rich and poor, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, slaves and slaveowners. Each chapter creates a biography of a single woman through an object, offering a new methodology that looks past texts alone to material culture in order to further understand early Jewish American women's lives and restore their agency as creators of Jewish identity. While much of the available history was written by men, the objects that Leibman studies were made for and by Jewish women. Speaking to American Jewish life, women's studies, and American history, The Art of the Jewish Family sheds new light on the lives and values of these women, while also revealing the social and religious structures that led to Jewish women being erased from historical archives. Laura Arnold Leibman is a Professor of English and Humanities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon (USA) and the author of The Art of the Jewish Family: A History of Women in Early New York in Five Objects (Bard Graduate Center, 2020) which won three National Jewish Book Awards. Her earlier book Messianism, Secrecy and Mysticism: A New Interpretation of Early American Jewish Life (2012) won a Jordan Schnitzer Book Award and a National Jewish Book Award. Her work focuses on religion and the daily lives of women and children in early America and uses everyday objects to help bring their stories back to life. She has been a visiting fellow at Oxford University, a Fulbright scholar at the University of Utrecht, the University of Panama, and the Leon Levy Foundation Professor of Jewish Material Culture at Bard Graduate Center. Her forthcoming Once We Were Slaves (Oxford UP, 2021) is about an early multiracial Jewish family who began their lives enslaved in the Caribbean and became some of the wealthiest Jews in New York.

Elissa Auther is the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Previously, she was Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado and a visiting associate professor at Bard Graduate Center. A feminist public intellectual, Auther founded and co-directed for the past ten years the program “Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver that focuses on issues of women and gender through the lens of creative practice.· madmuseum.org· www.elissaauther.com· www.creativeprocess.infoImage Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York

“So the Museum of Arts and Design historically, for me, is part of a New York avantgarde scene. It's just that it was dedicated to artists working in these historically-marginalized materials. And it continues to do that. That mission has never changed.”Elissa Auther is the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Previously, she was Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado and a visiting associate professor at Bard Graduate Center. A feminist public intellectual, Auther founded and co-directed for the past ten years the program “Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver that focuses on issues of women and gender through the lens of creative practice.· madmuseum.org· www.elissaauther.com· www.creativeprocess.infoImage Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York

Elissa Auther is the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Previously, she was Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado and a visiting associate professor at Bard Graduate Center. A feminist public intellectual, Auther founded and co-directed for the past ten years the program “Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver that focuses on issues of women and gender through the lens of creative practice.· madmuseum.org· www.elissaauther.com· www.creativeprocess.infoImage Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York

“So the Museum of Arts and Design historically, for me, is part of a New York avantgarde scene. It's just that it was dedicated to artists working in these historically-marginalized materials. And it continues to do that. That mission has never changed.”Elissa Auther is the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Previously, she was Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado and a visiting associate professor at Bard Graduate Center. A feminist public intellectual, Auther founded and co-directed for the past ten years the program “Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver that focuses on issues of women and gender through the lens of creative practice.· madmuseum.org· www.elissaauther.com· www.creativeprocess.infoImage Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York

Elissa Auther is the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Previously, she was Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado and a visiting associate professor at Bard Graduate Center. A feminist public intellectual, Auther founded and co-directed for the past ten years the program “Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver that focuses on issues of women and gender through the lens of creative practice.· madmuseum.org· www.elissaauther.com· www.creativeprocess.infoImage Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York

“So the Museum of Arts and Design historically, for me, is part of a New York avantgarde scene. It's just that it was dedicated to artists working in these historically-marginalized materials. And it continues to do that. That mission has never changed.”Elissa Auther is the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Previously, she was Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado and a visiting associate professor at Bard Graduate Center. A feminist public intellectual, Auther founded and co-directed for the past ten years the program “Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver that focuses on issues of women and gender through the lens of creative practice.· madmuseum.org· www.elissaauther.com· www.creativeprocess.infoImage Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York

