Vishvarupa (detail) from the exhibition Yoga: The Art of Transformation

Miranda Gale is project manager of Together We’re One.

On Wednesday, May 29, the Freer|Sackler will launch the Smithsonian’s first major crowdfunding campaign, “Together we’re one.” The campaign will support Yoga: The Art of Transformation, the world’s first exhibition on yogic art, opening this October at the Sackler Gallery. You may have read about the campaign in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Washington City Paper, or DCist, or perhaps heard about it on NBC Washington—but what exactly is “Together we’re one,” and why did we choose to launch the campaign in the first place? Here are the answers to our most frequently asked questions as we prepare to make yoga history over the next five weeks.

Why crowdfunding?
We’re trying a new (to us, at least!) and innovative fundraising approach worthy of a new and innovative exhibition. Crowdfunding is not too different from our other fundraising efforts; we’re just asking more people for a smaller amount of money, rather than asking a few people or corporations for a large amount of money. Since so many people practice and are enthusiastic about yoga, we’re choosing a format that allows everyone to get involved, not just those who have the means to make large donations.

Why does the Smithsonian need money? Don’t our taxes fund the museums?
While federal taxpayer funding covers some of our costs (mostly operating costs, such as keeping the galleries clean and the lights on), private and public support—whether from donors, sponsors, or grants—cover the majority of expenses related to exhibitions and programming. We rely on public and private support to offer our programs and exhibitions free of charge to the public. Private and public support for the Yoga exhibition will help us create videos, publications, and pamphlets; print catalogs (and sell them for a much more reasonable price than through a bookstore!); offer yoga classes during the exhibition, and more.

The cost of putting on a major exhibition like this one is high—but not unusual for the Freer|Sackler. It is simply necessary for keeping the artwork and visitors safe and ensuring a quality experience for both.

How will my money be used?
Yoga: The Art of Transformation, a longtime labor of love for the Freer|Sackler, will bring more than 130 artworks from around the world to Washington, DC. The associated costs are high. All donations will fund the unexciting but expensive logistics (shipping, mounting, lighting, paint, cases, labels), plus the fun aspects that allow us to better share the exhibition’s content with the public: workshops for adults and families, yoga classes in the exhibit space, a yoga festival, pamphlets and other takeaway materials, honorariums for speakers and teachers, a comprehensive website, and videos. It will also support a public symposium that will bring international art and yoga scholars to DC, and the production of a full-color exhibition catalog, the first on yogic art.

Visit our website to learn more about the campaign, or email us at yoga@si.edu to see how you can get involved.

Namaste!

Examples of books you can make at our Inner-Artist Workshops: The Art of Japanese Pouch-books

The Freer|Sackler has teamed up with Pyramid Atlantic Art Center to offer six Japanese book-making workshops for adults in conjunction with the exhibition Hand-Held: Gerhard Pulverer’s Japanese Illustrated Books. F|S educator Joanna Pecore chatted with Pyramid Atlantic’s artistic director, Gretchen Schermerhorn, about these events, which will take place on selected weekends through the end of June.

Joanna: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk, Gretchen. Can you tell me about your work with making papers and books?

Gretchen: I am a printmaker and paper-maker. I started making paper around 10 years ago and have since been trained in making both Western and Asian papers. I am also specifically interested in woodblock printing.

Joanna: What inspired you to begin making paper?

Gretchen: In graduate school, one of my professors taught a paper-making class. At the time, I wondered why anyone would want or need to make paper. It is so easy to purchase. Then, I learned about everything that goes into it: the vision, what it is made from, and the control involved in the process. There is so much variation in what can be done.

Joanna: Can you tell me about Pyramid Atlantic?

Gretchen: It is an art center in Silver Spring, Maryland, dedicated to the preservation and creation of prints, paper, and book arts. We offer all kinds of opportunities, like residencies, internships, and classes. Visiting artists come from all over the world to share their art at our center. What’s more important, though, is that we do it all: paper, prints, and books. We explore how all of these elements relate to each other. They are all important to the process of bookmaking. People can do it all under one roof at Pyramid Atlantic.

Joanna: What can participants expect when they join your workshops at the Sackler?

