Event

Immerse Yourself in Beauty Reigns

by Gina Thomas McGee, Associate Educator

How do you experience an art exhibition? You look, of course. You enter the galleries and spend time taking in the colors, textures, and lines of the works in front of you. Maybe you even read the label. During the Beauty Reigns exhibition, the museum invites you to take your experience a step further, and we’ve come up with some tools to help you do just that.

Beauty Reigns Gallery Guide Designed by Micah Kraus

First, you can pick up a copy of the gallery guide as you stroll through the exhibition. This guide (a work of art in itself!) will let you in on the mysteries of the artistic process. The sketchbook-like booklet was created by local designer, artist, and educator Micah Kraus. He was inspired by the artwork in the exhibition and the aesthetic of Field Notes notebooks. The guide looks like an artist’s sketchbook and it can become one, as there are blank pages in the back dedicated to your personal sketches and doodles.

Beauty Reigns Gallery Guide Designed by Micah Kraus

As you finish looking at the exhibition and reading your gallery guide, you’ll be directed to a studio that has been constructed just outside of the gallery doors, in what we call the “video box”. Here, you’ll find a wealth of materials that will allow you to try out the techniques and processes you saw on display in the galleries. Continuing the theme of working with local artists, the studio includes an instructional film with original music and animation by Akron Art Museum staff member Gabe Schray, whose talents go far beyond his work in the museum’s External Affairs department.

Jerry and Patsy Shaw Video Box. Beauty Reigns video created by Gabe Schray. Photo by Chris Rutan Photography

Finally, you can take a walk through an artwork. Literally. The museum commissioned local artist Jessica Lofthus to create a large-scale interactive artwork for the lobby inspired by Beauty Reigns. The piece is a walkable labyrinth that takes cues from the patterns, textures, and shapes found in the exhibition. Walking the labyrinth will add another dimension to your museum experience as you physically wind through the curves and turns of Lofthus’ design.

Akron Carpet Labyrinth designed and assembled by Jessica Lofthus with materials provided by Shaw Contract Group

Akron Carpet Labyrinth designed and assembled by Jessica Lofthus with materials provided by Shaw Contract Group, photo by Chris Rutan Photography

So, visit the museum. Look. Make. Create. Feel. Take in the exhibition with all of your senses. It promises to be a Beauty-full experience.

Here Comes Halloween

Halloween is coming a little early to the Akron Art Museum. Check out our Halloween-y art all week long and join us for Halloween inspired events on Thursday, October 24 and Thursday, October 31.

Real/Surreal

Real/Surreal is the perfect artist treat to visit during Halloween. Come down to the galleries and experience how American realist and surrealist artists used details and imagination to create compositions with disconcerting undertones of seemingly ordinary scenes. Included in the exhibition are hooded figures, anatomical paintings, photographs of masked people and eerie streetscapes. This exhibition, while fantastical and peculiar, is suitable for children.

Included in Real/Surreal is the untitled work by Ralph Eugene Meatyard pictured above. Meatyard is best known for his photographs that examine the bizarre and mysterious realms that exist within our everyday world. His enigmatic images illustrate a realm of disturbing and unsettling intimacy, creating scenes of haunting ghostly figures and children wearing monstrous masks.

In the Galleries

Lee Bontecou has always been deeply affected by social issues, war and politics. In the work below she expressed those attitudes through her choice of materials and an abstract visual language: the grid of entrapment, sharp edges that “mentally scrape the viewer” and ominous black openings.

Free Thursdays

Gallery admission is free every Thursday at the Akron Art Museum. We’d love to see you put on your costumes and prowl around the galleries. Take your picture in front of Claes Oldenburg’s Inverted Q in the lobby and tag it with #iQAAM. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more.

Trick or Treat on South High
Thursday, October 24 at 6:30-8:30 pm

Make sure you wear your costumes as you trick-or-treat for art supplies in the galleries from 6:30-8:30 pm. T here will be art-making activities in the lobby and guided tours of Real/Surreal. Advance registration required.