On this episode, Jen and Stephanie speak with UT anthropologist Hi'ilei Hobart who brings her unique research on food sovereignty and indigenous peoples to the proverbial table of this podcast, discussing the ways in which her personal experiences have shaped her writing and her classroom. We enjoyed this conversation, and we hope you do too! Thanks for joining us on The Other Side of Campus! ABOUT THE GUEST https://earthday.nelson.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/hobart-hiilei.jpg Hiʻilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. She holds a PhD in Food Studies from New York University, an MA in Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture from the Bard Graduate Center and an MLS in Archives Management and Rare Books from the Pratt Institute. Her research is broadly concerned with Indigenous foodways, Pacific Island studies, settler colonialism, urban infrastructure, and the performance of taste. Her book on the social history of comestible ice in Hawai'i investigates the sensorial and affective dimensions of Native dispossession. In particular, she is interested in how personal and political investments in coldness facilitate ideas about race, belonging, comfort, and leisure in the Pacific. Visit her on her website at https://www.hiokinai.com/. PRODUCER'S NOTE: This episode was recorded on March 26th, 2021 via Zoom. CREDITS Assistant Producers/Hosts: Jen Moon and Stephanie Seidel Holmsten (Intro theme features additional PTF fellows Patrick Davis, Keith Brown, David Vanden Bout Music and Sound Design by Charlie Harper (www.charlieharpermusic.com) Produced by Michelle S. Daniel Creator & Executive Producer: Mary C. Neuburger Connect with us! Facebook: /texasptf Twitter: @TexasPTF Website: https://texasptf.org DISCLAIMER: Texas Podcast Network is brought to you by The University of Texas at Austin. Podcasts are produced by faculty members and staffers at UT Austin who work with University Communications to craft content that adheres to journalistic best practices. The University of Texas at Austin offers these podcasts at no charge. Podcasts appearing on the network and this webpage represent the views of the hosts, not of The University of Texas at Austin. https://files.fireside.fm/file/fireside-uploads/images/1/1ed1b736-a1fa-4ae4-b346-90d58dfbc8a4/4GSxOOOU.png Special Guest: Hi'ilei Hobart.

What is limited, valuable, and scarce? Attention. As society as a whole tries to navigate the new terrain where attention is the commodity supporting a large part of the economy, it is imperative that humans understand that attention is the gateway to information processing and “knowing what to pay attention to” is probably far more important than simply paying attention.Since the act of paying attention presents itself in more than one form such as listening, loving, cooperating, collaborating or even being generous and altruistic, we need to build brains that know how to engage their attention and direct it towards intentions so that decisions are made that serve the needs that go beyond the current moment or the current self. On this episode, award-winning author and journalist known for her pioneering writings exploring social trends, particularly technology's impact on humanity, Maggie Jackson, joins Sucheta Kamath to talk about why fractured attention often leaves us feeling scattered, fragmented and frustrated. If what Susan Sontag's words “Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager” are true, then we all must participate in the Attentional Renaissance.About Maggie JacksonMaggie Jackson is an award-winning author and journalist known for her pioneering writings exploring social trends, particularly technology's impact on humanity. Her acclaimed book Distracted (Second Ed., 2018) kickstarted a global conversation on the steep costs of fragmenting our attention. Winner of the prestigious 2020 Dorothy Lee Book Award for excellence in technology criticism, Distracted was compared by FastCompany.com to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring for its prescient critique of technology's excesses. The book helped inspire Google's recent digital well-being initiative. A former Boston Globe contributing columnist, Jackson's commentary and articles have appeared in media worldwide, including the New York Times, NPR, and the noted design-and-philosophy journal New Philosopher. A graduate of Yale University and of the London School of Economics with highest honors, Jackson has won numerous awards and fellowships, including a Visiting Fellowship at the Bard Graduate Center (2016). She lives in New York and Rhode Island. Visit her website: maggie-jackson.comBook:Distracted: Reclaiming Our Focus in a World of Lost Attention Article:NY Times Opinion Piece on Robot CaregivingBoston Globe Essay on Uncertainty's Critical Role in Good ThinkingAbout Host, Sucheta KamathSucheta Kamath, is an award-winning speech-language pathologist, a TEDx speaker, a celebrated community leader, and the founder and CEO of ExQ®. As an EdTech entrepreneur, Sucheta has designed ExQ's personalized digital learning curriculum/tool that empowers middle and high school students to develop self-awareness and strategic thinking skills through the mastery of Executive Function and social-emotional competence.Support the show (https://mailchi.mp/7c848462e96f/full-prefrontal-sign-up)

In this week's episode, LaChaun is speaking with Jessie Mordine Young. Jessie is a textile curator, teacher of traditional textile techniques, and maker living in New York City. She is an MA candidate in the History of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture at the Bard Graduate Center in New York City. She also graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) with a dual degree in Art History and Studio Art in Fiber and Material Studies. Show notes: www.gistyarn.com/episode-125