Gretchen: They will to get to create a book and a print inspired by works in the Hand-Held exhibition. After the workshop, they will be able to really understand how the books in the exhibition were made, especially how they were bound and printed. It ties into exhibit. It is not just an art project.

Joanna: What is unique about this opportunity?

Gretchen: This is an authentic experience. It is really exciting for me. Although I have been doing stab binding—the type of binding used in the “pouch-books”—for years, this is the first time I have tried to replicate how it was done in Japan. And we are going to use the “pouch” technique. We haven’t done that before. This workshop is an incredibly rare and affordable way for participants to get this experience.

The first classes begin this weekend. Check the F|S website for the complete schedule.

Taking part in Slow Art Day in the Freer Gallery.

David Nash is program assistant in the Education Department at Freer|Sackler.

On Saturday, April 27, ten enthusiastic visitors joined Education Specialist Hillary Rothberg and me for Slow Art Day. Joining more than 250 other museums worldwide, we looked at four objects for fifteen minutes each and thought deeply about what the objects represented and how they were crafted. We examined a third-century frieze that depicts the life of the Buddha and sketched it in the gallery. Looking through handmade telescopes, we gazed at ancient scenes of romance and destruction on Japanese screens. We circled four Guardian Kings and looked closely at them from four directions, and we listened to a recording of a piano playing a soft nocturne as we looked upon night scenes from the nineteenth century.

After our time in the galleries, we made our way to Teaism and enjoyed a casual lunch, sharing our thoughts on art and what we’d seen over a slow and delightful meal. Everyone expressed what art means to them and how they were affected by the day’s activities. We took our time listening to each other and offering comments.

Finally, as lunch ended, twelve newly acquainted friends parted ways. Each went on his or her separate path, back to the normal pace of life. However, with memories of this day as a guide, perhaps each will continue the practice of looking at art slowly.

We hope you’ll join us for next year’s Slow Art Day on April 12, 2014!

Charles Lang Freer ca. 1905, Charles Lang Freer papers, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives

Lee Glazer, associate curator of American art at Freer|Sackler, takes a closer look at American art this month in honor of the 90th anniversary of the Freer Gallery of Art, which opened its doors to the public on May 2, 1923.

It may come as a surprise to learn that Charles Lang Freer, captain of industry, connoisseur of fine art, and, eventually, founder of the Freer Gallery, was also a fan of banjo music. In 1897, he arranged for a famous banjo trio, the Doré Brothers, to travel from New York City to Detroit, where they performed at a formal dinner at the exclusive Detroit Club in honor of club-member Russell Alger’s appointment as Secretary of War under President McKinley. (Alger, a Civil War veteran, had made a fortune in the lumber business and was a major shareholder in Freer’s Peninsular Car Company.) On the evening of January 20, the Doré Brothers played a specially commissioned piece, “The Detroit Club March.” Freer, writing to American artist Thomas Wilmer Dewing (another Doré Brothers fan), praised their performance as a great success.

Was there a wild and crazy guy behind that pince-nez and starched collar? Maybe … but then again, maybe not. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, there was a movement among some musicians to “elevate” the banjo, distancing it from its African origins and subsequent association with minstrel shows. By the 1880s, the banjo had become nearly as popular as the piano among wealthy, novelty-seeking young women. It was a full-blown fad on college campuses, whose banjo clubs typically performed orchestra-fashion, with guitars and mandolins. Professionals, among them the Doré Brothers, appeared in tuxedos and played serious European music arranged for banjo: well-known works by Wagner, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Chopin were all part of the banjo repertoire in the 1890s. “The Detroit Club March” wasn’t exactly high art, though, and it’s nice to think of what one Gilded Age critic called the banjo’s “half-barbaric twang … in harmony with the unmechanical melodies of the birds” enlivening a winter gathering of capitalists in black tie.

[Sources: Philadelphia Music and Drama, 1891; Thomas Wilmer to Charles Lang Freer, February 16, [1897] and March 2, [1897], Charles Lang Freer papers, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Archives]

Visitors take a good look at a work of art at Freer|Sackler (photo by Cory Grace).

