Addison Family Fun

James Prosek reads from his
children's books at Memorial Hall
Library's story hour

Earlier this month, the Addison hosted a fun-filled weekend for our younger audiences. We partnered with Andover's Memorial Hall Library, where our Artist-in-Residence James Prosek read from his children’s books Bird, Butterfly, Eel and A Good Day's Fishing. The library now has James’s books in their collection, so stop by and grab your copies today!


Visitors of all ages create art
inspired by James Prosek's
work at our Drop-In Family Day

On Sunday, October 6th, more than 125 people joined us for the Addison’s Drop-In Family Day, held in conjunction with the exhibition James Prosek: The Spaces In Between. Visitors of all ages created prints with stamps shaped like fish, contributed to a collaborative bird silhouette mural, and created their own hybrid animals with feathers and foil paper, all inspired by James Prosek’s work. Music from James’s band Troutband was playing in the background. James was on hand to talk with visitors about his work, offer art-making tips, and answer the many questions of his young star-struck fans.

--Christine Jee, Education Associate for School and Community Collaborations

Interested in staying up to date with future family events at the Addison? Follow us on Facebook or email cjee@andover.edu to sign up for the Addison’s family email list.

Collection Spotlight: Joan Lyons, Prom, 1975

In celebration of National Design Week, the Addison presents three objects from its collection, each highlighting different time periods, mediums, and aspects of American design. The final installment features a set of six offset lithographs that together compose Joan Lyons's Prom (1975).

Joan Lyons, Prom, 1975, six offset lithographs on wove paper, museum purchase, 1980.2.1-6

When put together, these six lithographs by Joan Lyons compose an image that is at once sweet and subtly intriguing.
  
On the one hand, the life-size scale of this piece invites a personal reading, by creating the illusion of peering into one’s closet and thus allowing for a rather intimate relationship with the object depicted. The delicate floral pattern and slightly faded pastel colors create an atmosphere of innocence and nostalgia for a time past, which turns the act of looking at this work of art into looking at the dress itself and reminiscing about the event at which it was once worn—whether a prom, as indicated by the title, or another moment of personal importance projected by the viewer.
      
On the other hand, the title informs the viewer about artwork’s intended associations. For Lyons, this hand-made dress symbolizes the difficulties of balancing the priorities of a mother and an artist, as well as the contrasts between preconceived and evolving notions of artistic expression; at first, the making of the dress delayed artistic output, then the dress itself dictated the imagery of the piece. The very way these two identities influence each other results in a delicate image with a powerful statement about the parallels of motherhood and artistic production: the mother sews together pieces of fabric to make her daughter’s prom dress, while the artist creates a set of images for the viewer to visually “sew” together. 

Active as a visual artist for four decades, Joan Lyons (b. 1937) was the subject of a 2007 retrospective exhibition at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center. Lyons’s works on paper effortlessly span several mediums, including various photographic processes and printmaking techniques. As the Founding Director of the Visual Studies Workshop Press between 1972 and 2004, Lyons has published over 450 titles, primarily artists’ books.

--Kelley Tialiou, Curatorial Assistant

Collection Spotlight: Stuart Travis, Design for Yacht Interior, c. 1914

In celebration of National Design Week, the Addison presents three objects from its collection, each highlighting different time periods, mediums, and aspects of American design. The second installment is an early 20th century drawing, Design for a Yacht Interior by Stuart Travis.

Stuart Travis, Design for a Yacht Interior, c. 1914, ink, watercolor, gouache, pencil on wove paper, gift of Stuart Travis, 1959.8

This elegant mixed-media drawing, Design for Yacht Interior, features Stuart Travis’s proposed design for the breakfast room of a yacht, and reflects interior decorating practices of the Gilded Age, a period in which luxury yachting was a status symbol of paramount importance. The Arts and Crafts silver breakfast service shown on the table to the left, including what appears to be a pair of cafe-au-lait pots, and the Sheraton-style settee with rattan seat and back—as indicated by the designer’s note at the bottom of the drawing—suggest an environment of relaxed opulence, with a white cloth napkin nonchalantly placed on the edge of the tray and the yellow drapery flapping in the ocean breeze. For the floor of the breakfast room, Travis proposed a rather unassuming “hand-woven rag-rug in oval shape,” presumably to add an air of informality to the space; unlike the main saloon of a yacht, which would have featured the most extravagant furnishings and textiles, the breakfast room was, by nature, a more private space, and therefore its decoration could be based more so on the owner’s personal taste rather than the etiquette of elite society.

Though the patron of this sketch is not identified and therefore his tastes cannot be known, comparison with other high society interiors from this period, both afloat and ashore, indicates that the American aristocracy took its cultural cues from several European sources, primarily French chateaux, Italian villas, and English manors, eclectically combining Louis XIV, XV, and XVI, Rococo, Renaissance Revival, Neoclassical, and various English styles across the different rooms. While in the early twentieth century the profession of decorator was gradually becoming established, it was yet not uncommon for patrons to hire artists for part or all of their interior decoration needs.

A prolific American artist, illustrator, and designer, Stuart Travis (1868-1942) studied at the Académie Julian in Paris and subsequently established a New York studio. Numerous of his drawings and watercolors appeared in contemporary magazines, books, and advertisements; specifically, between 1907 and 1910, seven of his illustrations graced the pages and cover of Vogue magazine. Travis also created two murals on the Phillips Academy campus: History and Traditions of the School and Vicinity (1928) at the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library and Culture Areas of North America (1938-42) at The Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology. For more information on Travis and his Andover murals, visit www.andover.edu/Museums/MuseumOfArchaeology/Pages/Stuart-Travis-Mural.aspx and
www.andover.edu/library/About/Facilities/Documents/Opus_Travi.pdf.

-- Kelley Tialiou, Curatorial Assistant