Celebrating the Holidays with Ornaments Inspired by the Exhibition "Gifts and Prayers: The Romanovs and Their Subjects"

Season's greetings! For the holidays, the museum's education department (Carissa DiCindio, curator of education, Callan Steinmann, associate curator of education, and Sage Kincaid, assistant curator of education) hosted an ornament-decorating party for the staff. We used craft store supplies that reminded us of the sparkle of gems and jewels in the exhibition "Gifts and Prayers: The Romanovs and Their Subjects." The show, which runs through the end of the year, was featured recently by the University of Georgia in the video below.

For holiday shoppers headed to the Museum Shop, Romanov-themed and gift-ready items like crystal eggs and porcelain ornaments are available for sale, in addition to the catalogue of the exhibition.

"Georgia Bellflowers" advances in

The video above shows us flipping through an advance copy of the book for our upcoming exhibition "Georgia Bellflowers: The Furniture of Henry Eugene Thomas." The rest of the books should be in stock in early January, in time for the exhibition, but we will be offering special pre-orders in the Museum Shop (in-person only, not online) until then. The book is only $16 and makes a great holiday gift for anyone interested in decorative arts, local history, woodworking or great stories.

Holiday Hours

If you haven't received notice of our holiday hours, please note them below. Also, the Museum Shop will be closed Black Friday but open for Small Business Saturday (Nov. 26). If you want to support small businesses and support the museum, come see what we have in the shop!

The galleries at the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia will be open Nov. 23, Nov. 25, Dec. 24 and Dec. 28-31. The museum will be completely closed Nov. 24, Dec. 25-27 and Jan. 1-2. The museum’s galleries are normally closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, with its shop, lobby and café open on Tuesdays.

The museum will resume normal hours Jan. 3.

GMOA special holiday events include:

· The GMOA Book Sale: Dec. 8-9, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., retailing both GMOA and other publications. The sale is free and open to the public.

· Family Day: Dec. 10, 10 a.m. to noon. Families can make holiday cards inspired by the permanent collection and listen to a performance by Meridian Women’s Chorus. The event is free and open to the public.

· Buon Natale: Holiday Prints by Libby Bailey: The exhibition is on view through Jan. 8.

Also, beginning Nov. 19, Ike and Jane Café at GMOA will no longer be open on Saturdays. Its new hours will be Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

May 18th - International Museum Day

Established in 1977 by the International Council of Museums (ICOM), International Museum Day is a day on which people around the world take a moment to reflect upon the important role that museums play. ICOM is made up of more than 30,000 museums in over 100 different countries. From Costa Rica to Malaysia, museums in many different countries are taking a day to open their doors and educate the public.

This year’s theme is “Museum and Memory: Objects Tell Your Story,” which highlights the role that objects play in society’s collective memory. Museums aren’t just big buildings filled with old junk; they are visual showcases of humanity’s time spent on this earth. History builds upon itself, and the absence of the precious artifacts housed in museums would be indescribable. Restoration, conservation and curatorship are all integral parts of museums. So on May 18, take an hour or two to visit your local museum (like the Georgia Museum of Art) and appreciate the beauty that has been preserved and displayed for the benefit of you, your community and the future members of society.

Also, don't forget to stop by the gift shop after your visit to the GMOA. We're offering a 20% discount in the shop, both online (with the code MUSEUMDAY) and in person.

GMOA Shop Sale!

The GMOA Museum Shop will have a sale on Thursday, October 7, and Friday, October 8, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

This will be the last sale before the museum resumes operations in its newly expanded facility on East Campus. Many items will be up to 75% off, including holiday merchandise.

The sale will take place in the lobby of the Visual Arts Building at 285 S. Jackson St.