Hillary Rothberg is an educator at Freer|Sackler.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. —Henry David Thoreau

The above quote is this year’s motto for Slow Art Day—and how true it is. While we may all look at an object together, what we see as individuals varies widely. And it is that subjectivity that makes art such a powerful tool. Some see the intricacy of design and technique in a piece of art; others see the emotion and poignancy in the story told by that piece. By slowing down and really taking time to view a work, we can deliberate on art in a meditative style, exploring its depth and meaning, and can understand better its craftsmanship.

On Saturday, April 27, the Freer and Sackler Galleries will take part in the rapidly growing Slow Art Day movement. We, along with more than 250 other art venues across the globe, will lead a group in looking at art objects. Then, we will discuss what we’ve discovered over lunch. It’s an opportunity to see and think deeply, and to share with each other the meaning of art in our lives.

Want to learn more about Slow Art Day? Check out this interview with founder Phil Terry on the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s blog, Eye Level.

Rebecca Beardmore taking phytolith soil samples at Tuzusai in 2011, photo by Perry A. Tourtellotte

Claudia Chang, professor of archaeology at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, is director of an international field research project on the archaeology of the Iron Age in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Claudia blogged for Bento from Kazakhstan during the exhibition Nomads and Networks: The Ancient Art and Culture of Kazakhstan at the Sackler last fall.

My friends and even a former professor used to joke that archaeologists have a kind of schizophrenic life. We have lovely summers working in the field, doing surveys and excavations. During the winter months, we find ourselves in the laboratory, counting sherds, transposing field notes, and waiting for all the specialists’ reports to be completed, from the radiometric dates of ancient hearths to the metallurgical studies of ancient bronzes. In fact, this charmed existence of field archaeology usually means that you pay for all those good times in the field; for every week of fieldwork you need about three times that for laboratory cataloging, cleaning and processing artifacts, counting, creating statistics and spreadsheets, writing up reports, and interpreting the data. Most of us have learned to make our “deal with the devil.” Since January 1, 2013, I have been holed up in my attic office in Virginia, overlooking the foothills of the Blue Ridge, surrounded by books, papers, and articles, writing the early chapters of a book on Iron Age research on the Talgar fan. 

The view out my window is lovely this afternoon, as the sun sets on Paul’s Mountain. I am surrounded by books that range from the philosophy of science to Bronze Age Eurasia. Right now it seems impossible to condense 18 years of fieldwork, let alone the past five months of research on the Talgar fan, into any kind of readable narrative, either for an academic audience or myself.

Recently, Rebecca Beardmore, a PhD student in archaeology at University College, London, called me by Skype from Birmingham, England, where she had just finished graphing all the phytolith counts she made during the 2011 field season at Tuzusai, our Iron Age settlement site. Phytoliths, or plant stones, are the silicate cells of ancient plant remains that can be trapped in archaeological soils, such as ancient mudbricks. Rebecca’s analysis, conducted with a scanning electron microscope, has shown that the reddish-yellow and yellow mudbrick samples have lower densities of ancient plant materials than the brown-red and greenish mudbricks. All four samples of mudbrick seem to have some remnants of wheat plants, as well as wild grass parts, both husks and leaves. This means that the Iron Age builders at Tuzusai probably dumped a bunch of plant material into pits where they mixed the mudbricks, which then formed the walls, floors, and ramps of the adobe architecture we have discovered. But why do some bricks have higher densities of plant material than others?

That question sent me back to my field notes from 2011, which include chicken-scratch drawings of the red-brown and green mudbricks. Those mudbricks appear on my sketches to be large wall or foundation features, while the yellow or reddish-yellow ones are usually the tops of the platform or just beneath the plastered floors. Could it be that the ancient inhabitants of Tuzusai put more straw and debris into the foundation walls and less in the floor bricks? I told Rebecca that she should rename her thesis, “The Unseen Archaeological Record.” She says maybe she’ll title the thesis, “Down and Dirty, Mudbrick and Animal Dung.” Good thing I have those sketches of mudbricks in my notebook.

After we left Tuzusai last fall, the archaeological facts come now from the laboratory, the field notebooks, and an occasional inspiration I might have while staring out the window at the mocking bird perched on the crab apple tree. Central Virginia and the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains seem faraway from the Tian Shan Mountains of Kazakhstan, but lest I forget, a large map of the Upper Asi Valley is pinned to the wall by my desk.

