Back to School

[00:00:00] Teen Advisory Council: You’re now listening to Free Admissions.

[00:00:09] Karena Ingram, host: Welcome to Free Admissions, the Walters Art Museum podcast where we bring art and people of every background together to inspire creativity, curiosity, and connection. I’m your host, Karena Ingram, and the voices you just heard were members of our Teen Advisory Council: Chloe, Helia, and Kerron. Let’s hear more from them about their work.

[00:00:26] Chloe: My name is Chloe. I just graduated from BSA and I’ll be attending Howard University as a freshman this fall. The thing I love most about art is that I can use it to say things that my words might not be able to. I feel that I can put certain things into a shape or a color if I’m not able to put it into a phrase.

I love being on the committee because I can work with other teens who have the same interests as me. We can create an event that other teens can enjoy who might not have the same interests. But we’re creating a space where everyone can come together, and they can have fun, and they can just get out of the house and potentially make a friend.

[00:00:58] Helia: Hi, my name is Helia, and I’ll be a senior at Delaney High School in the fall. I love how versatile art is. It can come in forms from dance to music to visual arts, and it can express things that words can’t. I love collaborating with teens to create an event and kind of use my creativity in a different way.

[00:01:15] Kerron: How you doing? My name is Kerron. My friends call me Ron, and I am a senior this year for Paul Owens Dunbar. I think art is very unique. I’m predominantly more of a music head, so I just love the style and everything about music in general. But everything else about art, I just love how it is. I love how my five or six teens from all around Maryland is just coming together to basically try to make an event for other teens to, you know, be motivated to go out there and do something.

[00:01:45] Karena Ingram, host: Thanks for that wonderful intro, team! The Walters Teen sAdvisory Council provides teens with professional experience working on museum projects and programs, like their Teen Takeover: RENAISSANCE event on Saturday, September 28th, from 1 to 4 p.m. You can visit TheWalters.org/Events to learn more.

Now you may have already guessed this episode’s theme from its title, so get your backpack and brown bag lunch ready, because in today’s episode, we’re going back to school.

We’ll fill you in on our upcoming exhibition, Art and Process: Drawings, Paintings, and Sculptures from the 19th-Century Collection, from curator Jo Briggs. Then, curators Adriana Proser and Christine Sciacca will talk about a few historic school essentials in the Walters collection. Lastly, school tour groups say the darndest things. We’ll talk with our school communities coordinator, Charlie Wolfe, about the curious nature of school tour groups. No tickets needed, Free Admissions starts now.

[00:02:42] Walking through the Walters, visitors can find themselves surrounded by artworks of extraordinary beauty and craftsmanship. Although the objects in the museum’s collection span seven millennia and numerous countries of origin, all have one thing in common: each work began as an idea. But how does an artist transform their first thoughts into a finished piece?

The approaches artists take to create their works are as varied as the artworks themselves, but before touching paint to canvas or chisel to marble, artists make sketches, models, or studies to perfect their technique and approach. Unfortunately, these preparatory studies don’t often survive, and those that do are rarely exhibited due to fragility and light sensitivity.

However, a new exhibition at the Walters Art Museum is pulling back the curtain on these infrequently seen treasures. Art and Process: Drawings, Paintings, and Sculptures from the 19th-Century Collection, opening October 23rd of 2024, displays objects that reveal often-hidden steps that exist between an artist’s initial idea and their finished product.

Let’s hear more from the curator of this exhibition, Jo Briggs.

[00:03:50] Jo Briggs, Curator of 18th and 19th Century Art: My name is Jo Briggs. I’m the Jenny Walters Delano Curator of 18th and 19th Century Art, and I’ve been at the Walters for about 13 years. Before I even started working at the Walters, I realized that we have a really big collection of works on paper, so drawings, pastels, watercolors. And we don’t often show these because they’re light sensitive, but they tell a really interesting story because often they’re related to finished works.

So, what you’re seeing in these works on paper is an artist exploring an idea for a work that is finished, so, an oil painting or a sculpture, the kinds of things that you more usually see when you’re walking around a museum. The last big drawings exhibit we did was actually in 2005, and it was called The Essence of Line: French Drawings from Ingres to Degas. And it was co-organized by the Waters and the Baltimore Museum of Art. But yeah, that’s 20 years ago, so we haven’t shared them with the public other than through our online catalog for a lot of time.

So, I thought okay, well, it’s time we’ve got these beautiful things out, shared them and show them to everyone. And I thought about maybe doing a kind of highlight show, which Essence of Line was, but then I had this realization that these drawings we have—these works on paper—are related to finished paintings and sculptures that are also in the collection. So, by grouping them together, you can really get a sense of an artist’s thought process, ideally, so that was really the inspiration and the concept behind the show.

