Emily Hogrefe-Ribeiro Joins the Georgia Museum of Art

Emily Hogrefe-Ribeiro

University students of every discipline are constantly looking to the future. With academic deadlines and seemingly endless lists of internships and applications to complete, it can be difficult to imagine one’s life past graduation. The latest addition to the Georgia Museum of Art, Emily Hogrefe-Ribeiro, can relate to students who take time to figure out where they are meant to be. She graduated with an undergraduate degree in art history in 2011 and now holds the position of assistant curator of education. In a brief interview, Hogrefe-Ribeiro discussed the path she took to get here, the value of her work and what she looks forward to in the future.

After finishing her undergraduate degree at Sarah Lawrence College, Hogrefe-Ribeiro says she spent a few years doing some internal searching — a possibility with which no undergraduate is unfamiliar. She then worked as an artist’s studio assistant, a gallery attendant in a museum and a marketing assistant for a historic house museum. With some time in the field under her belt, she returned to get her graduate degree from Tulane University, with a background in contemporary art of the African diaspora and a focus on education.

She then interned with the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., as part of her graduate studies and completed her graduate internship at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where she worked with local schools. Among other projects, she created art-integrated programs for 7th-graders and their teachers during multiple visits to the museum. She also worked with student and continuing education docent programs.

In her search for the next step after her graduate internship, she came across the opening at the Georgia Museum of Art. “I had friends visiting for the fourth of July,” Hogrefe-Ribeiro said, “And I was like ‘Oh my goodness, this position sounds perfect!’ So, I sent them off to continue to have fun and I pounded out my application in two days.” Luckily, Hogrefe-Ribeiro had visited Athens before and had found it very much to her liking. She saw stand-out qualities of the museum in the number of field trips regularly coming through its doors, the community and student docent programs and the size of the teaching collection.

She points out that the galleries are incredibly useful as an educational tool because they are arranged chronologically and focus on different trends in the development of American art, including a great cross-section of works by African American artists. Frequently rotating exhibitions fill gaps in the permanent collection and provide spotlights through which to examine artistic concepts in tighter focus.

Hogrefe-Ribeiro’s position allows her to guide directly the ways in which visitors to the museum learn. This accessibility to historic material and the relationship of the museum to the university and the surrounding community appeal to her drive to knock down elitist roadblocks in the field of art history. “What’s the point of learning all this stuff in graduate school if you only are speaking to one niche audience?” she asked, “I want everyone to know what I know and have access to what I’ve had access to.”

Now Hogrefe-Ribeiro is working on 5th-grade tours, a donor-funded program that allows every 5th-grade student in Athens-Clarke County to come to the museum. This year, all 5th-grade tours have been scheduled to come during the run of “Richard Hunt: Synthesis.” These tours are supplemented by tactility-centered art carts and interpretive activities to lay foundations for art appreciation. The tours are led by the community and student docent corps, which Hogrefe-Ribeiro will take over leadership of in the spring. She is excited about revisiting and adapting tour stops to put new spins on the way visitors experience the museum’s collections.

And how is she settling in? After one month, Athens already feels like home, she said. Although she’s only been at the museum a few weeks, and she looks forward to learning its intricacies and taking on more as she goes, the job so far suits her perfectly. “I’m excited by what I’m doing,” she said. “I feel very personally fulfilled coming to work each day.”

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Penske McCormack

Intern, Department of Communications

Art Adventures Begin Again at Georgia Museum of Art

The Georgia Museum of Art hosts a number of educational programs throughout the year.

With summer arriving, Art Adventures is returning to the Georgia Museum of Art. This free, interactive educational program is designed for elementary school-aged children, and will run from June 6 to July 26 with time slots available on Wednesdays and Thursdays. This program is ideal for groups such as day camps, day care centers and community centers, with slots available both in the morning and afternoon.

This year’s adventure will be “Elements of Art in the Georgia Museum of Art Permanent Collection.” During each 90-minute session, groups will enjoy a gallery tour, games and an art activity to help connect the students to what they have learned.

During the tour of our galleries, interactive stops will explore the elements of art (color, line, shape, frames and form). These stops will teach students about a variety of topics, including how paint is made, two- and three-dimensional works of art and how shapes come together to form a composition.

The tour will feature impressionist, modernist and contemporary works of art from artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Theodore Robinson, Beverly Buchanan, Radcliffe Bailey and more.

After the interactive gallery walk, the group will then create their own art to display in their classroom or community center. For this summer’s adventure, students will have the opportunity to mix their own paint and then use it to combine all of the elements of art they have just learned about. They will discover how their own work of art combines all of the elements of art at once.

