WHEN MAMMOTHS WALKED THE EARTH: Meeting Wooly Mammoths in the Natural Science Museum, Bergamo, Italy

Wooly Mammoth models at the Natural Science Museum, Bergamo, Italy.

In 2002, my book WHEN MAMMOTHS WALKED THE EARTH was published by Clarion Books. It covered the worldwide occurrence of mammoths, from the wooly mammoths that wandered much of the northern hemisphere during the last Ice Age to the huge Columbian Mammoths, like those whose skeletons are displayed at the George C. Page Museum in Los Angeles, where I live. On my recent trip to Italy, I visited the Natural Science Museum in Bergamo, where I encountered models of a wooly mammoth mother and her calf. It was like meeting old friends. As I looked out into the foothills of the Alps behind Bergamo, I could image herds of mammoths just like these models that wandered Italian valleys as prehistoric people began to make their homes here.

The hardback edition of WHEN MAMMOTHS WALKED THE EARTH is out of print, but you can find it as an ebook on Amazon. Or you can look for the print book in your library!

Growing to weights of 10 tons and distinguished by enormous curling tusks, mammoths were the largest land animals of the Ice Age. In this meticulously researched, clear, and accessible book, award-winning nonfiction author Caroline Arnold describes the natural history of mammoths, highlighting their physical features and adaptation to the environment. Laurie Caple’s stunning, scientifically accurate watercolors complement the text and provide an intriguing look at these huge creatures.(Amazon)

 

SCHOOL CHEST FROM NORWAY: When Teachers Were Itinerant

Imagine what it might be like to go to school just a few weeks of the year! If you lived in rural Norway 250 years ago, that is likely to be your school experience.

On my recent trip to Norway I visited a number of museums and historical parks where I learned some of the history of educational practices in Norway. Beginning in 1739 both boys and girls were required to attend school. In rural areas a teacher walked from village to village and gathered children from the nearest farms to attend lessons for a few weeks of the year. The teacher carried a chest in which he kept books and other materials.

This chest dating from 1760, which we saw in a museum in Alesund, Norway, belonged to a teacher named Peder Knutsen Nossen (1736-1818). Engraved on the top of the chest: This chest the books will carry, To teach the youngsters, My mission will be.

The chest was inherited by Peder’s grandchild, who painted her initials on it.

DRAW AND WRITE: Fun Family Activities at SFMOMA

Family Activity Guide at SFMOMA 

On my recent visit to SFMOMA in San Francisco to see the Diego Rivera exhibit, I picked up a free brochure at the entrance— DRAW AND WRITE--a family activity guide with suggestions for looking at the art. Each page has room to draw or write in response to the question.  What a great way to engage children visiting the museum and encourage them to think about and interact with the art! The same activities would work well when doing a virtual visit to a museum on the internet.

Here are some examples of the activities in the brochure.

Find something you have never seen before—a color, shape, object, or message. Write what you see here.

A surprise for me was to see Diego Rivera’s studies of hands—which reminded me of the assignment I had in my first life drawing class. The difference was that Diego’s hands were giant—perfect for the large figures of his murals.

Look for an artwork that was made with unexpected or everyday materials. What unexpected materials did you find?

An unexpected material that I found at the museum was a stack of plastic frying pans made into an abstract vertical sculpture, showing that ordinary objects can become extraordinary.

And the most intriguing suggestion was the last:

Write a letter to a piece of art you discovered today. Tell it what you liked the most.

My letter is to a painting by Joan Brown, The Golden Age: The Jaguar and the Tapir (1985).

Dear Painting,

I love your bright colors and the way the tapir and jaguar contrast with the red and green background. You remind me of one of my own pieces of art, an illustration for my book A Day and Night in the Rain Forest. I cut my animals from colored paper and glued them onto the background. That included every one of the jaguar’s spots! I think it would be much easier to paint them as your artist did. And, of course, you are much bigger than the pages of my book. I’m so glad I met you at the museum.

