North Light Studios

I’ve been holding off on this one, simply because I know it so well and could go on forever about it. But the Springville Museum of Art is one of the best museums I’ve ever been to. So why am I talking about it now? Because it’s director, Dr. Vern Swanson, is retiring this August. I’m both hopeful and fearful for whoever is taking his place, because he is seriously irreplaceable. I’ll start with the exterior. The building was originally a high school, built in Spanish Colonial style . Two paintings were donated to the school, which transformed into a museum when a bigger high school was built. The step-down gallery is home to exhibitions, whatever the flavor-of-the-month is. From the International Spring Salon that runs May through July every year, to the Quilt Show in the fall, there is always something fantastic to see here. I admit, Mike’s piece is in that room right now, and I love to go look at it, along with the other pieces. Each room on the main level is spacious and...

Ten years ago (okay, maybe eleven) I stepped foot in one of the most extraordinary and fascinating structures every built by mankind. I knew very little about it; in fact, I’d never heard of it until I met my husband. “The Hermitage?” I had said. “What is that?” “Oh, it’s amazing,” my husband replied. And it was. The walls were lined with ornate patterns weaving in and out of each other; trim inlaid with gold adorned the most magnificent architecture I’d ever laid eyes on. Not only that, but it was a museum, filled to the brim with the treasures of Leonardo da Vinci, Rafael, Simone Martini, Peter Paul Reubens, Jean-Honore Fragonard, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Michelangelo, Antonio Canova (my favorite!), Auguste Rodin, and Jean-Antoine Houdon. And these exhibits are just the icing on the cake. We were lucky, while there, to find that the Hermitage was hosting an exhibition of ancient Egypt, including mummy corpses and Egy...

One summer a couple of years ago I was lucky enough to take a trip to San Francisco with my family. We went to the beach, found some excellent places to eat, and drove around the city for a day, looking for fun and interesting things to see. We had our GPS Navigation system with us, so we decided to look up nearby attractions. “Palace of the Legion of Honor? What’s that?” I asked my husband. “It sounds familiar. And cool. Let’s go there,” he replies. So we do. Outside are two fantastic monumental sculptures, and that reminds him. “It’s a museum!” We’ve struck gold, because in our family, art is one of our highest priorities (happens when one of you is a sculptor). So we stop, drag everyone out of the car (including our very happy son, who gets carsick), and start toward the building. It’s amazing. My husband stops to look at the outdoor sculptures before going in; El Cid (Spanish war hero) and Joan of Arc, by Anna Hyatt Huntington. Captivating. Stared for a long time, while kids ran a...

After a long hiatus, I am returning to the blog. This post will be a short, a sort of intro to the year 2012. Here goes. This year I would like to focus on Museums. Each month I will spotlight a museum of art (or at least a museum that showcases some type of art) from somewhere on this earth. I've got a lot of museums in mind, including (but not limited to) The Hermitage, The Louvre, The Met, and some not as well known museums, including the Palace of the Legion of Honor. I'll also include occasional updates from North Light Studio. Suggestions and comments are always welcome. See you in about a week! -Penny Lane

The Four Continents was commissioned to Daniel Chester French in 1899. Originally it was supposed to be a collaborative work with August Saint-Guadens, who turned the project down due to time constraints. French therefore took on all four sculptures; Asia, America, Europe, and Africa. Today we will tackle Asia, the sculpture at the far left of the entrance of the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in New York City. We begin with a young woman, looking serene with her eyes closed, with several things in her lap, including a small diety statue, a flower (there is some argument as to whether this is a poppy, representing the opium trade the U.S. had with Asia at the time, or whether it is a lotus flower), and a coiling snake. There is also a cross behind her, which symbolizes the beginnings of Christianity in Asia. Those creepy skulls beneath her feet represent the slave trade and labor. Think slavery has only been a problem in the U.S.? It has been prevalent everywhere. A tige...

Wow, what a title. That’s the first thing I thought when I saw the title to this piece. So many things could be said by the title or by the piece itself. And what a beautiful sculpture! There’s something fantastic about French’s sculptures, something alive and haunting. Just stare at the picture for a moment. Can you imagine the impact if you were actually standing in front of the real sculpture? Imagine it. It’s fantastic. Eager to find out the why behind this sculpture, I started browsing. Martin Milmore, was another sculptor who immigrated to the United States from Ireland at the age of seven. He learned how to carve in wood and stone from his brother, Joseph. On an interesting side note, he carved a bust of Henry Wordsworth Longfellow at the age of nineteen. He died early, at thirty-eight, and his brother died three years later. This sculpture is a monument to them, and marks their gravestone in its bronze form in the Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plains, Massachusett...

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead -Walt Whitman The familiar lines have long been what I think of when I remember Abraham Lincoln and what he did. This first stanza is still my favorite; maybe because it has that same captivation that all good beginnings have. It draws you in. Daniel Chester French completed this monumental sculpture in 1922. It is fantastically done! French included every emotion he had about the man in his work on this piece. The expression on Lincoln’s face is one of contemplation; not too heavy, hinted at peaceful. Personally, I think this statue is another example of how beautiful ...