Georgia Museum of Art Provides Entertainment for Community During Holiday Season

The holidays are upon us, and many relatives are in town from all over the country to be with family and friends. For those looking to entertain out-of-town guests, the Georgia Museum of Art is the perfect place to spend an afternoon. With several events, tours and exhibitions on display, the museum has offerings for all ages and interests. Because both Christmas and New Year’s Day fall on Mondays this year, those two holidays will not affect the museum’s normal schedule. We will be open to the public Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., Thursdays 10 a.m. – 9 p.m. and Sundays 1 – 5 p.m., with the museum closed on Mondays as usual.

In addition to our normal hours, there are several public events coming up, which are convenient and fun ways to spend some time with loved ones. Tonight, visitors can enjoy coffee, dessert and a gallery tour at the museum prior to the performance in Hodgson Hall by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, performing selections from Handel’s Messiah. You can purchase tickets for the concert at pac.uga.edu, but they are not required to attend the event at the museum. This event will run 6 – 8 p.m., with the tour beginning at 6:15.

Make It an Evening

Third Thursday also takes place tonight. This monthly event takes place at seven of Athens’ established venues for visual art. Full schedules are posted at 3Thurs.org, with this month featuring galleries open and events at the Georgia Museum of Art, Lyndon House Arts Center, Ciné, Hotel Indigo and the Classic Center from 6 to 9 p.m. Admission to all venues is free of charge, and this event is a great opportunity to visit a few Athens venues in one evening.

On Wednesday, December 27, our weekly Tour at Two begins at 2 p.m., featuring highlights from the permanent collection. Docents lead this tour every Wednesday, and it is free of charge. Come back in the future for a chance to go on tours of different exhibitions and selections from the permanent collection.

Finally, come celebrate the fact that you survived the holidays with our early January events. On January 3 at 2 p.m., assistant curator of education Sage Kincaid will lead a special slow-looking program and dialogue focused on Joan Mitchell’s painting “Close.” And January 4 brings the first session of our three-part studio workshop on abstraction with Athens-based artist and educator Brian Hitselberger. Read more about this great opportunity on our website.

Studio Workshop

We wish all of you very happy holidays, and we look forward to seeing you at an event or tour soon.

Staff Spotlight: Taylor Lear Joins the Team as Assistant Editor

Taylor Lear

As 2017 projects begin to wind down and the year comes to a close, the department of communications has one last addition before ringing in 2018. Taylor Lear has joined the department in the role of assistant editor. Although she is just getting started, Taylor is confident that this position will be a great fit for both her and the museum. In the midst of settling into her new job, she sat down with us to discuss her past experiences and hopes for the future.

Can you explain what you will be doing in your new role of assistant editor?

As the new assistant editor, I am joining Hillary Brown and Michael Lachowski in the department of communications, where I will be helping to produce the museum’s quarterly publication, Facet. I will also be working on all of the exhibition catalogues that the communications department produces each year, as well as taking care of wholesale orders and other various projects as needed.

What were you doing before coming to the Georgia Museum of Art?

For the past year, I have been living in New York, working on my master’s degree in Publishing at Pace University. I was a graduate assistant for my program, and I worked at W. W. Norton & Company as well. After I finished all of my coursework I decided to come back to the South, since I am from Roswell, Georgia and most of my family lives close by.

What excites you the most about working at the museum?

The thing that I find most exciting about the museum and its publications is the range of topics that I will have the opportunity to work on. From early Georgia gunsmiths and the history of craft at the University of Georgia to modern photography and historical figures, I have a feeling that the diverse subject matter will allow me to learn about and appreciate more areas than I had ever imagined.

What are your initial impressions of the museum?

I have admittedly not been here for very long, but so far all of the other employees have been extremely welcoming and ready to help me get started in any way they can. The museum itself is also world class, and I am so grateful to be able to work in this type of environment. So my initial impression has definitely been a positive one!

Are you familiar with the Athens area?

I received my bachelor’s degrees from the University of Georgia in May 2016, so I actually lived here for four years before moving north to start my master’s program. I’ve been gone for about a year and a half, but moving back feels like coming home.