Taiko drummers in traditional kimono performing on the steps of the Freer Gallery (photos by John Tsantes).

In honor of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, nearly forty drummers and dancers from Tamagawa University in Tokyo, performed on the steps of the Freer Gallery to an audience of hundreds. The group is led and choreographed by Kabuki dance master Isaburoh Hanayagi, who began his career at the age of three under the tutelage of his father, Yoshigosaburoh Hanayagi.

What started out as a dreary, rainy day, gave way to a bright and sunny sky, perfect for watching—and hearing—the percussive sounds of the performers. I think the powerful combination of drumming and dancing drove the clouds away.

Not to be outdone by the women, the men pound out traditional Japanese rhythms.

If you missed the performers today, catch them tomorrow at the National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade. For more Freer|Sackler Cherry Blossom related programs, see our calendar of events.

A weeping cherry tree in full bloom in the Sackler’s Moongate garden.

Cory Grace is Digital Imaging & Asset Specialist at Freer|Sackler.

The other morning, when on assignment in the Sackler pavilion, I caught a glimpse of a weeping cherry tree in the Moongate Garden in the camera’s viewfinder and knew I had to go outside and take a photograph. The cherry trees are in full bloom, and the city is full of visitors heading to the tidal basin for a look. But how many people know about this one? I grabbed the camera and went outside. A female mallard swam in the pool, and a couple of tourists meandered through the garden as I captured the most graceful and naturally beautiful tree in the city.

Case study: Japanese books from the Gerhard Pulverer collection

On Saturday, April 6, Hand-Held: Gerhard Pulverer’s Japanese Illustrated Books opens in the Sackler. In honor of the exhibition, we’re hosting a weekend celebrating Japanese arts and design. Check our calendar to learn more about the events that include tours, talks, hands-on activities, and music.

Persepolis, entrance to the citadel with the Gate of All Nations, photo by Alex Nagel

Alex Nagel, assistant curator of ancient Near Eastern art at Freer|Sackler, is the in-house cocurator of the exhibition The Cyrus Cylinder and Ancient Persia: A New Beginning, on view at the Sackler through April 28, 2013.

Nowruz Mobarak! Recently, many countries around the world celebrated Nowruz, the Persian New Year. At Freer|Sackler, thousands of visitors of all ages engaged in activities that included music, storytelling, hands-on activities, “fire-jumping,” and games. I had a wonderful time helping the chess and backgammon players, working with local experts and communities, and telling people about the ancient roots of these popular games. But how was Nowruz celebrated in the ancient world, with its multiple religions, festivals, and languages?

Since the nineteenth century, archaeologists have excavated cuneiform tablets that refer to a New Year’s festival in Babylon, including a 2,000-year-old tablet that describes the Akitu. Held at the end of March, this celebration lasted for many days and honored Marduk, Babylon’s main deity. It began in the old Esagila sanctuary in the city center of Babylon, which had one of the oldest ziggurats (temple or pyramid-like structures), the foundations of which are preserved and known as “The Tower of Babel.”

On this particular Akitu-tablet, in the collections of the Louvre, the writer praises Marduk as lord (“Bel”) and his wife Zarpanitu as “Beltia.” During the festival, the king of Babylon would lead a procession with a statue of Marduk to the river Euphrates, where the citizens of Babylon would watch as the statue was transported by boat to the Akitu Temple in the north. On the final day of the festivities, citizens brought offerings and tributes to Marduk, which became a source of wealth for the Esagila sanctuary.

Unfortunately, there’s much less written evidence for the New Year’s festivities in places like Persepolis and Susa. Some scholars have argued that there is a special significance in the bull and lion scenes found carved on the walls of the Apadana, one of the many buildings still preserved at Persepolis. Thousands of tablets excavated at Persepolis provide important information about high numbers of livestock used for cult purposes that we are only beginning to understand. And, what about jumping through fire? While it is not mentioned in the tablets, we know that the tradition of fire jumping began with people aiming to ward off evil spirits. As shown by the number of enthusiastic jumpers at the Freer|Sackler Nowruz celebrations, it is still a good way to start the New Year.