WHEAT PASTE MURALS CELEBRATE LOCAL HISTORY, Grinnell, Iowa

Wheat Paste Mural, Grinnell, Iowa. Edith Renfrow and her Three Sisters, 1941. L-R: Evanel, Edith, Alice, Helen .

On a beautiful fall day, September 28, 2024, Grinnell College and the town of Grinnell, Iowa, celebrated the dedication of a new dormitory/community center, Renfrow Hall, named after Edith Renfrow Smith, who grew up in the town of Grinnell and, in 1937, was the first Black woman to graduate from Grinnell College.

Edith in cap and gown. Grinnell College graduate, 1937.

Posted around town are large wheat paste murals depicting Edith's early life and scenes from that period in the town's history. The murals, created by Iowa artist Isaac Campbell from historic photos, enlarged and printed on rolls of blueprint paper, were fastened to buildings with wheat paste. Volunteers were recruited to cut around the edges of the figures to make them into silhouettes. The murals will last about a year.

Bicyclists travel a rural road near Grinnell, ca 1990. 

Past and present become linked as one views the murals. The ten murals are found throughout the Grinnell community. We enjoyed discovering them as we did a walking tour of the downtown area. 

Gluing the photo to the wall.

We watched as the final photo installation took place on the front of the First Interstate bank building on Broad Street directly across from Renfrow Hall on the day before its dedication. The enormous size of the image required a machine to lift the artist and an assistant to the top of the wall. Working from top to bottom they pasted the paper to the wall, then coated it with more wheat paste to protect it from the weather. The photo depicts Edith and her sisters when they posed in front of the family house on First Avenue for a group photo on a trip to Grinnell in 1941. (See first photo for the complete image.)

Edith, two years old. Grinnell Arts Center building.

Other photos of Edith can be found on the Grinnell Arts Center building. Next to the front door she is wearing a cap and gown from her college graduation. Around the corner is a picture of her when she was two, wearing a big bow in her hair. (When Edith was growing up, the building was the town library.)

Anna Craig and her son William Goode, 1915.

Most of the murals are in the historic center of town. Photos were selected to show various aspects of town life during the time Edith was growing up. (After her graduation from Grinnell College she moved to Chicago, where she has lived ever since. But she has always considered Grinnell home.)

The business community is represented with a portrait of Edith’s Aunt, Anna Craig, who operated a ladies beauty shop from the late 1800s to the 1920s.

Spaulding cars were manufactured in Grinnell from 1910 to 1929.

Manufacturing in Grinnell is represented by a picture of a Spaulding car, pasted appropriately on the wall of a contemporary carwash business. 

Grinnell High School student Philip Palmer and friends pose with his sousaphone, 1937.

Music has always been part of a Grinnell High School education. This mural, on the side of historic building on Fourth Avenue, depicts a group of high school musicians.

These are just some of the murals in Grinnell. A map of the location of the ten murals can be found HERE. 

For more about Edith Renfrow Smith's visit to Grinnell for the Renfrow Hall dedication and the celebration of her family and Black history in the community, see my post on October  7, 2024.

SPRING FLOWERS at THE BURREN, COUNTY CLARE, IRELAND: Guest Post by Marianne Wallace

Flowers blooming in Burren National Park, Ireland.

Many thanks to my friend Marianne Wallace, for sharing her beautiful photos of spring wildflowers in Burren National Park, taken on her trip to Ireland earlier this year. 

Ferns poking up among the rocks of the Burren.

My favorite place in Ireland is The Burren in County Clare, a 2-hour drive west of Dublin. It is a unique place of exposed rocky pavement--its name means “rocky place”. Deep fissures in the rocks support microclimates where ferns and orchids flourish. 

Drystone wall. Trail head to Parknabinnia.

Parknabinnia.

On a recent visit, after my usual stop to climb through the drystone wall and check out Parknabinnia, a Paleolithic tomb, I lingered and took photos of the many tiny wildflowers growing among the surface grassy clumps at the site. 

It’s amazing they survive the grazing of the ubiquitous cows and sheep. 

For more about Burren National Park, check out Marianne’s earlier post at The Intrepid Tourist about her visit there in May 2013.

The Burren, County Clare, Ireland.

TOWERING TREES in the LADY BIRD JOHNSON GROVE, Redwood National Park, California

Redwood trees in the Lady Bird Johnson Grove of Redwood National Park, California.

I've been to a lot of our country's national parks, but this was my first time in Redwood National and State Parks in Humboldt County in northern California. Established in 1968, the 130,000 acres of forests, rivers, prairies and coastline that make up the park stretch from the small town of Orick to Crescent City near the Oregon border. Nearly a third of the parkland is old-growth redwood forests. On my recent visit in October to Humboldt County for an author festival, I did an author presentation at the school in Orick. 