A DISCUSSION WITH AUTHOR DR. LAURA ARNOLD LEIBMANIn "The Art of the Jewish Family" Dr. Laura Arnold Leibman examines five objects owned by a diverse group of Jewish women who lived in New York between the years 1750 and 1850. Each chapter creates a biography of a single woman through an object, offering a new methodology that looks past texts alone to material culture in order to further understand early Jewish American women’s lives and restore their agency as creators of Jewish identity.This event was sponsored by The JTS Library. Dr. David Kraemer, Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Librarian and professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, JTS, served as moderator.ABOUT DR. LAURA ARNOLD LEIBMANLaura Arnold Leibman is a professor of English and Humanities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Her work focuses on religion and the daily lives of women and children in early America and uses everyday objects to help bring their stories back to life. She has been a visiting fellow at Oxford University, a Fulbright scholar at the University of Utrecht, the University of Panama, and Bard Graduate Center. Her second book, Messianism, Secrecy and Mysticism: A New Interpretation of Early American Jewish Life (2012) uses material culture to retell the history of early American Jews, and won a Jordan Schnitzer Book Award and a National Jewish Book Award, and was a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. She is currently writing about an early multiracial Jewish family who began their lives as slaves in the Caribbean and became some of the wealthiest Jews in New York.

3 razones por las cuales deben escuchar el episodio Escucha cómo es un día normal en la profesión de un Art Curator que se especializa en diseño. Anota todos los pasos que conlleva crear una exhibición de arte en un Museo. Identifica el rol de los diseñadores en una exhibición. Conoce a Christina De León Christina De León is Associate Curator of Latino Design at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian, Design Museum in New York. From 2010-2016 De León was Associate Curator at Americas Society where she worked on exhibitions and publications focused on modern and contemporary Latin American art. She also held previous positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cloisters. De León is currently a doctoral candidate at the Bard Graduate Center, where her research focuses on the design and decorative arts of the Americas. Nuestra visita en el Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian, Design Museum in New York

Susanna Crum is an artist and educator in Louisville, Kentucky, where she teaches printmaking as an Assistant Professor at Indiana University Southeast and at Calliope Arts, a shared print media workspace she cofounded in 2015. She is President of the Mid America Print Council, and just spent a month fishing and conducting a research-based mapping project in the small town of Alvik, Norway. Julia Lillie is a PhD Candidate at the Bard Graduate Center in New York, where she studies early modern European print culture. She is currently based in Auburn, Alabama, and is at work on her dissertation, which investigates a network of exiled Protestant engravers active in the Catholic city of Cologne in the late sixteenth century. She was previously a Collections Manager in the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

What you’ll learn in this episode: What role the King Tut exhibition played in sparking Stefanie’s desire to learn goldsmithing. How the jeweler apprenticeship system works in Germany. How famed glassmaker and jeweler René Lalique’s complex relationships with the women in his life played a major role in his jewelry designs. The history behind The Met’s catalogue and exhibit “The Silver Caesars: A Renaissance Mystery” and Stefanie’s work as a contributor. About Stefanie Walker: Stefanie Walker received her Ph.D. in art history from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, and specializes in European sculpture and decorative arts from the 16th through 18th centuries, with an emphasis on the history of jewelry and the arts of Rome. For ten years, Stefanie curated exhibitions and taught graduate courses at Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts (BGC) in New York City. At BGC, she co-edited and contributed to the exhibition catalogs for Life and the Arts in the Baroque Palaces of Rome: Ambiente Barocco (1998) and Vasemania: Form and Ornament in Neoclassical Europe (2004). Her background as a certified goldsmith led to the BGC exhibition and catalog Castellani and Italian Archaeological Jewelry (2004), a publication on the Renaissance “Jewel Book” of the Dukes of Bavaria (2008) and two contributions to The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s catalog for The Silver Caesars: A Renaissance Mystery (2017). Stefanie is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and an honorary member of the Roman Goldsmith’s Guild. She is an adjunct faculty member of the master’s program in the History of Decorative Arts run jointly by The Smithsonian Associates and George Washington University. She currently works as a Senior Program Officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities. Stefanie lectures frequently at The Smithsonian and for jewelry groups, including the American Society of Jewelry Historians, Association for the Study of Jewelry and Related Arts, D.C. GIA Alumni, among others. Additional resources: National Endowment for the Humanities Website National Endowment for the Humanities Website Bio National Endowment for the Humanities Facebook The Silver Caesars: A Renaissance Mystery LinkedIn

In conjunction with the exhibition French Fashion, Women and the First World War currently on view at the Bard Graduate Center, we speak with Dr. Kate Strasdin and Dr. Margaret Darrow about the era's anxieties surrounding fashion and gender. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Elissa Auther is the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Previously, she was Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado and a visiting associate professor at Bard Graduate Center. A feminist public intellectual, Auther founded and co-directed for the past ten years the program “Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver that focuses on issues of women and gender through the lens of creative practice.· madmuseum.org· www.elissaauther.com· www.creativeprocess.infoImage Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York