So you are excited to be back?

Definitely! I am tremendously happy to be back in Athens. I’m excited to see what has changed in the time I’ve been gone and what is just the same. It also feels great to be back in a town that cares about college football as much as I do! Overall, I am delighted that I found the perfect job in my favorite place in the world.

"Artful Instruments": Taking a Look at 19th-Century Weaponry Made in Georgia

Henning D. Murden, longrifle, 19th century. Walnut and silver, 52 inches long. Georgia Department of Natural Resources, A.H. Stephens State Park.

With guns dominating the news cycle, it may seem odd for an art museum to present an exhibition focused on them, but the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia is presenting the exhibition “Artful Instruments: Georgia Gunsmiths and Their Craft” through February 25. Co-organized by the museum’s curator of decorative arts, Dale Couch, and guest curator Sam Thomas, of the T.R.R. Cobb House, in Athens, the exhibition includes 18 19th-century longrifles as well as two pistols, powder horns and a miniature cannon on loan from private and public lenders.

Decorative arts, as opposed to traditional fine arts like painting and sculpture, focus on functional objects. Most often, they include furniture, silver, pottery and the like, which range from the plain versions of these items that would have been found in a yeoman farmer’s home to highly refined and decorated versions from the wealthiest estates. It may seem strange to include weaponry in this category, but early gunsmithing incorporated many crafts, including silversmithing and casting as well as woodworking.

Less prosperous than its neighbor states immediately to the North, Georgia produced decorative arts that have historically been overlooked. Couch points out that these rifles represent “the quintessence of craft in 19th-century Georgia” and says that “the objects in this exhibition are some of the finest artistic achievements in the state at the time.” The museum’s Henry D. Green Center for the Study of the Decorative Arts attempts to shed light on Georgia craft, particularly items that have received less attention.

Henning D. Murden, powder horn, ca. 1860. Inscribed M or W. Horn, unidentified ring-porous hardwood, steel, and replacement rawhide strap, 9 inches long. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. James D. Fluker Jr.   

Thomas points out that, in 1979, one of the Foxfire publications wrote, “These finest pieces work as intricately as Swiss watches, are as rugged and durable as Rolls-Royces, and are comparable artistically to fine paintings, music, or sculpture. Interestingly, they have the additional dimension that comes from their being, almost paradoxically, instruments of death—the tools by which enemies were slain, the frontier was conquered and tamed, and the table was filled with game. The fascination they hold for us is undeniable.”

Nearly 40 years later, that phrasing may now seem insensitive, but the longrifle remains a uniquely American art form. Developed in the early 18th century, it was more accurate than a musket but slower to load, and the rifles in this exhibition predate technological advances that led to quicker loading firearms. Its role in key battles in the American revolution and its association with the frontier have led to considerable mythology surrounding it, including James Fenimore Cooper’s novel “The Last of the Mohicans,” which features a character nicknamed “longrifle.”

W.T. Fluker, miniature cannon, ca. 1877. Iron and wood, approx. 10 x 21 x 11 1/2 inches. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. James D. Fluker Jr.    

Although they began as more purely functional objects, the human impulse for decoration prevailed, and the rifles on display in this exhibition feature elaborate inlay in brass and silver. Gunsmiths engraved patchboxes, trigger guards and other areas with scrollwork that often served as a kind of signature.

Thomas writes, “The history of firearms is full of examples of invention and evolution, but no gun bridges the worlds of history, technology and art like the American longrifle. Nowadays it is rare to encounter an original longrifle outside of private collections which makes it all the more important to document the ones in small museums or sitting in barns and attics.”

This exhibition is sponsored by the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia/the MOTSTA Fund, the Watson-Brown Foundation, the W. Newton Morris Charitable Foundation and the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art. It is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by the museum that will be available for sale through the Museum Shop around January 20.

Programs related to the exhibition include 90 Carlton: Winter, the museum’s quarterly reception (free for members of the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art, $5 non-members) on February 1 at 5:30 p.m. (the exhibition opens to the general public the following day), and a public tour with Thomas on January 24 at 2 p.m.