Fall Harvest Moon
Tom Byfield and I had lunch at D’Amico’s. He brought two pounds of bees wax from also former docent, Glenn Keitel. Glenn took up bronze casting just to see what it was like. Did a piece and decided he knew. So, I got the wax intended to be lost. Thanks, Glenn and Tom.
After the lunch, a lecture by Andreas Mark, the new curator for Korea and Japan. (Shibata Zeshin, 1807–1891 Detail from a screen, the four pastimes) This will be a show with a lot to see. Andreas, a funny guy, has arranged the show chronologically, starting with an 8th century piece that had fire in it, but just how it was used, “Don’t ask me.” he said. The Clark collection was put together by Bill Clark, a leader in the field of artificial insemination of cattle and who, according to Mark, was accused of collecting mostly images of bulls.
Well, not so. There are over 1000 objects in the collection, formerly housed in Hanford, California, and the ones I’ve seen are very high quality.
Japan’s artistic tradition has a substantial Chinese influence, but the Japanese found a way to make Chinese style their own. That will be a major theme of this show and one with quality objects to tell the story. We are lucky to have the Clark collection objects here in Minneapolis and I look forward to seeing more of them as time goes by.
