Broadway Restaurant, Grace Hartigan at Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City MO

Last days of planning for Green Mountain Hooked Rugs School in Montpelier, VT took me to several museums, the most recent was Nelson-Atkins Art Museum in Kansas City, MO. Seeing work in person incorporates all your senses and emotions. To walk into a gallery and witness the curator’s selections enhanced by painted walls, lighting and spacing opens understanding and questions I want to ask of the artists. Their work speaks for them, to me and others. Conversations with fellow museum goers has expanded my appreciation and docents or labels add to the education.

Abstract Expressionists’ elements, interpreted in slow motion (the textile techniques of handwork), will be explored by students willingly reacting to music, verse, street scenes, and their own “homework” sketches. I experienced their unease while working through “Nesting Frenzy”. Illustrated are sketch #1 and mixed media versions #2 and #3. These are works in progress. Expect a final report to be published in the near future. It was an uncomfortable but rewarding experience.

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Artists to explore include those in the traveling exhibit Women of Abstract Expressionism.

Grace Hartigan, Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Perle Fine, Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, to begin the listing reacted to each others work, critiquing, responding to and were driven to express the environment (social and natural) around them at the time.

We continue to use our skills to exhale today’s bombardment of outside and internal influences. Our art speaks.