Registration is currently open for this activity. Each session can accommodate up to 30 children, with one chaperone for every 10 kids. To schedule your group’s adventure or to learn more about Art Adventures, contact Sage Kincaid at sagekincaid@uga.edu or 706.542.0448.

Awakening the Divine at the Georgia Museum of Art

Some of the mandalas created by participants at "Awakening the Divine"

There it is again.

Beep! Beep! Beep! How does the relentless ring of an alarm always seem to invade the best of dreams? Morning people spring out of bed prepared for the day, while others need a miracle to make it out of the house on time. The Georgia Museum of Art recently offered a workshop for all kinds of people to wake up —in the spiritual sense. “Awakening the Divine,” a mindfulness workshop, was also scheduled for the convenient evening hour of 6 p.m. For many, the experience was a much more welcome wake-up call than their daily alarm.

The workshop began with a short history of mandalas. Many different cultures have created circular designs throughout history. Humans were likely first inspired to draw circles from looking at the sun and moon. This workshop drew inspiration from “Images of Awakening: Buddhist Sculpture from Afghanistan and Pakistan,” an exhibition that highlights the Buddhist artistic heritage of ancient Gandhara. Many other religions around the world have also found significance in mandalas. From Tibetan monks to Navajo Indians, the ritualistic production of these designs is often intended to produce healing.^[1]

Psychologists today have discovered the many positive effects of creating mandalas. The instructor of the workshop, licensed physiologist Debra P. Avis, included a few in her presentation. This practice may prevent writers block or aid in decision-making. Mandalas symbolize the self in Jungian psychology.^[2] By creating a mandala, an individual works to find a place in the world. In conjunction with mindfulness, a well-studied practice with many benefits, the process teaches one to focus on the task at hand. At the end of the workshop, visitors left with completed, unique mandalas — as unique as their individual dreams and aspirations, which they may now pursue with renewed focus.

Gone are the days when art museums were only spaces to observe a painting on the wall (though the museum does offer ample time and space for this activity with Slow Art Day on the calendar for April 14). Additionally, curators of education create experiences that call upon visitors to interact with art in new ways. In recent years, the Georgia Museum of Art has increasingly offered opportunities for visitors to participate in art making. Workshops in acrylics and tapestry weaving employ local artists and give members of the Athens community an opportunity to benefit from the resources on campus. Whether it is making mandalas, paintings or tapestries, visitors can find what makes their days a bit brighter at the museum.

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McKenzie Peterson

Intern, Department of Communications

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^[1] Krippner, S. (1997). The Role Played by Mandalas in Navajo and Tibetan Rituals. Anthropology of Consciousness, 8(1), 22-31. doi:10.1525/ac.1997.8.1.22

^[2] Psychology of the Mandala. (2018, April 11) http://creatingmandalas.com/psychology-of-the-mandala

Art Adventures Inspires Future Designers

Sage Kincaid, assistant curator of education, works with a YWCO group on a gallery tour during Art Adventures.

Every Wednesday and Thursday this summer, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., children came to the Georgia Museum of Art to get inspired by the work of designer Giò Ponti on a 90-minute journey to Italy. They were participating in Art Adventures, the museum’s annual free summer program. Art Adventures runs every June and July, encouraging focused engagement with works of art and a studio art activity that builds on children’s experiences in the galleries. Day camps, day cares and community centers take advantage of it, bringing about 600 elementary-school-aged children to the museum in the summer months.

Art Adventures has a different theme every year. This summer, informed by the exhibition “Modern Living: Giò Ponti and the 20th-Century Aesthetics of Design,” it focused on modern design and how we use design in our everyday lives. Children took an interactive tour of the exhibition, led by museum education staff and interns. Examples of gallery activities included looking for elements of art in Ponti’s designs, imagining how furniture functions in different settings and thinking about their own style by listening to examples of Italian music while learning about the work.

Art Adventurers design and create their tiles.

After the tour, kids created their own works of art, using their new knowledge of art and design. Thinking about the patterns and colors they saw in the exhibition for inspiration, they tried out different colors and shapes. and practiced using new art materials. Once they felt ready, they created colorful patterns on a ceramic tile using tissue paper and a clear glaze. Students cut and tore tissue paper and layered it to explore patterns, transparency and colors on the tile. When they finished, they each had a beautiful tile with a unique design.

An Art Adventurer with her finished tile.

“I’m always so inspired by kids’ creativity and their imagination.” said Sage Kincaid, the museum’s assistant curator of education. “Our goal for this program is to engage children with the exhibition and help them feel connected and interested in not just the works of art and the museum, but also their own and classmates’ reactions and thoughts about what they are seeing.”

