Day Three of our Art Adventure

On our third day we headed home, but made two important stops, the first one to Bennington, VT to visit Nike's son and family including her adorable fourteen month old grandson. I wish I had taken pictures, but you'll have to trust me when I say that he is a good natured, smiling cutie pie.

Next stop was in Williamstown, home to Wililiams College and the Clark Museum. The focus of the visit was to see the El Anatsui exhibit. He is an African artist from Nigeria, who makes monumental sculptures from discarded Nigerian liquor tops. He wires them together and makes a sort of metal fabric, which he then drapes, pleats, and places them on the wall. Be sure to click on each picture for a bigger view.

Did I say they are enormous? It's hard to tell from this picture of "Delta", although I guess you can see the floor and the ceiling and get an idea of the scale.

"Strips of Earth's Skin" is even bigger. The piece is very flexible and we were able to make it move a little by blowing on one end. I really wanted to touch it, but I didn't.

This one, "Intermittent Signals" made me gasp as I entered the room. The golden colors just took on a glow that reminded me of Egyptian splendor. It wrapped around two walls and ended up draping on the floor.

Barbara and Nike getting a close-up view.

Some of the tops were folded and spiraled around into circles that were joined together by wire.

In these last two you can read some of the names of the liquor companies.

There were only three pieces there, but it was well worth the trip just to see these three. Of course I wanted more, but they are so huge that it probably was not feasible. This exhibit was in the newer section of the museum, a whole separate building. We could have taken shuttles up to the main building , but we opted to walk on the path that had been made, mostly wooden planks, through the woods. It was a lovely walk on a beautiful day.

At the main building we saw "Pissaro's People", the work of Camille Pissarro (1830-1903). This was a large exhibit (many rooms) of his paintings. Although he was best known as a landscape painter, he had a lifelong interest in the human figure and painted people from many walks of life. We enjoyed this and the other special exhibit, "Spaces", which were large-scale photographs by Candida Hofer and Thomas Struth.

It truly was a wonderful three days and our heads were spinning with ideas.