An Evening on William Bartram

On Friday, September 24, the Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation will host “An Evening on 18th Century Naturalist William Bartram.” This event will last from 6 to 8 p.m. and is free to the public. Two new books will be featured: “The Flower Seeker: An Epic Poem of William Bartram,” by Phillip Lee Williams, and “Bartram’s Living Legacy: The Travels and the Nature of the South,” edited by Dorinda G. Dallmeyer. Landscape artist Philip Juras provided the artwork for both books’ covers, and more of his work will be exhibited that evening in “Searching for Bartram’s Wilderness: Studies from the Field.”

Williams, Dallmeyer and Juras will all be available to speak and autograph books. For more information about this event, visit OCAF, and to learn more about the books go to http://bit.ly/bPOnBc.

The Georgia Museum of Art has its own link to William Bartram. The naturalist’s work was highlighted most recently in the museum’s publication of papers from the Fourth Henry D. Green Symposium of the Decorative Arts, “A Colorful Past,” which can be found in our online gift shop.

GMOA online shop discount today!

To celebrate International Museum Day, with the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), GMOA is offering a discount in our online shop today.

To receive a 20% discount off your total purchase, enter the coupon code MUSEUMDAY when prompted at checkout. Click here to visit the museum shop.

Since 1977, International Museum Day has been celebrated all over the world with a new theme each year. The themes are chosen by the Advisory Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). The 2010 theme is "Museums for Social Harmony." Click here for more information.

Awards

We are pleased as can be to announce that the Georgia Museum of Art's exhibition catalogue "The American Scene on Paper: Prints and Drawings from the Schoen Collection" has won the Eric Hoffer Award for Excellence in Independent Publishing in the Academic Press category for 2010. To see the full list of Hoffer Award winners, click here. To purchase a copy of the book, which retails for $55, click here to visit our online shop.

GMOA in the News

Art Daily ran a piece yesterday on the AAMD museums participating in International Museums Day next month (May 18), of which GMOA is one and receives a mention. Remember, we're offering a shop discount online that day of 20% on your order. Enter the code MUSEUMDAY at checkout to receive it. Click here to browse the shop's offerings.

Events this week

There are a few great art events going on in Athens this week! Here’s the update.

The Ceramic Student Organization is hosting its spring pottery sale today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the main foyer of the Lamar Dodd School of Art. Small, hand-built sculpture, functional pottery, teapots, flowerpots, mugs, plates, ceramic jewelry, vases and bowls will be available. All pieces were made by faculty and students. Prices range from $8 to $100 and proceeds will support student educational field trips and visiting artists. Email tsaupe@uga.edu for more information.

GMOA is having a shop sale tomorrow and Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Visual Arts Building on Jackson Street. There will be a wide selection of unique items discounted up to 75 percent. Email millera@uga.edu for more info.

The closing reception for “Constructive Chromosomes” is tomorrow from 5 to 7 p.m. at Flicker Theatre & Bar. The show features photography, ink stampings and light boxes by Will Eskridge. The reception will include homemade food and a performance by Lokshen Kugel Klezmer Band at 8:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Marketplace this weekend

Marketplace, hosted by the Junior League of Athens will take place this weekend, October 23–25, at the Classic Center in downtown Athens. The event features local and area vendors, including the Georgia Museum of Art Shop. This will be the fifth year of Marketplace. Make sure to stop by some time over the weekend—it will be a great chance to get started on your holiday shopping!

The first event of Marketplace is preview shopping, which is free to the public and is from 4 to 6 p.m. this Friday. A kick-off party begins at 7 p.m. Tickets for the kick-off party are $15 and include a catered dinner, wine tasting, entertainment and a silent auction. Admission is free on Saturday and Sunday! Feel free to support another Junior League of Athens project by bring pop-top cans of ravioli for the Food2Kids program in partnership with the Northeast Georgia Food Bank .

On Saturday, shopping hours will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Activities will include pictures with Santa, Santa Secret Shop and free registration for the Georgia Child Identification Program, or GACHIP. Shopping hours on Sunday will be from 12 to 5 p.m. Santa Secret Shop will also take place on Sunday. Click here for the schedule.