Jinsui Li
Intern, Department of Communications

Spotlight on Studio Workshops: Q&A with Instructor Kristen Ashley

This September, Athens-based artist and educator Kristen Ashley will be leading "Studio Workshop: Abstraction," a four week course that explores abstraction and non-representational art through various techniques and materials. We got to learn more about Kristen and her work with a brief Q&A.

Kristen Ashley

1. What are some of your favorite works at the Georgia Museum of Art?

Some of my favorites are Josef Albers' "Goldengate", Elaine DeKooning's "Bacchus #81", and Edgar Degas' self portrait.

2. How does a visit to the museum inspire you as an artist?

An art museum is a holy place for me. Just being around the centuries' worth of artwork inspires me, and in spirit, I feel closer to the artists themselves. Getting to see the works up close, trying to figure out how the artists worked and what influenced them, gives me new ideas for my own work and a sublime feeling of my place in art making's long history.

3. Is there something you are currently working on or are excited about starting that you can tell us about?

Right now [K. A. Artist Shop] is my work of art! We are a young art space, and I take great pride in how the environment is set up and organized, as well as in the overall visual experience I'm creating for my shoppers, students, and gallery visitors. I'm also working on a series of oil paintings, where I take imagery from textiles and weavings and translate them into two-dimensional works on wood.

4. What do you read, listen to, or look at to fuel your work?

I love podcasts and books on tape. My favorite authors du jour are Oscar Wilde and G. K. Chesterton. I listen religiously to "Science Friday," "99% Invisible," "Radiolab" and "My History Can Beat Up Your Politics." I even sleep with headphones on ... I'm not happy unless I'm learning.

5. What advice or words of wisdom have influenced you as an artist?

"Art is never finished, only abandoned" (various attributions, usually DaVinci) has stuck with me since I first heard it. The trick for me is finding the exact right moment to abandon a painting ... I usually go too far and start looking for an eraser!

"Studio Workshop: Abstraction" runs Thursdays, September 1 through 22, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. This workshop is open to artists of all levels and experience, from enthusiastic beginners to more seasoned practitioners. The sessions will draw inspiration from the museum’s collection, including works from the archives and many not currently on display. The cost of the course is a $15 materials fee, which will cover all necessary supplies for the four sessions. Call 706.542.8863 or email callan@uga.edu to register. Limited to 15 participants.

Schedule Your Group's Art Adventure Today!

In the summer, hundreds of young children bring their ideas and creativity to the Georgia Museum of Art for the program Art Adventures. Originally an outreach program called Art Excursions, the program grew into what it is today: a free in-house art experience for community organizations, day care centers and summer camps. Carissa DiCindio, curator of education, has worked with the program since its onset and said, “Art Adventures has always been one of my favorite programs because we are able to reach a wide group of children in the community, from preschool students to teens, and engage them in the museum with gallery and studio activities that are a lot of fun.”

This June and July, Art Adventures will examine contemporary art created at the Mixografia Workshop, a collaborative studio established in 1968 in Mexico City and now based in Los Angeles. In the Mixografia studio, invited artists create three-dimensional prints and use experimental techniques to create handmade paper in relief. Our 90-minute Art Adventure program includes a tour of the exhibition “Paper in Profile: Mixografia and Taller de Gráfica Mexicana” with trained museum guides. Children will investigate the galleries through games that promote close looking and inquiry with museum educators and UGA students who volunteer as education interns. Each participant will also have the opportunity to create a work of art inspired by the exhibition to take home.

Reservations for Art Adventures 2016 are now being accepted. Morning (10–11:30 a.m.) and afternoon (1–2:30 p.m.) time slots are available every Wednesday and Thursday from June 8 to July 28. Each 90-minute session can accommodate up to 30 children, with one chaperone for every 10 children. To schedule your group’s Art Adventure, contact Brittany Ranew at branew@uga.edu or 706.542.0448.

Down to Basics: Printmaking

Carroll Cloar, "The Making of a Drawing"

Printmaking is one of the oldest forms of technology to help artists produce images, with some types dating back to the 9th century. There are four main categories of printmaking: relief (woodcuts), intaglio (etching), planographic (lithography) and stencil (screen printing).

The Georgia Museum of Art presents great examples of printmaking in two current exhibitions, "The Lithographs of Carroll Cloar" and "The Prints of Mary Wallace Kirk."

The former, on view in the Boone and George-Ann Knox Gallery II, features detailed lithographs depicting a surreal perspective on the stories of people and places from Cloar's childhood, biblical narratives and popular culture.

Lithographs are a type of printmaking developed in the in 18th century based on the fact that water and oil do not mix.