Once a community of thriving lumber mills, the town's population shrunk after the establishment of the national park and the closing of the lumber mills. Only a few students now attend the school. On the afternoon of my visit, more elk were on the playground than students!

Elk on the Orick Elementary School playground.

It was a beautiful fall day, and after my visit with the students my companion and I had time for a short detour into the national park before returning to Eureka. Just beyond the town of Orick we found the turnoff from Highway 101 with a sign to Lady Bird Johnson Grove. The narrow road climbed out of the valley into the forest and along a ridge. After a short distance we came to a parking lot surrounded by towering redwoods and Douglas firs. An information board at the trailhead included a map and description of the park’s founding:

Lady Bird Johnson came to this site on November 25, 1968 to help dedicate Redwood National Park. She returned on August 27, 1969 to be honored by President Richard Nixon with this grove of trees named in her honor, recognizing Lady Bird’s devoted service to the cause of preserving and enhancing America’s natural beauty for the enjoyment of all people.

Indigenous people of the North Coast region have made the redwood forests and associated ecosystems their home since time immemorial

We followed the path and crossed the bridge into the grove. Looking up, giant redwoods reached to the sky, dwarfing the people below. It is awe inspiring.

Redwood trees can live up to 2000 years and often reach the age of 600 years.

Redwoods are the tallest trees in North America, reaching heights of up to 367 feet. Underneath, on the forest floor, grow an abundance of shrubs, ferns, wildflowers, mushrooms.

The park is also home to a wide variety of wildlife--birds, fish, marine mammals, land mammals and more. Elk graze in the valleys. Cliffs along the coast are nesting sites for thousands of seabirds. In 2022, California condors were released in the park, expanding the current range of these endangered birds that once lived up and down the Pacific Coast.

Redwoods National Park surrounds and encompasses three previously established California State Parks--Prairie Creek, Del Norte, and Jedidiah Smith--expanding protection for the trees and accompanying ecosystems. The parklands are managed cooperatively. The Redwoods National and State Parks have been designated a World Heritage Site and part of the California Coast Ranges Biosphere Preserve. I wish I had had more time to spend there. I will have to go back someday.
 

Roosevelt Elk. Only male elk have antlers.

WHAT TO HANG OVER THE FIREPLACE: a Visit to the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Glow On by Jules Olitski, at the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

On a recent trip to Washington, D.C., I visited the Phillips Collection, the art museum that began as the private collection of the Duncan Phillips family and is now a premier museum of modern art. (Duncan Phillips, who founded the museum, was the grandson of wealthy banker and steel magnate, James H. Laughlin, and son of Pittsburgh window glass millionaire, Duncan Clinch Phillips.) For an overall description of the museum collection and its history, see my last week's post.

Figures by David Driskell.

My first visit to the Phillips Collection was in 2019, and as I explored the part of the museum that was the original Phillips home, I was struck by the way the paintings were integrated into the architecture of each room. Almost every room had a fireplace. I was interested to see how over each fireplace a painting had been selected that fit with its color and style. 

Red Hills, Lake George by Georgia O'Keefe, over the fireplace in the Where We Meet gallery, a combined exhibit of works from the Phillips Collection and the Howard University art collection.

On this visit I was surprised to discover NEW paintings over the fireplaces! Again, each appears to have been chosen to coordinate with the style of each fireplace. Here are a few examples:

Three paintings from the Migration series by Jacob Lawrence.

Succession by Wassily Kandinsky.

Still Life with Grapes and Clarinet by Georges Braque.

In the elegant music room on the main floor, where elaborate wood carvings are part of the massive fireplace design, there is no room for art above the fireplace. On my 2019 visit, two Mondrian paintings, set off by the dark wood paneling, had been chosen to flank the fireplace. Now, in 2024, I discovered that they too had been replaced. 

The Music Room.

These are just a small sample of what you can see at the Phillips Collection. To read my posts about my visit in 2019, go to:

The Phillips Collection, Part 1: America's First Museum of Modern Art. 

The Phillips Collection, Part II: What Do You Hang Over the Fireplace?

And to learn about the Family Gallery at the museum, a guide to looking at art with children, go to my recent post at my Art and Books blog.

A TREASURE HOUSE OF "MODERN" ART: The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Among my favorite art museums in Washington, D.C. is the Phillips Collection, which I had the chance to visit last week. It had been five years since my previous visit, and I discovered that although many of the paintings on exhibit were familiar, there were new ones I hadn't seen before.

In 1921, Duncan Phillips, and his wife, Marjorie Acker Phillips, a painter, turned the family art collection into a public museum, the Phillips Memorial Gallery, in their home near Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. The collection soon expanded and the family moved across the street, turning over the entire house to art.