In addition to GMOA, some of the vendors will include Fire & Flavor, the UGA Alumni Association, Entourage Clothing & Gifts, Homemade Gourmet and many others. Go to the Marketplace blog to check out all of the vendors.

Email jlamarket@gmail.com or call 706.549.8688 with any questions.

GMOA in the News

The Textile Blog highlighted Mariska Karasz on Thursday. Karasz was the subject of an exhibition and a wonderful exhibition catalogue in 2007 at the Georgia Museum of Art, which you can purchase in the Museum Shop here. Her work really seems to touch something in people, as it's one of the exhibitions we continue to hear about, even more than two years later, and the book is getting close to being out of print, it's been so popular.

More Photos

Brent keeps taking photos inside and outside the building, and we've updated our construction photos from GMOA security accordingly.



He also took a few during the installation of Lord Love You.

And speaking of that exhibition, the rest of the books arrived at UGA Central Receiving this morning, meaning you can feel free to start ordering your copies from our Web shop.

Posters and Installation

We've been working on installing the exhibition Lord Love You: Works by R.A. Miller from the Mullis Collection over at the Lyndon House (opening to the public August 8), with (we hope) some photographs to come of that work. Limited-edition posters, which will look like the above, be printed on heavy Mohawk Superfine stock, measure 18 by 22 inches and be hand numbered in white Prismacolor at the bottom from 1 to 100, will arrive soon and retail for $50 each. Those will be available from our Web shop and at the Lyndon House gift shop.

GMOA in the News

Art Daily has an announcement up today of the opening of The American Scene on Paper: Prints and Drawings from the Schoen Collection at the Columbus Museum. The exhibition was organized by the Georgia Museum of Art and was previously on view at the Gibbes, in Charleston, S.C. While the Gibbes showed around 50 works from the exhibition, the Columbus Museum is showing around 100, and when the exhibition opens at the Georgia Museum of Art in 2011, once renovations and expansion are complete, it will include the full 153 works that are illustrated and discussed in the catalogue, an IPPY silver medal winner for fine art. You can purchase the catalogue at the Columbus Museum's gift shop or from our web shop, and we strongly encourage you to go see the exhibition while it's up (until Sept. 27).

GMOA Web Shop is up!

After tons of planning and writing and photographing and who-knows-what-elseing on shop manager Amy Miller's part, the GMOA shop is up and running online! Click here to see the offerings or, if that link doesn't work (some browsers have problems with it), click here on the general UGA Marketplace site and choose "Georgia Museum of Art Shop." Have fun browsing. Amy's uploaded many of our very best and most popular items, including a ton of books, jewelry, and toys for young artists, and while it's not quite the same as the in-store experience, with its cozy rugs and warm atmosphere, you don't have to get out of your pajamas to do all your shopping for your artsy friends and families. Check back here, as we'll be highlighting certain items in the store, such as the Seasons cup and saucer set pictured above.

American Scene elsewhere

Art Daily covered yesterday the opening on April 5 of Regional Dialect: American Scene Paintings from the John and Susan Horseman Collection, an exhibition at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, in Memphis, Tenn. The exhibition includes 57 works by American Scene painters, some of whom you may know if you visit the Georgia Museum of Art's exhibitions regularly. At least two of them, Joe Jones and Carl Frederick Gaertner, appear in the exhibition catalogue above, Coming Home: American Paintings, 1930-1950, from the Schoen Collection, which remains available for purchase from the museum shop ($35 softcover; $45 hardcover). The catalogue features 128 paintings from the numerous periods that make up the American Scene from 1930 to 1950, when the influences of the Depression and World War II contributed to styles of art variously known as Regionalism, Social Realism, Magic Realism, Surrealism, and Precisionism.

Coming Soon...

The Museum Shop's online version will launch (providing no more interferences arise) next week, meaning that, while you can't browse in person in its delightful atmosphere, you will be able to spend the same amount of time perusing its offerings, from museum publications to jewelry, toys and more. Check back here and on the main site for updates.