“So the Museum of Arts and Design historically, for me, is part of a New York avantgarde scene. It's just that it was dedicated to artists working in these historically-marginalized materials. And it continues to do that. That mission has never changed.”Elissa Auther is the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Previously, she was Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado and a visiting associate professor at Bard Graduate Center. A feminist public intellectual, Auther founded and co-directed for the past ten years the program “Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver that focuses on issues of women and gender through the lens of creative practice.· madmuseum.org· www.elissaauther.com· www.creativeprocess.infoImage Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York

Tracing the revolution in graphic design in the 1920s, the exhibition Jan Tschichold and the New Typography: Graphic Design Between the World Wars, on display at the Bard Graduate Center gallery until July 7, displays materials assembled by typographer and designer Jan Tschichold (1902–1974) in Weimar, Germany throughout his life. Tschichold’s 1928 book “Die Neue Typographie” was one of the key texts of modern design, partly due to its grasp of Constructivist ideas and new print technology, but also for its practical use as a design manual. His collection of design and art works by esteemed colleagues like Kurt Schwitters, El Lissitzky, László Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, Piet Zwart, and Ladislav Sutnar, purchased by Phillip Johnson and donated to the Museum of Modern Art, forms the foundation of the exhibition. In this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large, the show’s curator Paul Stirton, an associate professor of modern European design history at the Bard Graduate Center, joins critic and co-founder of the design criticism program at SVA Steven Heller for a discussion of the work that changed graphic design forever.

This week's guest is Jesse Merandy (Ph.D. '19, English), director of the Digital Media Lab at the Bard Graduate Center. Merandy, a self-proclaimed "Whitmaniac" is also the vice president of the Walt Whitman Initiative and member of the New York City Digital Humanities Steering Committee. He recently completed The Graduate Center's first all-digital dissertation, “Vanishing Leaves: A Study of Walt Whitman Through Location-Based Mobile Technologies.” Merandy developed the interactive game of “Vanishing Leaves” that a participant downloads to a phone app, enabling them to walk with Whitman through his beloved neighborhood in Brooklyn Heights. Merandy's groundbreaking digital study—a homage to Whitman—comes just before the poet's bicentennial birthday, which will be celebrated in Brooklyn and elsehwere on May 31st.

Susie J. Silbert, curator of Modern and Contemporary Glass at The Corning Museum of Glass, is trained in glass working and design history. Prior to joining the Museum in 2016, Silbert was an independent curator and writer motivated by the complex and intertwined histories of material, making, and makers. Silbert earned her MA in Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center and taught History of Glass at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her most recent exhibition New Glass Now, is a groundbreaking survey of the landscape of contemporary glass.   The first exhibition of its kind organized by the Museum in 40 years, New Glass Now represents artists of 32 nationalities working in 25 countries ranging in ages from 23 to 84.  On view from May 12, 2019, through January 5, 2020, the show includes large-scale installations and delicate miniatures, video and experiments in glass chemistry, all of which demonstrate the vitality and versatility of this dynamic material.   New Glass Now is the third exhibition in a groundbreaking series organized by the Museum to survey contemporary glass on an international scale. Glass 1959 and New Glass: A Worldwide Survey, organized in 1959 and 1979, respectively, played an important role in creating and defining the field of contemporary glass. The 1959 exhibition helped lay the foundation for what became the Studio Glass Movement just a few years later in 1962, and the 1979 show spurred collecting by institutions and private individuals, new scholarly attention, and continued artistic innovation. The 1959 and 1979 exhibitions will be revisited in an exhibition, titled New Glass Now/ Context, in CMoG’s Rakow Library, which complements the exhibition of contemporary glass simultaneously on view.   Karol Wight, President and Executive Director of The Corning Museum of Glass, said: “New Glass Now continues a more than 60-year commitment to share the history of the medium over more than 35 centuries, including the contemporary development of art and design realized in glass. The exhibitions that CMoG curated in 1959 and 1979 defined the field of Studio Glass and brought critical attention to the work being done by glassmakers the world over. We hope that New Glass Now will continue this important tradition and reveal exciting new insights into work being made today across the globe.”   Coinciding with the opening of the exhibition, CMoG will publish the 40th anniversary issue of New Glass Review, its annual exhibition-in-print of contemporary glass. Published since 1979, New Glass Review has brought important critical and popular attention to the material and the artists and designers working with it. The 2019 edition will include the 100 artworks and design objects chosen for the contemporary survey New Glass Now as well as important contextual essays and information.

