The Mathers Museum of World Cultures presents a new exhibit for the year 2013, “In The Kitchen Around The World”, which will be on display in addition to the already-installed exhibits from 2012. This exhibit will run until November 15, 2013.

“In The Kitchen Around The World”: an exhibit that presents objects used in preparing food and food service from different areas of the world. It breaks down into two categories: what the viewer perceives as familiar, such as plates, cups, and dishes, and what is unfamiliar, such as a Peruvian corn toaster and an Ecuadorian grater. The goal of the exhibit is to look at what other cultures have come up with as solutions to help them in cooking or eating food, allowing the viewer to make comparisons to the solutions that are similar or dissimilar to their own.

Other exhibits include:

“Picturing Archaeology”: Described in their words and illustrated by their images, the research and fieldwork of 13 Indiana University archaeologists is presented in Picturing Archaeology at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures/Glenn Black Laboratory of Archaeology.

“Rhythms of the World”: a free audioguide tour of musical instruments from around the globe featured in exhibits throughout the museum. The audioguide includes narration and musical clips of the highlighted instruments.

“Thoughts, Things, and Theories…What Is Culture?”
Thoughts, Things, and Theories…What Is Culture? examines the nature of culture through the exploration of cultural traditions surrounding life stages and universal needs.

“From the Big Bang to the World Wide Web: The Origins of Everything”
This exhibit examines history on a large scale, through the exploration of cosmic, biological, and human origins.

“Treasures of the Mathers Museum”
Decades of collecting and curating will be featured in this exhibit, presented in conjunction with the institution’s 50th anniversary.

Museum is open Tuesdays through Fridays, from 9 am to 4:30 pm, and Saturdays and Sundays, from 1 to 4:30 pm. Check website to see all of the Mathers Museum’s exhibits.

Design, build, test, and engineer all kinds of structures! The special exhibition’s three-dimensional building experiences include the Skyline Toolbox, developed and designed by Chicago Children’s Museum, where children can use wooden struts and braces, fabric curtain walls, and real construction tools to build imaginative, original structures big enough for them to walk inside! Other components include the Earthquake Shake Table, the Multilevel Building Zone, the Bridge the River Cantilever Challenge, unique materials construction stations, and more. There also is a special place for toddlers and preschoolers to build with age-appropriate materials.

Several new exhibits can be seen at the Indiana University Art Museum. The galleries are open Tuesday – Saturday, 10 am – 5 pm, and Sunday, 12 pm to 5 pm. Running time varies by exhibit. Check website for more detailed information.

Breaking the Gilded Ceiling, Women Artists of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
March 5-August 25, 2013

This installation will feature women artists—some former artist’s models, some wives and mothers, and some trailblazers—who worked in a variety of media. Included will be work by photographers Anna Atkins, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Laura Adams Armer, as well as prints and drawings by Mary Cassatt, Suzanne Valadon, Gwen John, and Käthe Kollwitz.

Three Remarkable Women: Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Margaret Chinnery, and Félicité de Genlis
March 23-September 1, 2013

The IU Art Museum will premiere a focused exhibition featuring Vigée Le Brun’s Portrait of Mrs. Chinnery (1803) and selected materials from the Lilly library. The exhibition presents an unusually rich opportunity to use a single artwork as a lens for an interdisciplinary study of the history, politics, art, literature, and music of its time.

New in the Galleries: Pierre-Auguste Renoir: A Visiting Master Print
May 29-August 18, 2013

One of the originators of the Impressionist style, Pierre-Auguste Renoir was particularly noted for his depictions of his friends, family, and their children in scenes of domestic activity and repose. A favorite subject included two young girls pinning flowers on a hat. Renoir did several versions of this scene in a variety of media, including an important large-scale lithograph that is on temporary loan to the IU Art Museum for the summer. The installation will be complemented by several small prints by Renoir and two portraits of the artist by Pierre Bonnard and Jean-Louis Forain.

New in the Galleries: Sam Gilliam: A Lyrical Abstractionist in Indiana
May 29-September 15, 2013

Sam Gilliam draws on a wide range of inspiration, from his African American heritage and abstract expressionism to the poetry of Pablo Neruda and jazz music. Although associated with the Color Field painters of Washington, D.C., Gilliam had a strong connection to this region of the country. This installation will feature several works produced at IU’s Echo Press and a miniature watercolor painting given by the artist to Bloomington’s Second Baptist Church in honor of his brother Clarence and his wife Frances, who were recently named by the City of Bloomington as a Black History Living Legends.

Special Installation: Tapa: Unwrapping Polynesian Barkcloth
May 29-September 1, 2013

This spring, students taking the course On Exhibit: The Pacific Islands have had the opportunity to create a small installation, as well as an online web module focusing on Polynesian tapa cloth from the permanent collection of the IU Art Museum.

Recent Explorations in Form and Color Porcelain by Scott Frankenberger. Functional porcelain, intended for use in the home or workplace. Scott enjoys embellishing the surfaces with a variety of marks and textures, as well as building up a layered blend of colors from overlapping glazes, slips, and overglaze decoration.

By Hand Gallery is open Monday – Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm. Exhibit runs until September 28.

Enjoy a traditional county fair, complete with 4-H projects and competitions, a rodeo, loads of food vendors, carnival rides, games and more! 4-H projects are on display throughout the fair in a variety of subject areas and a large commercial exhibit building offers tons of booths and a great way to explore the Bloomington community.

Runs July 27 through August 3. Visit website for all details.

In “City Space”, Clarissa Bonet employs stark light, deep shadow, muted color, and Chicago’s urban area as a stage to explore the physical space of the city and its emotional and psychological impact on the body. In her series, Umbra, Julie Renee Jones mines her experiences of everyday life in Ohio, manipulating our perception of the physical world by creating moments where magical elements are presented as real occurrences, where observable reality briefly collapses into the realm of the unknown and the surreal. In the Brick Gallery, Pictura Gallery presents “Look What’s New!” featuring Bloomington photographers Michael Finger, Ivona Hedin, Emily Moore and William Pierson.

Runs until August 31. Gallery open Tuesday – Saturday, 11 am – 7 pm.

Artists’ Reception: Second Saturday, August 10, 5-8 pm (during the Village Art Walk). Please join us for an evening of light refreshments and to purchase your 10$ raffle ticket for a unique opportunity to win a beautiful autumn landscape created by several Guild Member Artists. (raffle winner will be drawn December 14, 2013; need not be present to win)
Artist Biographies:
Thom Robinson, OPA, grew up in Flint, Michigan. He was raised in an artistically inclined family—his mother enjoyed painting, and his father practiced woodworking. Robinson attended the Flint Institute of Art and his talent led to an appointment as an assistant art teacher, while he has still in high school. Following his studies, Thom joined the Navy. While stationed in San Diego, he traveled extensively, painting Southwest desert and mountain scenes.
After his Navy stint in southern California, Thom and his family were returning to Michigan from California, when they stopped to visit family in Bedford, the heart of Indiana’s limestone country. Intrigued by the southern Indiana landscape, Robinson changed his plans and settled down to paint the Hoosier hills. With just a knapsack and the naked eye, Robinson paints outside, in all kinds of weather, any time of day and hikes or boats for miles to find scenes that inspire him.
“I believe you cannot find anything without looking. I spend several days at the places I paint, observing from the morning to evening, looking for simple but strong compositions. Sometimes when hiking I’ll suddenly notice a scene that I may have been past a hundred times. When I do start painting I have no formula. I just let the scene and the painting guide me.”
If Robinson is hiking a long distance, he travels light. When painting winter scenes in frigid temperatures and closed roads, he will pack his sled with his painting supplies and hike thru the woods, until he finds a spot to paint.
He doesn’t use thinner with his oils, applying paint in thick strokes and bold gestures. His oil kit contains five large tubes: titanium white, alizarin crimson, cadmium yellow, ultramarine blue and cadmium red. From these primaries, he can mix any color in the spectrum. His landscapes reflect his intimate observations of Indiana’s diverse natural resources and rural life.
He is currently a signature member of the Oil Painters of America and the Small Painting Society. Thom also belongs to the Indiana Plein Air Painters and the American Impressionist Society. He has received numerous awards with the Hoosier Salon, the Indiana Heritage Association, and the Oil Painters of America national exhibition. His paintings can be viewed and purchased at the Brown County Art Gallery (Nashville, IN), the Hoosier Salon (Indianapolis and New Harmony IN) and at the Brown County Art Guild, where Thom has been an artist member since 2011.

Donna Shortt is a life-long Indiana resident and skilled in the use of oils and pastels. She enjoys painting landscapes from life with other painters. She also enjoys painting from light-filled still life sets in her studio or with another group that meets weekly. Painting with others or teaching has its benefits both ways. Sometimes the student becomes the teacher and we learn from each other.
Recent accomplishments include a Purchase Award from the Indiana State Museum in 2008 and a Best of Show in the fine arts professional division at the Indiana State Fair in 2007. In 2011 she received a Best of Show in the Greenfield Will Vawter Show and in the Madison Art Club Member Show. She was also honored to be part of a pastel exhibit at the Richmond Indiana Art Museum in 2008 and held a solo exhibit at the Johnson County Museum of History, Franklin Indiana, in 2011. Several of her plein air paintings are included in the 2013 book “Painting Indiana III: Dignity of Place.”
She has held workshops in the pastel medium as well as weekly classes that teach adult students various ways to paint and draw with pastels, the surfaces and materials used as well as composition, color and under painting techniques.
She is a member of the Hoosier Salon, Indiana Artists Club, Brown County Art Guild, Chicago Pastel Painters, Pastel Society of America, Southside Art League, Indiana Artisan and Indiana Plein Air Painters. Her work can be seen at the Hoosier Salon (Indianapolis, IN) and the Brown County Art Guild, where she has been an artist member since 2011.
Artists Statement: “My Inspiration to paint starts with the light at early morning or late afternoon and I would be content to spend most of my time capturing it. Color is just as important which is why pastels are my favorite medium. I consider each painting not a destination but a journey, always looking forward to working on the next blank surface.”

The Kinsey Institute is offering two shows this spring and summer, both featuring a wide range of artworks from our permanent collection. “Face Value” explores the various ways that artists utilize the portrait, an art form that has existed for millennia, for the exploration of individual identity and experience. This exhibition in the main gallery includes contemporary and vintage photographs, as well as paintings, prints, and sculpture. One of the featured artists is renowned photographer Judy Dater. “Casual Encounters,” in the institute’s Corridor Gallery, takes a look at intimate yet anonymous sexual interactions, as depicted by European and American artists from the 18th century to the present day.

The Kinsey Institute Gallery is open 1:30-5 pm weekdays. Admission is free. Due to adult content, visitors should be 18 years of age or older, unless accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Group tours of 6-15 people may be scheduled by calling 812-855-7686.

Meet and watch artists from the Bloomington Clay Studio demonstrate wheel-throwing and hand-building techniques. Related visitor activities include trying these techniques with guidance from the artists and making a ceramic artwork with air-drying clay to take home.

Gallery artist opening for ‘Recent Explorations in Form and Color. Porcelain by Scott Frankenberger.