New York-Dubai-Johannesburg
Oct20
Oct19
Making It In America at the RISD Museum
Photo credit RISD Museum
“To tell a great story about American art is a particularly RISD story”-John W. Smith Museum Director
As the leaves turn to bright colors in New England, and the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, the air chills and the American history that surrounds us is subtly evoked. Our children study our early history in school this time of year and the RISD Museum in Providence Rhode Island has joined the conversation with their retrospective exhibit entitled Making It In America. Rhode Island School of Design is known for its focus on the making of art, and with this recently opened exhibit, the Museum of RISD outlines how the works of our past remain relevant, and revelatory to the makers of today.
There was a tandem progression of American development and mastery of design that took place early on as settlers and then influences from varying cultures staggered into the country. The craftsmanship and personality of objects seen in furniture styles, and portraiture tell the story with a perspective on how we portray ourselves within the context of the American Dream.
Co-Curators Elizabeth Williams of arts and design and Maureen O’Brien of painting and sculpture collaborated by pulling together pieces from the RISD collection. Together their selections narrate the way in which our American identity evolved through the objects both functional and decorative that were crafted and displayed between the early 1700s and the early 1900s. The curators then brought in the celebrated decorator and decorative arts historian Thomas Jayne to really make the objects pop.
Thomas Jayne
Thomas Jayne used his understanding of how important color and pattern were to American design as a context for the geometry of the objects in the space. A number of portraits are mounted on replicas of early American wallpapers that coupled with Rococo frames, as Thomas Jayne put it “makes the Copley’s sing in a way white walls never would”. Thus exhibiting the 18th century paintings in a uniquely pop culture look.
In an exhibit that is as much about opportunity in America as it is the art that came out of those opportunities; the varied experiences are on display, a wood spindle chair remade out of a spinning wheel, set nearby an ornate silver serving piece. A cabinet by a Finnish immigrant highlights the varied styles that merged as the cultures did to become a uniquely American style.
Artist Unknown, ca.1700
The making of art in America merges with American ambition, but as you walk through the collection you realize the story begins and ends with the Native Americans. One of the first pieces upon entering the gallery is the Painting entitled Native American Sachem and one of the last is the Paul Manship tabletop bronze pair of sculptures created nearly 200 years later, the Indian and Pronghorn Antelope atop a Frank Lloyd Wright table. The modern architecture of the Chase Center Galleries serves as the canvas for this collection of more than 100 outstanding works of painting sculpture and decorative arts made in between. The exhibit opened on October 11th and will run through February 9th.
Paul Manship, 1885-1966
The RISD Museum was established in 1877 “American art has played a central role at the RISD Museum since it’s earliest days, and we celebrate this legacy with Making It In America.- Museum Director John W. Smith
To stay up to date with all RISD Museum happenings Like RISD Museum on Facebook & Follow them on Twitter
Oct13
With The Lunch Money Challenge From the World Food Program USA You Can Help #FeedADream
During a conference call with the World Food Program USA, over the phone from Kenya, Fatuma Mohamed credited the school meals program with helping to get her where she is today. Fatuma is a senior programme assistant with the World Food Programme in Dadaab, Kenya with a university degree. Not the outcome that would normally have been predicted for the Somalian daughter of a financially struggling widow growing up in Kenya’s northeastern province. At that time, the Somali community did not even believe in allowing girls to go to school.
Her mother had little money and faced hostility from their family because she refused to be inherited as Fatuma’s father’s brother’s wife. Although her mother had no formal education herself, she knew how important an education would be to her children.
Fatuma Mohamed
Not only did sending her children to school provide the education that enabled Fatuma to avoid her destiny to drop out of school to tend cattle, but through the World Food Program Fatuma and her siblings were provided a school meal each day. For some children living in poverty, that school meal provided may be their ONLY meal of the day.
In the developing world, 66 million kids come to school hungry each day. many children don’t attend school at all. Poverty and tradition often exclude girls from education.
In Nairobi, Kenya, less than half of school-age children attend formal schools, due to poverty, safety and girls being unfairly excluded from school.
Malnutrition at an early age leads to reduced physical and mental development. Hungry kids in school focus on their empty stomachs, not their studies.
School meals can be life-changing for the world’s poorest children. School meals also help to get students into the classroom, giving them an important key to a better future—an education.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) provides school meals to more than 24 million children each year. School feeding also gives poor families an incentive to send children to school, especially girls.
25 cents provides a child with a nutritious meal, $50 provides school lunch for a child for an entire year.
From October 14th to october 18th The World Food Program USA Invites you to take part in The Lunch Money Challenge.
Research tells us that nearly $2,000.00 a year is spent on average to eat lunch out at work by the two-thirds of Americans who do. If a person brought their lunch and donated the money they otherwise would have spent to buy it, then donated that money to the World Food Program USA‘s Lunch Money Challenge this week, they could feed a hungry school child for a year.
WFPUSA works with countries interested in owning and managing their school meals programs, to make them strong and sustainable. Helping communities become self sufficient is one of the ways that WFPUSA is solving hunger worldwide, by working with local governments, schools and farmers to build programs that are long lasting sustainable and cost-effective and when the WFPUSA work is done, local governments can take over and manage these programs. Home-grown school meals from local family farmers lift up the entire community—local ingredients mean both local children and local farmers can thrive. When school meal programs are linked with local family farmers, kids receive home-grown school meals. Not only do home-grown school meals programs improve child nutrition, they also boost local economies.
Photo Courtesy of WFP USA
These days Fatuma encourages the girls she works with in the program to stay in school. When girls stay in school they tend to marry at an older age, have fewer children, and increase their earning potential. Fatuma’s relationship with the World Food Program goes back to when she was just 7 years old and she serves as a great example of the programs ability to transform lives.
“Women are the foundation of every society and girls grow into women and need to be supported. Nothing can move forward in the world without women, mothers, and girls.”-Fatuma Mohamed
World Food Program USA (WFP USA) works to solve global hunger by supporting the work of the united nations World Food programme (WFP) through fundraising, advocacy and education in the united nations. WFP works in over 75 countries, saving lives in emergencies, providing school meals to hungry children, improving nutrition of the most vulner- able people at critical times in their lives and helping build the self-reliance of people and communities.
*This sponsored post is part of a campaign with The Mission List and the World Food Program USA. All opinions are my own. Facts from the WFPUSA.
Oct11
The International Day of The Girl Child 2013 #IDG2013
Find out more about the GIRL DECLARATION by The Girl Effect HERE
Just over a year ago a school girl in Pakistan named Malala was shot by the Taliban for promoting education for girls. They did not kill her, they birthed a movement. Today the name Malala needs no explanation, she has written a book and on the second annual International Day of The Girl Child today, she met the President and First Lady of the United States of America, and spoke in a webcast live from the World Bank to millions of people around the world. Check out this blog post on ThirdEyeMom to read more about Malala’s incredible Journey and her father’s guiding role.
“terrorists thought that they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this — weakness, fear and hopelessness died, strength, power and courage was born.”-Malala
Today, October 11th, the world comes together to celebrate the power of the girl, to give girls a voice, and to raise them to get the education, and rights they deserve.
Oct7
