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The national Metal Museum has expanded in Memphis into the old Memphis College of Art building, which is right in the middle of my favorite park, four blocks away. If we had to lose MCA, this is the best possible outcome. They've done beautiful renovations. The building looks spectacular, and the new museum across several floors has space to show their collection in a way their old museum building didn't. I love that they will be so much more available to people. Their original space, still occupied by apprentices, is a gorgeous bluff right over the river, but it's out of the way and confusing to find even before TDOT took away their expressway exit. And having communal art making back in Rust Hall (ironically the name even before the Metal Museum moved in) is a great joy. They also have the best damn gift shop in the city.
Very kindly they welcomed our Memphis Urban Sketchers group an hour before they open to the public so we could keep our traditional 10-12 window. The opening, which we sketched from the outside last month, was so crowded and so hot that I didn't even make it into the building. It was so great to wander around where I've taken classes off and on throughout my life, see the care they've taken with it, and get to sketch again.
I often start with something complex and get way too tight on it. I was super drawn to the intricate lobby, but I spotted a spare hallway with a couple of head statues at the end and decided it would be a good exercise to start simple and work my way up to the lobby. It ended up working great. I used a dip pen with a new purple-ish grey ink from my recent St. Louis trip. It's Wearinguel Therese Raquin. I'm looking for a replacement for my favorite limited edition Diamine Chopin, which is a little cooler and a little darker than this one. It's not quite as nice, but I liked the way it interacted with the paint.
Then I made my way upstairs and took on the funky architecture. My lines got off almost immediately, but in my biggest sketchbook with the looseness of the dip pen, I just went with it and ended up really happy with the sketch. It's dip pen with my other new Wearingueul ink Inferno. This is my new favorite. It's not quite black and has a little variation on the page. It also does ok with paint. Full on black just makes a total puddle, but I've been happy how this one accepts watercolor.
It was a great day with friends, and then I did a little Christmas shopping in the gift shop on the way out and also found a gorgeous copper moon necklace for myself. A really happy day.
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Saturday was the opening of the second campus for the Metal Museum in the perfectly named Rust Hall of the old Memphis College of Art. If we had to lose MCA, the second best possible outcome was the Metal Museum bringing back community art making in that space at the center of the park. I've taken and loved some classes at the old Metal Museum campus.
They'll keep that for apprentice housing and, I'm sure, wedding rentals by the river. But their space was limited – kilns came into the library space on trolleys for an enameling workshops. The new space has a dedicated enameling studio. I'm excited to take more classes four blocks from home, though I definitely miss the breadth of MCA being a part of this community.
The opening was on a first Saturday, so it felt right to have Memphis Urban Sketchers mark that moment with them. We meet earlier than the opening, so we could all get settled to sketch before things got crazy. It was hot, and I've been trying (and failing) to conserve energy before a trip next week, so I didn't linger to tour the new space, but I'll definitely go check out the galleries and museum store soon. I had a ball drawing the facade in my biggest sketchbook with my dip pen (my favorite thing lately) and paint on top. It was a good day.
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I went to Dixon today to spend time with the Cleveland Vuillard before it leaves this weekend. It's fun to go to a show enough to just hang out with your favorite paintings instead of feeling you have to give everyone equal weight the way I do the first time through. I called on Steinlen, Forain, Manet, Renoir, and Whistler. I'm almost as sad about losing the cool Parisian cafe menu they created specifically to go with this show. I'm still masking in public for my health, so a crowded cafe isn't good for me, and the air is also bad outside this week, but the auditorium where they have their lunchtime lectures was unused. I ordered the salad Nicoise I've really enjoyed there as well as some lovely hot tea and had lunch by a Carroll Cloar painting I really like. Afterwards I ran into one art friend and then made a new one as well as seeing various friends who work there. It was a lovely art day out.
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Driving home Park I spotted Shreya's Wood Fired Pizza, which I had read about the Daily Memphian as having butter chicken pizza. They were just opening up, so I did a quick sketch of the wood fire oven while waiting on my pizza. It was delicious, especially the generous chewy crust. It's always fun to try a new place, and I was glad I did.
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Beautifully, the museum cafe has designed a special menu just for this show. I treated myself to a salad Nicoise outside with the trimmed trees that also feel like Paris and the Rodin sculpture in the background. It was good to see art and take time to sketch again, and I did a big, loose piece in my biggest sketchbook with a dip pen, some green ink, and a bunch of watercolor on top.
That evening was a bonus urban sketchers outing to Shapeshifter Art School. They have two new shows up in their galleries, and it was such pleasure to just relax and sketch and talk with friends. I ended up sketching our founder Elizabeth Alley, who is also a founder of the school. She has been such a light to the art community here in Memphis.
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Dixon and Rodin are a great combination. They had a traveling show of his work my senior year in high school, as I was headed out to become an art major and hopefully an artist afterwards. I was unprepared for figure drawing, so I spent a lot of time that year sketching the Rodin sculptures to prepare myself. One of my favorite t-shirts in my college years was a Rodin shirt from that very exhibit. (Black is also super handy for art majors since it doesn't show charcoal.) I just recently dug out old photos of me and sketched myself for my memoir project in that same shirt. I wish I still had it (and my Arlo Guthrie shirt), but they seem to have dropped away over time. But here I am in my art major prime for a book hopefully to come later. You apparently never outgrow that, can-I-really-do-this feeling as an artist, that pushing into something new. It feels like full circle, all tied together by both Dixon and Rodin.
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The Mary Sims exhibition at Dixon is amazing. I've been several time with various people, but I hadn't take a bunch of time just to drink it in slowly. I went round the whole thing, sat and looked at various pieces, and finally figured out a couple I'd like to sketch. I love her crazy intricate still lifes with shadows that are as robust as the objects themselves, but I knew I'd make myself crazy trying to capture one (especially with the pencil/crayon I'm limited to inside the museum). So I headed back for my other favorite works, which were the early portraits. The top one is maybe my favorite piece in the whole show, but since Dolph Smith is one of my favorite local artists, that may not be an objective assessment. I love that he and Mary, both lions of the Memphis art world, are united in this piece. And his sweet wife Jesse memorialized as well.
I also sketched this graphite and acrylic portrait. It's so minimal (flat background, as all hers are, just not something I could catch with dry materials). She uses graphite so extensively on her canvas work, which isn't something I've tried at all. The effect is wonderful. And I loved seeing her use so much gold paint. I'm always drawn to the metallics and then wonder if I'm just being cheesy, but it's good validation to see her love them as well.
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The second was a really neat lecture at Dixon a couple of weeks ago. I got to a number of those and usually sketch, so I'm trying to figure out different media and styles to vary the sketches from lecture to lecture. This was local artist Carl E. Moore, whose work I admire a lot, talking about his practice and his art. Instead of diving into paint I kept it just fountain pen and brush pen. I also used a higher vanishing line than I usually do. Often I'm drawing what's on the wall behind the speaker, but here I left more space for audience and kept his figure central to the sketch. I was pleased with how it turned out, which is not something I say a ton about my sketches. I love doing them, but they don't usually measure up to the image I had in my head before starting. This one was different than I meant it to be, but I was pleased with the result.
