Family Days at the Mennello Museum of American Art.

Posted on by Thor

On the Second Sunday of each month there is a Free Family Day at the Mennello Museum of American Art, (900 E Princeton St, Orlando, FL 32803). The make-and-take craft table is open from noon-2:30 p.m., and docents are available to give mini-tours of the museum. Then it’s open house in the galleries until 4:30 p.m. 

The craft table is always bustling with parents and children. On this day, kids could convert an ordinary stick into an exotic talisman. Yarn could be wrapped around the stick and there was plenty of paint and beads to add to the decorations. The Earl Cunningham paintings literally glow with the way they are lit in this gallery. 

The next free family fun day will be Sunday, October 9th, 12 – 2:30 p.m. Guests can engage with the newest temporary exhibition, Three American Artists
on one of the 15 minute Tenacious Tours happening every half hour. Be
inspired to create your own work of art investigating energy and wind
like Alice Aycock, landscape and material like Barbara Sorensen, and
figure and metaphor like Deborah Butterfield. The galleries will remain
open until 4:00pm!

Mennello Museum

Posted on by Thor

I’ve been doing sketches around the Mennello Art Museum (900 East Princeton Street Orlando FL) for possible use in a 2014 brochure about the museum’s 15th anniversary. The museum will be kicking off the New Year with new exhibitions. Reader Diane Crispin won two free tickets by answering the trivia question right on the December 23rd AADW post. The Mennello Museum is the first venue to showcase the traveling exhibition based on the memoirs of Rob Storter (1894-1987),
which were published in 2000 as the book “Crackers in the Glade.”
Storter came from a family of early settlers in the village of
Everglade. He was a self-taught artist and sketched pictures of his
rural lifestyle and environment, and annotated them with stories, often
bemoaning the wilderness that was being lost to development. This exhibit ran through January 5th.

Mark your Calendars! Saturday and Sunday, January 4 and 5
Museums on Us Weekend

Holders of Bank of America/Merrill Lynch credit cards
receive free admission with the presentation of their cards and photo
ID.

Sunday, January 12
Free Family Day on the Second Sunday: Earl Cunningham Edition

The make-and-take craft table is open from noon-2:30
p.m., and docents are available for mini-tours of the museum. Then it’s
open house in the galleries until 4:30 p.m.

Friday, January 17
Exhibition opens,
Southwestern Allure: The Art of the Sante Fe Art Colony

Friday, January 31
Opening reception and 15th Anniversary Kick-off

6-8 p.m. $5, free to MMAA members; reservations requested
Southwestern Allure: The Art of the Sante Fe Art Colony 

Saturday and Sunday, February 9 and 10
Orlando Folk Festival, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., free

The 12th annual celebration of music and art on the shores of Lake
Formosa brings together an eclectic mix of creative talent, plus
hands-on arts and crafts activities for children. Find the list of
participating musicians and artists as well as other updates at
orlandofolkfestival.wordpress.com.

An Evening with Executive Director Frank Holt

Posted on by Thor

On October 15th I went to The Mennello Museum of American Art (900 East Princeton Street, Orlando, Fl.) to join the museum’s executive director Frank Holt for a walk and talk through the Everglades series of exhibits.As people arrived, I got to work on my sketch. The room I was in was filled with paintings by Eugine Savage. In 1935, he made the first of many trips into the Florida Everglades to study the Seminoles and their traditions. Eugene was a mural artist and all his paintings have a very bold consistent look. The Indians tolerated the artist at first but when he started depicting women partly unclothed, they stopped appreciating his vision. Any Seminole woman who had a romance with a white man would be cast out of the tribe, floating down river in a dug out canoe. The intricate patterns of traditional dress was treated with loving detail while extraneous detail was stripped away from the Everglades environments. The studies done in watercolor on tan paper were often mounted beside the final paintings giving amazing insight into the artist’s process. The artist also hand made the frames giving this collection of paintings an amazing uniformity.

Art and Artifacts of the Seminole were on display along with the paintings. With the development of Florida as a Tourist state, the traditions of the Seminoles slowly died. Villages were reduced to roadside attractions where you could have your picture taken with a local Indian.  There is something sad in seeing these once proud people reduced to selling trinkets and photo opportunities. The artifacts are on loan from the collection of I.S.K. Reeves V and Sara W. Reeves. In the main gallery, Earl Cunningham paintings of the Everglades are on display. These painting seem to literally glow as the jump off the walls. In the back gallery, sketches of Rob Storter document Southwest Florida Everglades life in line and wash. I love these direct observational sketches that help preserve a simpler life that is long gone.

Frank Holt curated the Mennello Museum’s current Everglades
series of exhibitions like a conductor bringing together the
notes that create a symphony. The longtime executive director is at home
orchestrating displays of art in this museum, where he has practiced
his craft since it opened in November 1998. When done well, the evidence of the curator’s hand is not obvious,
but it is distinct. His signature is bold wall colors, brilliant
lighting and thoughtful interplay between the showcased art and the
natural architecture of the museum. Mark your Calendar, these exhibits are up till January 5th of 2014, and they shouldn’t be missed. Opening on January 17th, 2014 will be Southwestern Allure: The Art of the Santa Fe Art Colony. This exhibition features 40 artworks from public and private
collections that reflect the development of Santa Fe as an art colony
through the artists who visited there and helped establish the city as
an artistic center.