SAM as it Ever Was

Took the day off to chaperone a field trip to the Seattle Art Museum. Different semester so a different mix of kids from last time, although one of the docents who had been at SAAM was there and recognized me! We’ve been to SAM recently but this short outing focused only on the new special exhibits.

We started off doing the art activity; it was about abstraction with found materials. You were supposed to depict a favorite place. I participated and made an attempt at the Scott Amphitheater at Swarthmore.

Two tall brown and green tissue paper trees and curving aluminum foil steps on a green tempera background depict an outdoor tiered amphitheater
I hope I get a good grade on this

We then headed upstairs (the back way, through the education space you can’t usually get to as regular visitor) to see the exhibits. We started off with Monochrome: Calder and Donovan, but got only a few minutes there. I would have liked to contemplate these more!

Close up of a delicate all black Calder mobile consisting of dozens of plates hanging from the high ceiling of an art gallery over an all black layered surface that evokes waves
A massive pile of large puff balls formed out of folded Mylar sheets to look kind of like round flowers or something
A huge black wall covered in randomly stretched and flattened slinkies forming trails as if slugs have climbed all over it
The Mylar ball sculpture viewed through a porthole in an all black vertical steel sheet of a Calder stabile. An intersecting vertical sheet cuts the view in half.

After that we headed the rest of the way upstairs to Beyond Mysticism: The Modern Northwest. By this time my group was getting a bit burnt out and needed lunch. Still some very nice WPA vibes of cities and industry as well as some neat surrealism. I really loved the Helder collection about Grand Coulee Dam, showcasing the project but also the landscapes that were lost.

Title card of Beyond Mysticism exhibit on blue wall, written in reflective foil and with some over and under bars on the B, M, and Ys I guess to give it a Sanskrit vibe?
Beyond Mysticism
A Georgia O'Keefe in blue and white depicting a vertical cloudscape
A Celebration, Georgia O’Keefe
Huge landscape painting of a massive lumber mill featuring multiple buildings, neatly stacked boards, and various smokestacks and towers.
Weyerhaeuser Company Mill B, Kenneth Callahan
Two close up framed watercolors showing a mill of some kind surrounded by hills or tailing piles and then a bunch of red Great Northern Railway mountain goat logo boxcars pulling up to a mill.
Grand Coulee Dam watercolors, Z. Vanessa Helder
A bunch of surreal interlocking swirls in subdued colors. There's a central circle surround by the other shapes.
The Inception of Magic, Leo Kenney
A huge painting with a big red oval on the white background in the top half, and a dark black splotch in the lower half
Crimson Spinning #2, Adolph Gottlieb

We finished up with lunch in the atrium. I chatted with a few of the other parent chaperones and the art teacher. Mostly talking middle school but also, for those who already have older kids, Lincoln High, where we’re assigned.

The first bus came and got those groups, but then there was some miscommunication so we were waiting a long time for the second bus as other school groups got picked up. At least while there we got to watch this cool moving sculpture in the ceiling that looked like flowers opening and closing.

While we had been at the museum, most of our neighborhood had a power outage, including the school! Not long enough for students to be sent home but these kids missed out on the fun before finishing their day with fifth and sixth periods.

#2 #art #museum #seattle