Sincerely, Caroline Arnold

MEET AUGGIE, CALIFORNIA'S STATE DINOSAUR

Did you know that California had a state dinosaur? Meet Auggie. In September 2017, Augustynolophus morrisi (Auggie's scientific name), was declared the official state dinosaur of California, the only place its fossil bones have been found. It was a large hadrosaur, reaching 26 feet in length and weighed a hefty 3.3 tons. Like all species of hadrosaur, Auggie was a plant eater. Hadrosaurs were one of the few known species of dinosaur that chewed their food.

I first learned about Auggie on a recent visit to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, where numerous Auggie souvenirs are featured in the gift shop. The museum also has an impressive display of dinosaur fossils.

I have always been fascinated with dinosaurs and prehistoric animals and written a number of books about them. Here are a few. You can find these books in your library or as ebooks on Amazon.

ALEXANDER CALDER Art at SFMOMA: Mobiles, Stabiles and More

Fish Bowl by Alexander Calder at SFMOMA

Making a mobile is not only an exercise in creating visual balance, but actual physical balance of the various elements. The all-time master of the mobile is Alexander Calder. At the San Francisco Museum of Art a large room is dedicated to his work.
I hadn’t been to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art since it was remodeled and expanded several years ago. I went recently to see the spectacular retrospective exhibit Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again (which ended September 2nd) but on my way to the Warhol exhibit I was side tracked in the large room where works of Alexander Calder were displayed.

Mobiles by Alexander Calder

Large mobiles hung from the ceiling, their colorful flat shapes seeming to float in mid-air as the wires slowly rotated. Outside on the rooftop patio were a number of Calder’s large stabiles, lurking like large beasts enjoying the sun. But my favorite was a small piece–a wire fish bowl, complete with a snail and its spiral shell inching up the side of the bowl. It was like a 3-D drawing, using black wire instead of a pencil.
I once made a mobile in one of my art classes in college, using  found materials (tiny blocks of wood and other scraps I found at a construction site.) I discovered that it is not so easy to achieve the exact perfect balance  when hanging the various wires! Which makes me admire the beauty and execution of Calder’s work even more.

Entrance to SFMOMA

KIDS ART ACTIVITY: Inspired by “Butterfly” Compositions by Mark Grotjahn at LACMA

Paintings by Mark Grotjahn at LACMA

An interesting contrast to the David Hockney portraits at the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA is the exhibit in the adjacent gallery of “butterfly” or starburst compositions by Mark Grotjahn. (The actual name of the show is 50 Kitchens–see below.) The colorful paintings, all the same size and with a similar design, are mounted on stark white walls–as opposed to the pomegranate red walls of the Hockney show. Each of the Grotjahn paintings explores a different combination of colors. And when you get close you can see speckles of other colors peeking through.

Choosing favorite colors

On the Sunday afternoon that I visited, two groups of kids were doing activities related to the paintings. After choosing the paintings with their favorite colors, they gathered on the floor with paper, rulers and colored pencils to create their own butterfly designs. As you look at each painting the two halves are mirrors of each other, just like a pair of butterfly wings! It looked like a fun project–for kids or adults!

This painting is symmetrical on the horizontal axis; others are on the vertical axis.

The exhibit ends August 19, 2018.

Los Angeles-based artist Mark Grotjahn (b. 1968) has made “Butterfly” compositions since 2002, and the latest to come out of his studio is 50 Kitchens (2013–18), exhibited here for the first time. Conceived as one work, 50 Kitchens takes its inspiration from a single composition (in black and cream-colored pencil) that Grotjahn made to meet the dimensional specifications of a wall in his kitchen. The more than 50 subsequent chromatic drawings explore pairs of radiating colors (like Tuscan Red and Chartreuse, or Grass Green and Canary Yellow) and together create a prismatic display. The works allude to artists interested in color, light, and optics, such as Wassily Kandinsky and the Op art painters of the 1960s, and also incorporate residual traces of earlier drawings that have been seamlessly integrated into the new works.