As mentioned, this is really about process, so the drawings and sketches and studies in relation to finished paintings and sculptures, and the idea that often that’s not something that’s visible in, on the walls of a museum. And also sort of this idea that the process can be, it can be long, it can be short, it can have multiple endpoints, or even that after a work is finished or seems finished, the artist might return to it, make it in a different media. So, the idea that, you know, rather than there being this finished endpoint, it’s a lot more open ended, a lot more fluid.

So, we have 61 works from the Walters permanent collection, and it’s 31 works on paper, so pastel, graphite, charcoal, watercolor, and then 23 oil paintings. And we also have works in bronze, porcelain, and terracotta. We have a really amazing collection of works by Jean-François Millet in the show. So, one of Millet’s most famous paintings is called The Angelus—two figures in a field, they’re praying. And this was actually, van Gogh and Dali made versions of this, but we have a drawing of that composition.

And we also have two versions of his work The Sheepfall Moonlight. And that’s kind of interesting because they were both bought by William T. Walters, which sort of shows his interest in having both a drawing and a painting of the same subject. And then we also have Millet’s The Sower, which I think is a great kind of poster child for this exhibit because you can really see the process by close-looking at the pastel.

You see the graphite, you see the underlying paper, you see the different colors of pastel that he’s using, but he’s also portraying a sower, and he’s portraying someone howering the ground. So, it’s almost like he’s portraying a natural process at the same time that he’s allowing his own process to be on view.

I should also say we also have a new acquisition in the show, which is really exciting. It’s a work by a female artist called Nellie Joshua. We don’t have many works by female artists in the 19th-century collection. And it’s a really fun painting because she’s showing two female students sitting in an art school in London—it’s called Heatherley’s. And they are sitting in what was known as the life room, so it was a place where student artists would be drawing from the nude—from the undraped human form, particularly the male form.

And in 1900, when this painting was done, it was still seen as kind of controversial that women would be allowed to look at the male form like that. And it’s kind of a humorous work, as well as being kind of radical in that sense, because she’s depicting a nude classical sculpture in the foreground—a plaster cast that the students would also have copied from—and she’s put next to it a sign saying, “Please do not touch.”

So, it sort of suggests something about the sort of vulnerability of the male nude in the face of these female art students’ gaze. So, that’s kind of an interesting thing to explore in this final section, both teaching and also the sort of gender implications around who gets to look at what in the 19th century.

This last section of the exhibition is really about artistic training. So, the Nellie Joshua painting kind of speaks to that, but we also have an exploration of how in official kind of government-backed art schools, artists would be trained to draw in very, kind of, codified ways. So, we have some plaster casts, because they would have started drawing from a plaster cast before they were ever really allowed to pick up a paintbrush or a chisel. You would have to learn how to draw in kind of this very fine grayscale. Either, you know, starting often with just geometric shapes, but then working from plaster casts before you work yourself all the way up to be able to draw from the nude figure, and then that would be the underlying basis for compositions which involve people, which was seen as the sort of highest grade grade of art at the time.

We’re sort of exploring that very tortuous path that students had to walk to get into official venues like the Salon in Paris or the Royal Academy in London. And what’s kind of fun is that, as well as having examples of plaster casts in the galleries, visitors will be able to pick up a drawing kit at the visitor’s service desk and try their hand at this kind of grayscale drawing that was very codified and judged during the 19th century.

I think it’s insight into a hidden part of the collection, but also a sense of the process behind all of the work that goes into making a painting or a sculpture, so that when you walk into a museum and you see an oil painting you realize this is actually the end point in a very long career of an artist in terms of training, but also in working out the final composition, collecting all the information they need to then complete this final work that we can appreciate in the museum.

You know, the majority of the show is works on paper, and so because they’re light sensitive, they will go away into their boxes in storage and won’t be seen for quite some years. So, this is a great opportunity to explore a really hidden, secret part of the Walters collection.

[00:10:42] Karena Ingram, host: Thanks so much, Jo, for guiding us through Art and Process, an installation that is generously made possible by supporters of the Walters Art Museum. The exhibition opens October 24th, 2024, in our Level 1 galleries and is on view through March 9th, 2025.

Some people say that the end of summer technically doesn’t arrive until mid-September. But if you were to ask any grade schooler, the telltale sign of summer’s end is receiving your official school supplies list for the upcoming year. Parents scramble through aisles, searching endlessly through bins, looking for the perfect set of gel pens, color-coded spiral notebooks, and of course, a TI-85 graphing calculator.

But what kind of supplies were students using, say, 200 years ago? Or during the medieval era? We asked curators Adriana Proser and Christine Sciacca just that question.

[00:11:33] Adriana Proser, curator: Hi, I’m Adriana Proser. I’m Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Quincy Scott Curator of Asian Art and Chief Curator at the Walters Art Museum.