From the beginning, the collection focused on “modern” art, acquiring paintings by French Impressionists such as Monet and Renoir, and Cubists such as Picasso and Braque. Giving equal focus to American and European artists, Phillips juxtaposed works by Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Maurice Prendergast, James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Albert Pinkham Ryder, with canvases by Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, and Danish painter Peter Ilsted.

Luncheon of the Boating Party by Auguste Renoir.

The painting that makes the museum famous and draws the most visitors is Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party. It still has pride of place, filling one wall in a room on the second floor of the museum.

The Rothko Room.

As the collection expanded over the years it became necessary to add a new wing to the museum. Every room is filled with remarkable art. One small room is devoted to four paintings by Mark Rothko, each intense canvas taking up most of each wall. Standing in the middle one feels bathed in color on every side.

Migration series by Jacob Lawrence. Top: "Families arrived at the station very early. They did not wish to miss their travel north." Bottom: "The migration spread."

Another room contains the paintings of the Jacob Lawrence Immigration Series, depicting the migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North.  As one circles the room, it is like reading a book. Jacob Lawrence wrote text to go with each painting, and in the gallery it is placed underneath the paintings. In the excellent gift shop on the first floor, you can buy a book in which all the paintings and text have been assembled as a story.

Detail, Three Lawyers by Honore Daumier.

In another room, one wall features a painting and drawings by the French artist Honore Daumier, a master at capturing facial expressions and body language, a skill he used to critique social norms of the 19th Century. Not much has changed in the 170 years since Daumier painted the Three Lawyers. The three men, aught in conversation, feel contemporary. 

The Road Menders by Vincent Van Gogh.

Detail of The Road Menders.

As I made my way through the museum, I became intrigued by the titles of paintings, finding that my first impression of what the painting was about wasn’t always reflected in the title. For instance, in Vincent Van Gogh’s painting Road Menders, I had to look hard to find the tiny figures in the center of the painting making repairs on the road.

The Blue Armchair by Guy Pene du Bois.

In another painting, The Blue Armchair by Guy Pene du Bois, the chair all but swallows the figure sitting in it, making the title fit perfectly.

Part of the Where We Meet exhibit. L-R: Black Girl by Elizabeth Catlett; Breeze Rustling Through Fall Flowers by Alma W. Thomas; Girl in a Turban by William H. Johnson.

On the second floor of the museum is a room devoted to an exhibit called Where We Meet, in which pieces from the Phillips Collection and the Howard University Museum of Art are shown together “in conversation”. This exhibit is new since my last visit. 

These are just a small sample of the art on display at the Phillips Collection. To see my posts about my visit in 2019, go to:

The Phillips Collection, Part 1: America's First Museum of Modern Art. 

and

The Phillips Collection, Part II: What Do You Hang Over the Fireplace?

And to learn about the Family Gallery at the museum, a guide to looking at art with children, go to my recent post at my Art and Books blog.

NEW MEETS OLD: Contemporary African Art by Leilah Babirye at the de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA

Masks by Leilah Babirye at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

A new exhibit at the de Young Art Museum in San Francisco, called We Have a History, features the art of Leilah Babirye. At first, Leilah Babirye’s sculptures look like traditional African forms, but on closer look, the complex decorations turn out to be a colorful mixture of found objects—can tops, electrical wire, extension cords, PVC pipe, and whatever else she has happened to find. 

Auntie Muzumganda by Leilah Babirye, Ceramic, wire, and found objects.

Detail.

Leilah Babirye, born in Uganda, works in New York, creating busts, masks, and figures from ceramic and wood. This is her first solo museum show in the United States. Her work highlights the connection between the past and present in African art.

R. Peaceful Bride of Mwanga II, Leilah Babirye, Wood, wax, nails, wire, glue and found objects.

I saw Leilah Babirye’s exhibit when I was at the de Young Museum in July. Her art is displayed in the Art of Africa gallery, alongside the permanent exhibits of masks, paintings and other objects, thus tying Babirye’s work to the larger African tradition. 

Dance mask, Bogadjin people; Headrests, Tami people.

I was intrigued by her use of ordinary household objects and the way they become transformed into vibrant art when incorporated in the sculptures.

Carved wooden figure, Leilah Babirye.

Included in the exhibit is a video installation where we see Leilah Babirye at work in her studio. We see the intense and energetic way she attacks materials, turning them into the forms she intends. As she works we hear her talk about them.  Leilah Babirye’s sculptures, busts and masks are portraits of her LGBTQ+ community. Each one speaks for itself, inviting the viewer to take a closer look.

The exhibit, on the second floor of the museum, runs through October 26, 2025. 

For more information about visiting the de Young Museum of Art, click HERE.