A new exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center entitled The Story Box: Franz Boas, George Hunt and the Making of Anthropology explores the hidden histories and complex legacies of one of the most influential books in the field of anthropology, Franz Boas’s 1897 highly influential “The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians.” Groundbreaking in its holistic detail, this portrait of a Native North American society was the result of Boas’s fieldwork with the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw of British Columbia and collaboration with his Indigenous research partner, George Hunt. The exhibition—with includes designs by artist Corrine Hunt, a great-granddaughter of George Hunt—features ceremonial objects as well as rare archival photographs, manuscripts, and drawings that shed new light on the book and advance understanding of the ongoing cultural traditions it documents. In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, the show’s curator Aaron Glass, associate professor at Bard, joins Corrine Hunt for a conversation on this important work in the early days of anthropology as we now know it.

Ittai Weinryb is Associate Professor of Art History at Bard Graduate Center in New York. He received his PhD (2010) and MA from the Johns Hopkins University and his BA from Tel Aviv University. His area of research and teaching include Art and Material Culture of Western Europe and the Medieval Mediterranean in the nexus of Image and Object Theory, Anthropology, Magic and Religion as well as Medieval Folklore. He has recently curated an exhibition entitled Agents of Faith: Votive Objects in Time and Place, exploring votiveofferings in the context of material culture, art history, and religious studies to better understand their history and present-day importance.” His awards and fellowships include the Adolf Katzenellenbogen Prize, Robert and Nancy Hall Fellow, the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; Max Planck Doctoral Fellow at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence; ICMA/Kress Research Award. Andrew Mellon Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. In the Academic year 2014-15 He was a fellow at the Art Histories and Aesthetic Practices project, and the Forum für Transregionale Studien, Berlin. Click here to learn more about Ittai Weinryb

“I love peonies, but wait a second, they’re fake; I hate them.” An architectural historian considers the contradictions of artificial flowers and the unnatural nature of Central Park. A conversation at the Bard Graduate Center about the “fake” – her word – and the real, with music from Amiri and Rahiem Taylor.

Now mostly remembered as a painter, this week we look at the broad spectrum of the work of Sonia Delaunay with a special emphasis on her fashion and textile designs. Waleria Dorogova, co-curator of the exhibition Sonia Delaunay: Living Art which is now on view at the Bard Graduate Center in New York City joins us to speak about the years of research she did with Laura Microulis to deliver this fresh new perspective on Sonia's career.Can't make the exhibition? Check out the exceptional catalog for the show here.Want more Dressed: The History of Fashion? Our website and classesOur InstagramOur bookshelf with over 120 of our favorite fashion history titlesOur Sponsors:* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: https://www.rosettastone.com/* Check out Wooga: www.wooga.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/dressed-the-history-of-fashion/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Waleria Dorgova joins us for for the second part of our episode this week on the artist, interior, fashion and textile designer Sonia Delaunay. Dr. Dorogova co-curated the ground-breaking exhibition with Dr. Laura Microulis, research curator of the Bard Graduate Center, where the exhibition Sonia Delaunay: Living Art is on view through July 7, 2024.Can't make the exhibition? Check out the exceptional catalog for the show here.Want more Dressed: The History of Fashion? Our website and classesOur InstagramOur bookshelf with over 120 of our favorite fashion history titlesOur Sponsors:* Check out My Life in a Book and use my code DRESSED for a great deal: * Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: https://www.rosettastone.com/* Check out Wooga: www.wooga.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/dressed-the-history-of-fashion/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Fifth generation Diné (Navajo) weavers Lynda Teller Pete and Barbara Teller Ornelas have been instrumental in rewriting the history and narrative surrounding Navajo weaving, a realm that for too long has been dominated by non-Diné voices. This is exemplified by their two groundbreaking books Spider Woman's Children: Navajo Weavers Today and How to Weave a Navajo Rug and Other Lessons from Spider Woman, as well as their integral role in the creation of the exhibition Shaped by the Loom: Weaving Worlds in the American Southwest at the Bard Graduate Center, New York. Curator Hadley Jensen also joins us. Recommended reading and browsing:Lynda and Barbara's books: Spider Woman's Children: Navajo Weavers Today and How to Weave a Navajo Rug and Other Lessons from Spider WomanLynda and Barbara's website: https://navajorugweavers.com/Shaped by the Loom exhibition website: https://www.bgc.bard.edu/exhibitions/exhibitions/117/n-aSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/dressed-the-history-of-fashion/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy