It had been a long time since I had driven in NYC and it was pretty harrowing getting out of the city and on my way south but I lived to tell this tale. My first stop was Glenstone in Potomac MD.
Photos by Scott Frances and courtesy of Glenstone website
Glenstone is a stunning private museum set on 200 acres and housing the private post World War II collection of Mitchell and Emily Rales. The 25,000 sf museum was designed by noted late architect Charles Gwathmey of Gwathmey Siegel Kaufman and is surrounded by world class sculpture by Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Serra, Jeff Koons, Andy Goldsworthy, and others. Landscape design is by Peter Walker and Partners. They show only work from their own collection and collect extremely deeply for the one artist shows that they mount. Emily is the Executive Director and Chief Curator. The collection is open to the public but with very limited group size to control the viewing experience. When I was there, there was an exhibition of the work of Roni Horn. Well into construction is another museum more than 5 times the size of the first to house their growing collection. The new project is being designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners. There is a nice article in the New York Times about the couple.
Mitchell and Emily Rales in front of Richard Serra’s “Sylvester.” Christopher Gregory/The New York Times
This was the absolute first place I found in my research and the first letter I wrote asking for a visit related to my sabbatical trip. I initially rejected the idea of stopping here as I was initially looking for "places like Cassilhaus" and we don't have a whole lot in common with extremely wealthy collectors with private museums and no residency program. What got me was their singular education program. We have been trying to beef up our own education and outreach and I thought I might learn a few things from them. Stockton Toler, Glenstone's Visitor Experience Director graciously agreed to show me around on a day the museum was closed and I was really inspired by the work he is doing. He now has 43!! public middle and high schools in Montgomery County, MD visiting Glenstone on a regular basis. Glenstone pays and arranges for all bus transportation and even pays reimbursement for substitute teachers. He works directly with the curriculum director for the entire county school system who facilitates connection with art teachers and makes sure their tours cover state learning requirements. While we were talking, Stockton walked me through the amazing Roni Horn show. Hard to believe that all of this work from one artist is in a single collection!
Even more amazing on the education front is their new and first-of-its-kind Emerging Professionals Program-a two year on the job program for recent BFA and MFA grads that offers full salary and benefits and concentrated exposure to a museum studies curriculum one full day a week while working as docents/guides the other 4 days. They had just admitted their first class of 9 students when I arrived and will be at full capacity next year when the new museum opens. After two years they will have exceptional experience to compete for highly competitive museum jobs.
Just before I left Stockton asked me if I wanted to see Andy Goldsworthy's amazing three stone and clay cabins entitled Boulder, Room, and Holes. They look identical from the outside but inside is a different story. The craftsmanship is astounding.
I was pretty fired up and as soon as I got home the following week I set up a meeting with Jessica Ruhle, the Director of Education and Public Programs at the Nasher Museum, to see how we could beef up our collaboration and better engage their existing network of school groups. Stay tuned!
I'd been wanting to visit my friend and amazing photographer Eliot Dudik for some time and I decided to add Charles City, VA to my flight path on the way home. This is Eliot in his studio which was a church in a previous lifetime. His crazy house is an assemblage of a bunch of structures that have been moved to the site and connected into one. Eliot graciously put me up and I spent some time photographing his space.
Eliot calls photography book collecting a disease. :)
Eliot was recently hired to conceive, set up, and run the College of William and Mary's new photography program in the art department. I didn't know until my arrival in Williamsburg that W&M is the second oldest college in the country. They had no photo program prior to Eliot's arrival and he is hell bent on blazing some new trails. His is the only photo program in the country that starts first year students with 4x5" large format analog film cameras and traditional darkroom process. He wants his students to get out of the snapshot mentality of cellphone cameras and learn how to see and compose thoughtfully and carefully and learn the basics that the large format camera demands to make successful images. He has almost single handedly built a state of the art darkroom and he is a popular professor with overflowing classes. He showed me some of his students' work and it was impressive.
During our Actual Size exhibition at Cassilhaus, Eliot brought a group of his students down to see the show and they took the back roads on the way and shot with their 4x5s.
Another project he worked on with his students to learn the basics of cameras and light was the building of a Camera Obscura on campus and then working with them to make prints of goings on on the quad inside the three-lens chamber.
Eliot has also started a book arts program and teaches his students about all aspects of making and binding of unique books as art objects. "Book" has a pretty broad interpretation in his class. He posts a ton of his students' work on his Instagram feed @eliotdudik. In collaboration with the W&M library each of his students will have their final book accessioned into the permanent collection of the library. Quite a coup for an undergraduate student.
Student work on display in the W&M library
I got back home just in time for my favorite event of the year in Durham-The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. It was the 20th year and I have been to about 18 of them. We always have family come to town for it and my sister Barb came for her 11th year and our niece Theresa and her husband Peter came from Nantucket and we had a great time. Trailers for my favorites: Purple Dreams, Last Men in Aleppo, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405, Quest, and Strong Island.
In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director.
—Alfred Hitchcock
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