So, today I want to talk to you about a writing table, or bundai, with chrysanthemums by a stream that was made in Japan in the 19th century, and it was acquired by William T. Walters, one of our founders, around 1876.

This is just a beautiful table. If you look at it, you see landscape scenery and flowers by a stream. And if you look really closely at the flowers, then you realize they’re actually chrysanthemums. Since it’s the beginning of the school year, I thought that it would be fun to talk about this because it’s actually a writing table, basically similar to a desk, and even school children in early Japan would use these low tables to write with.

Now this one’s super elaborate, right? It’s got this beautiful golden and silver imagery on it. Of course, a school kid would have a much simpler version of this kind of thing, but traditionally in Japan, unlike school children here in the West, they would have sat on the floor, a floor covered with tatami mats, and they would have had this table very low to the ground, right, right on the mat, and they would kneel on the mat to work at the writing table.

Elaborate ones like this one actually would have been part of sets, with boxes to hold paper and writing implements, including a brush for writing with ink, which was the traditional way of writing. Eventually, the size of this desk was standardized, and this one is about 13 inches long, about 22 inches wide, and three and a half inches high, so it’s super low, actually.

By the time that this table was made in the 1870s, education in Japan was accessible to nobility and to Buddhist monks and samurai, the warrior class, merchants, and also commoners. But still only about 30 percent of school-age population was being educated in Japan at this time. So, in Japan, for upper classes anyway, education encompassed poetry, music, and calligraphy, and emphasized the study of Chinese texts as well.

And so, an educated person would look at this particular example, this beautiful writing desk, and see that it has this elaborate imagery, right? An educated person would immediately recognize the chrysanthemum flowers by a stream that decorate this desk as just kind of a general symbol of long life. But there’s actually a story that’s connected with this imagery as well.

We know that this chrysanthemum flowers next to a stream would immediately evoke the legend of Kiku Jidō, or “Chrysanthemum Boy,” who was the subject of a well known Chinese tale. That became a really popular Noh play, a special kind of Japanese theater play in Japan.

So, it was super well known, and Chrysanthemum Boy is famed for unknowingly drinking an elixir of immortality. He was by a stream and he was writing Buddhist texts on a chrysanthemum leaf. Then he threw the leaf into the stream, and then later on he sipped some dew from that very same leaf, accidentally, and unknowingly drank this liquid that gave him long life, you know, made him live forever.

So, it’s really fun imagery that to us, you know, if we were not familiar with this, we would like to think about, oh, this is just a landscape, a pretty landscape with chrysanthemum flowers and mountains in the background and a stream flowing through it. So, I think that this writing desk really gives us an opportunity to not only appreciate how much our educational systems have really changed across the globe over time, because I think in almost most countries, many countries now anyway, people are sitting at the same kind of desks and schools that we do here in the United States today. But, there are these other traditional forms that we can learn about and really appreciate the artistry that is connected with these pieces of furniture that people were able to use and really appreciate in their own homes.

[00:16:20] Christine Sciacca: My name is Christine Sciacca, and I’m the Curator of European Art, 300–1400 CE, at the Walters Art Museum, and I have been at the Walters for over seven years. Learning was central to medieval life for certain segments of society. Certainly priests and monks would have often learned to read so that they could study the scriptures and the writings of the church fathers.

Christian royalty and nobility would have often had prayer books or books filled with literature and historical accounts. So, many of these men, and to a lesser degree these women, would have used books for prayer and learning. Also, children of these upper class families would have often received tutoring so that they might learn to say their prayers, learn some classical texts, perhaps even learn another classical or vernacular language.

The Walters collection contains a small rectangular box made of ivory. It’s about three and a half by two inches. The box is rather flat, only about half an inch deep. It has a carved lid that depicts various scenes of courtly love and hunting, which were pursuits associated with the wealthy and medieval society.

But when you lift the lid off the box, you see a depression about a quarter inch deep. This space would have been filled with an ivory tablet covered with a thin layer of wax. This wax surface could be written on with a stylus, which is a kind of pointy metal writing tool. And the wax could be smoothed over when the writing was no longer needed.

So it’s a much more reusable surface than, say, parchment or paper for writing. There is a thought that because the wax surface was enclosed in this ivory box, this object could be used to write a message and to send the box to a pen pal or a lover, and when the recipient wanted to respond, they could smooth the wax and write their own message back.

Wax tablets were also central in children’s learning because it was easy to correct mistakes and to use the same surface again and again without waste. I just purchased my children’s school supplies this year, which included a personal sized whiteboard for practicing writing and math. So you can think of the wax tablet here at the Walters as a medieval whiteboard.