The original process involved drawing an image in oil, fat or wax on a limestone plate. The plate is then treated with acid and gum arabic, which etches the portions of the stone not covered by the image. These etched areas are then wetted. As the etched areas retain the water, oil-based ink is applied. The water on the etched portions of the plate repels the oil-based ink, leaving only the drawn image covered in ink, ready for printing.

Nowadays, printmakers take the same concept of oil and water not mixing, but with a slight upgrade to the technology. Typically, modern printmakers produce lithographs by using acrylic polymer paint to draw the image on a flexible aluminum plate.

The 31 prints featured in the exhibition beautifully show the range of how the medium can contribute to the tone and style of the subject matter.

Mary Wallace Kirk, "Cabin in Shade"

Printmaking is not limited to lithographs. On July 19, the museum opened the exhibition "The Prints of Mary Wallace Kirk" in the Martha Thompson Dinos and Dorothy Alexander Roush Galleries, featuring finely detailed renderings of the countryside of the 1930s and 1940s.

Although etching as a means to decorate metal items dates back to the Middle Ages, the technology was applied to printmaking in the 15th century.

This method of printmaking involves covering a metal plate in an acid-resistant, waxy ground. The artist then takes a pointed etching needle and draws on the metal, scraping off the ground, to form the design in the now exposed metal. The printmaker then dips the metal plate into a bath of acid called an "etchant" that eats away the exposed metal, leaving deep lines. The acid and ground are then cleaned off the plate, and the artist applies ink. As the artist wipes away the ink from the plate, the deep, etched lines retain the ink and are now ready to translate the image.

Kirk studied etching at the Art Students League in New York with Harry Sternberg and ultimately produced around 80 etchings during her career.

"The Lithographs of Carroll Cloar" is on view until Aug. 10, and "The Prints of Mary Wallace Kirk" is on view until Oct. 12.

Evening for Educators

This Thursday, September 22, GMOA will host Evening for Educators for K-12 educators. A wine and cheese reception will be provided as well as a performance from the Monsignor Donovan High School jazz band. Exhibitions will be available for preview with curators and docents. Educators are also invited to sign up for guided tours and new teaching packets.

The Big Debate: Museum Fees

Here at the Georgia Museum of Art, admission to the museum is always free, but elsewhere the topic of museum fees continues to be discussed. This week the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced a plan to raise its admission fee from $20 to $25. Though the admission is simply a “suggested donation,” some critics argue that this increase will discourage visitors of a lower economic standing. Should museums that receive taxpayers’ dollars be allowed to charge for admission? Some say that going to a museum should be considered a “treat” and that, just like going to a professional sports game, everything comes with a price. But what about the educational benefits that museums offer? If the price of admission is raised past a level that can be viewed as “midrange,” then students are less likely to spend some of their hard-earned money on a ticket. So the question is: does the need for income outweigh the cultural benefits of a free museum?

AthFest 2010

Mark your calendars for the 14th annual AthFest, June 23–27 in downtown Athens. The festival showcases Athens-based music and art.

AthFest always has one main stage for performances and is adding a second this year. The main-stage headliners have just been announced and include Bubba Sparxxx, Perpetual Groove, Modern Skirts and others. Click here to see the full performer list.

GMOA will have a lot going on at AthFest, so make plans to come and see us! We will have a table at KidsFest on Saturday, June 26, where you can design your own 2-D guitars. We’re also organizing a performance by Amelia Winger-Bearskin, an assistant professor of studio art at Vanderbilt University in the areas of video and performance art. Visit her website and click here to read an essay about her written by GMOA’s own Lynn Boland, Pierre Daura Curator of European Art.

In addition to GMOA’s presence, there will also be a lot of other cool things happening, such as an art market that is free and open to the public and includes ceramics, drawings, folk art, furniture, glasswork, jewelry and more. KidsFest features everything from interactive projects to a petting zoo and bungee jumping, and best of all, it’s also free!

Another exciting event at AthFest is the Flagpole Music Awards. This is the 12th year of the event, which incorporates awards chosen by Flagpole’s readers and musical performances. Film is also recognized at AthFest. TeenScreen shows films created by teenagers in Athens area schools. The cover charges for both the Flagpole Music Awards and TeenScreen have not yet been announced, but all cover charges are discounted with an AthFest wristband.

The actual festival takes place once a year, but AthFest has a constant presence in the community. AthFest, Inc. is a nonprofit organization with the mission to “educate citizens and visitors about music and arts in general, and about Athens music and arts in particular.” For example, AthFest InSchool and AthFest AfterSchool are two series that began last year and take local performers to middle schools and after-school centers. All proceeds from AthFest and other events support educational efforts in the Athens community.

For more information about scheduling, locations and prices, visit the AthFest website.