Dear Friends,
I write from Bentonville, Arkansas, near Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, where I will be living and learning for the next three weeks as the leader of the Tyson Think Tank. Last week, I said I would tell you all about my trip down here, a road trip through the midwest, literally from the Great Lakes to the midcountry heartland. Yet now that I’m here, I’d rather tell you what I’m doing today and tomorrow than what I did yesterday. Plus I realize that it’s nearly impossible to write while driving, very dangerous, and I have not yet bonded with Siri in a way that would allow me to talk to her for more than a 30 second note. She keeps asking me to repeat myself. Perhaps a reminder to speak clearly, kindly, and less.
My time here is about listening. And looking. My path to Crystal Bridges parallels the start of these musings, last winter when I trained my focus on art and nature and solace. I thought of how incredible it would be to focus on one work of art for an extended period, in an environment that allowed me to spend time in nature. That sounds simple, right, but very different, indeed, from the way I’ve studied in the past, nose in a book, eyes on a screen, back to the work of art, talking to colleagues, and then, ta da, a paper or a talk or a lecture conveying what I had learned. Telling.
For the next three weeks, I am going to spend a lot of time with Copley’s 1765 portrait of Frances Deering Atkinson, I mean a lot of time, looking and asking people here--staff, visitors, others--to help me understand the picture. And then I’m going to walk and run outdoors, contemplative time to digest the thoughts and actually allow myself to embrace all that I will learn. I am so certain that the value proposition of museums is human wellbeing that I am willing to dig into paintings that may not align with current ways of being and thinking . The ways in which art in galleries bring joy, dissent, community. Crystal Bridges epitomizes the situation for engaging with art and nature, the optimal place for open and honest discourse.
My project is slightly bigger than one picture, aiming at a larger problem: What do we do about early America, a reckoning with our history not to make amends but to come to terms? This work is, thank goodness, going on at museums and colleges across the country, I am in good company. My particular bent is an object lesson, a focus on a Copley portrait as a case study, a refreshed narrative on the portrait, a new lens on a picture as a reckoning with the myth of early America. I’d guess that most visitors to Crystal Bridges see Frances Deering Atkinson as a young white woman of wealth and privilege, irrelevant or distasteful now. Yet what if we suggested that the portrait is subtly deceptive, possibly radical, and worth another look?
Step one begins with the obvious: the fabrics, the colors, the table, the architecture, the
pearls, her décolletage. What’s with the squirrel on a chain? It’s about looking and wondering, abundant curiosity.
Step two digs deeper into what we cannot see: we find she is sixteen, married to her cousin, the niece of the governor of Massachusetts, from a family of slave-owners and consumers of goods gotten through the triangle trade, and when Theodore died in their seventh year of marriage, she married another cousin just 10 days later. In short, much more complicated that she looks in the portrait, perhaps more relatable as a teenager looking for attention and to be liked and loved.
Step three is dialogue, reflection and evaluation, bringing as many people as I can cajole to look at the picture with me, to use the space in front of the portrait as a space of active inquiry.
More on all of this, next week or perhaps sooner, as I intend to use this newsletter as a journal of discovery during my time here.
Take a walk
This morning before the heat of the day set in, I ran around the North Forest Trail that loops round the museum and also hit the Art Trail, just give me a few more early mornings and I’ll know precisely where I am. My markers today were the museum itself and stunning native trees and summer wildflowers.
And onward
Next week, more on my new best friend Frances Atkinson, I will learn a great deal about her and she may even learn about me.
Until next week, keep walking and looking, slowly and with curiosity and courage,
Carrie
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