DAVID HOCKNEY: 82 PORTRAITS and 1 STILL LIFE at LACMA

David Hockney Portrait Exhibit at LACMA, Los Angeles, CA

"I think I've found something that I could go on with forever, because people are fascinating, they're mysterious really." David Hockney

Entrance to the exhibit with photo of Hockney at work in his studio

If you haven't seen the David Hockney show at LACMA, 82 Portraits and 1 Still Life, I highly recommend it. I went to see it on Sunday. At age 80, David Hockney is still going strong. The portraits are stunning and the red walls of the gallery are a perfect foil for the green and blue background of the paintings.

Julie Green

As I walked around I noticed a woman leading a tour. Then I looked at her dress and realized she was Julie Green, one of the people in the portraits!

Architect Frank Gehry

There are portraits of his studio assistants, massage therapist, housekeeper and cook. Others depict Hockney’s siblings, the children and grandchildren of his friends, and art dealers and prominent cultural figures in Los Angeles. All of the paintings are labeled with the sitter's name and dates of sitting.
Organized by the Royal Academy in conjunction with LACMA, the exhibition opened in London in 2016, then traveled to Venice, Italy; Bilboa, Spain; and Melbourne, Australia. The only U.S. stop is L.A., the city where the portraits were painted and where most of his subjects live.

The 83 paintings line the walls of two large galleries in the Broad Contemporary Art Museum

The series began in 2013 after David Hockney moved to Los Angeles from his home and studio in rural England.

Each person came to Hockney’s studio for two or three days and sat in the same chair on a small platform while Hockney painted. All of the figures are full length and the canvas size is the same for each portrait. The backgrounds are simple–flat color and just a suggestion of shadow on the floor. What comes across in each painting is the distinct personality of the sitter.

The one still life was painted on a day when one of his subjects had to postpone her session. So Hockney set up a bench with pieces of fruit in the same spot in his studio and painted it instead.   

If you haven’t seen this spectacular exhibit you need to go soon. It ends July 29, 2018.


David Hockney: 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life
April 15, 2018–July 29, 2018

Review in the LA Times by Barbara Isenberg

David Wiesner Picture Book Illustrations at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Illustration from Mr. Wuffles by David Weisner at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art

David Wiesner, the recipient of three Caldecott Medals for his books, Tuesday (1992), The Three Pigs (2002) and Flotsam (2007), is one of the premier children’s book illustrators of our time.

Looking into the second room of the exhibit

A week ago I went with two friends to see the exhibit, David Wiesner, the Art of Picture Book Storytelling at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. It was a wonderful opportunity to see his original paintings up close and to learn about the various influences on his work, ranging from silent movies from the 1930's, surrealist painters, his childhood memories, comic books, his pet cat, and more. 

Illustration from Flotsam

David Wiesner's mastery of detail and imaginative use of images make you want to examine his art again and again–each time finding something new to look at.

Art from The Three Pigs

A collection of his books are also part of the exhibit, allowing visitors to read the stories along with viewing the art. Here are just a few of the paintings in this stunning exhibit. The exhibit, which opened January 29, 2017 will close May 14, 2017.

Reproduction of David Weisner's Book Week poster

Art Exhibit, Morris Graves Museum, Eureka, CA

I am pleased to have two of my pieces of original art for my books, A Polar Bear's World and A Walrus' World on display at the Morris Graves Museum in Eureka, California.  As part of the bi-annual Humboldt County Children’s Author & Illustrator Festival, they are among select works from winning illustrators demonstrating the processes of illustration in children’s literature.

The exhibit opened in September and groups of school children visited and learned about the art from docents. I thank Lucy Quinby of the Festival Committee and Jemima Harr, Executive Director and Curator of the Morris Graves Museum for doing such a good job of mounting the exhibit and working with the children.  It was so nice to have the books displayed alongside the art so viewers could see where the illustrations fit in the books. The exhibit will be up until October 29, 2013.