[00:18:29] Karena Ingram, host: Thanks so much again to Adriana and Christine for teaching us about these historic tools of the trade. You can see these objects and more in Across Asia: Arts of Asia in the Islamic World on Level 4 and The Great Room on Level 3. And if you’d like to look at these objects up close, visit TheWalters.org/Podcast for links to each of the artworks and exhibitions mentioned in this episode.

So far, we’ve talked about key aspects of education like tools and process, but we can’t leave out the most integral part of the back to school experience: the students.

This past year alone, the Walters saw over 7,000 students walk through its doors, from kindergartners to graduate students, and all ages in between. Our adult visitors often share that they first encountered the Walters on a school field trip. With so many curious young minds fluttering in and out of the galleries, you can only imagine the kinds of questions kids asked during their visit.

Well, I’m thrilled to introduce our Assistant Manager of School and Teacher Programs, Charlie Wolfe, to talk about the joys of working with students in the museum and tackling questions like:

[00:19:29] Charlie Wolfe: “Do you ever hide here overnight? Does anyone ever steal the art? Can I have free chips from the cafe? Is the museum haunted? Can I have some money from the donation box?”

My name is Charlie Wolfe, and I am the Assistant Manager of School and Teacher Programs here at the Walters Art Museum. I’ve been here for about two years. It’s a wonderful opportunity to engage with kids and students at the museum. It’s a place for learning but can be approached in a way that doesn’t feel forced or required.

Throughout all of the student programs I have worked on, the experience I see so many students have here is the experience of feeling engaged and empowered. It’s a different space than the classroom. Students can have a different type of experience here. One that involves moving, listening, seeing, and doing in a way that is different from what they might experience in the classroom.

One of my co-workers and I have a lot of conversations about our experience with students. One of the things that we have both seen a lot of is the desire from youth to share their ideas, artwork, experiences, and all sorts of things. One experience she had recently involved a child who was so excited to share how good at art she was.

We ended up having a conversation about how wonderful it was that students can come here, participate, and leave feeling so proud of themselves. I’ve met so many students who are excited to show me what they’ve made or done while here. The bulletin board behind my desk is covered in artwork that students made and decided to leave with me.

It’s not something I ever expect of course, but it really makes me so happy to know that students are excited and want to share with others, and I hope they feel safe, heard, and appreciated while they’re here. My co-workers and I also love to talk about the excitement aspect, especially what things get students really excited or engaged.

In the galleries, students get really excited or interested in the things that catch their eye. One thing that often gets students’ attention is all of the nude figures in the museum. I did a tour a few months back for an older group of students and we ended up having a long conversation about the history of nudity in art and why so many statues here don’t have clothes on.

It wasn’t a planned part of our tour, but the gallery we were in has lots of nudity, and it was hard to ignore. It is so cool that we can just stop and talk about it. One of my favorite things about having students here is enabling them to take control of what they want to know and encouraging them to talk about it.

The galleries are an incredible way to learn about students’ ideas and interests, and all you really have to do is listen and see where they take the conversation, or what they choose to focus on. What’s also so great is we don’t just take students in the galleries, but we get to do a lot of other activities with them too.

The same co-worker I mentioned earlier and I love to compare what supplies students like to grab, as we both do art making for our programs. One thing we have both learned is that kids love gems. Every time we put gems out, they are used so fast. There is something about gems, and really anything sparkly or shiny, that is just so exciting, and I can’t say I don’t feel the same way.

The colorful ones are usually a favorite, and the more interesting the shape, the more exciting the gem. I had a student a few years ago proudly tell me that he put 100 gems on his project. It was such a great moment. The next time you’re here, I encourage you to let your curiosity and creativity drive you like we encourage students to do.

[00:22:53] Karena Ingram, host: Thanks so much, Charlie. Free access to the Walters Art Museum, online and in person, is made possible through the combined generosity of individual donors, foundations, and corporations, and grants from the City of Baltimore, Maryland State Arts Council, Citizens of Baltimore County, Howard County Government, and Howard County Arts Council.

To learn more about engaging with or supporting the Walters, visit www.TheWalters.org/give.

A big thanks to our Teen Advisory Council, Jo Briggs, Adriana Proser, Christine Sciacca, and Charlie Wolfe for chatting with us today. Free Admissions, The Walters Art Museum podcast is made possible by Marketing and Communications Director Connie McAllister, Communications Manager Sydney Adamson, Head of Graphic Design Tony Venne, Graphic Designer Rachel Minier, Web Specialist Dylan Kinnett, Content Writer Erin Branigan, IT Specialist Frank Dickerson, and edited and hosted by me, Karena Ingram.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please leave us a review and share this episode with your friends. You can visit TheWalters.org for more information and to plan your visit. Hope to see you at the museum soon!