Arthouse Film: The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology
Thursday, October 24 at 7 pm

Always wondering when that amazing indie film you see in the paper is going to make it to Akron? See the latest and greatest in new cinema before anyone else. This week you can whizz along with the intellectual film The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, a film that covers the ideology behind the films we watch. Through psychoanalysis Slavoj Žižek explores “the mechanisms that shape what we believe and how we behave.”

Check AkronFilm.com for up-to-date film listings and tickets. Tickets are $5 members and students, $7 nonmembers.

Attack of the Freakishly Short Animation Fest
Thursday, October 31 at 7 pm

Comic, dark and beautiful shorts make up this sixth annual event—a perennial favorite. Join us for a one-night tour of the best of international animation festivals. This annual event tends to be extremely popular, so reserve your seat online at AkronFilm.com. Tickets are $5 members and students and $7 nonmembers. Recommended for ages 16+.

Free Thursdays

We want to hear from you about Free Thursdays. To learn about all the spectacular programming on Free Thursdays visit our calendar.

Downtown@Dusk: Anne E. DeChant

The last Downtown@Dusk of the season will take place this Thursday from 6:30-8:30 pm featuring Americana, Pop and Country singer Anne E. Dechant. Attendees can also enjoy a gallery talk from Associate Educator Gina Thomas McGee and food from Urban Eats while kids enjoy art-making activities in the museum’s classroom.

Anne E. DeChant, based out of Cleveland, first appeared in the music scene in the band Odd Girl Out, showcasing her socially-aware music. After the band dissolved, she began a successful solo career, producing six albums. A five-time winner of Cleveland Scene Magazine’s Best Singer Songwriter award, DeChant delights audiences across America with her original, poignant music. Her song “Girls and Airplanes” was recently featured in the major motion picture “Hot Flashes.”

This Thursday’s ArtTalks@Dusk will feature a gallery talk from Associate Educator Gina Thomas McGee titled “New+Improved” from 7:30-8 pm while DeChant takes a break from performing.

The class for the week’s ArtCamp@Dusk is “Atmospheric Landscapes,” where kids 6-12 will use oil pastels and torn paper to create a one-of-a-kind landscape. Free for members, $5 for nonmembers. Registration is required for this event. Sign up here.

The Museum Store and galleries are open during Downtown@Dusk until 9 pm. Admission to the galleries is FREE on August 15 for Third Thursday.

Exhibitions currently on view in the museum galleries include Line Color Illusion: 40 Years of Julian Stanczak, With a Trace: Photographs of Absence, Real/Surreal and Envisioning an Outdoor Sculpture Space: A Project with Kent State University. For information about these exhibitions and other events, please visit the museum’s exhibitions page and calendar.

Anne E. DeChant took time out of her busy schedule to answer a few questions about herself and Downtown@Dusk.

You tailor your performances depending on the venue. What and where was your favorite performance and why?

That’s a really tough question. More than an entire performance, I would say there are thousands of moments inside performing that I can recall being really special. I think some of my best moments have been at The Barking Spider. The crowd there is musically focused. When people are listening it makes it possible for a vocalist/songwriter, to be really dynamic vocally. Dynamics are what help to express a wide range of emotion and that’s what music is all about to me. So it is those moments when I’m emoting all that I want to and the crowd is taking it all in that are most special. It’s a symbiotic thing.

What is the inspiration for your songs and lyrics?

Life. My life. Other people’s lives. My goal is to tell ordinary stories about every day people, in an extraordinary way.

After performing at venues such as the White House and Lilith Fair, what keeps you coming back to Akron to perform at Downtown@Dusk?

I love my audience. They are the ones that have made it possible for me to lead a life I love. They are a part of my life. I want to see them, share some old favorites as well as my new music with them. It’s like going to see your family over and over. If there’s a wedding reception or a 4th of July party, you’re there!

What is your favorite memory of performing at Downtown@Dusk?

Not melting!

Downtown@Dusk 2013 is made possible by The City of Akron. It is presented in cooperation with 89.7 WKSU.

ArtCamp@Dusk 2013 is made possible by a gift from The Howland Memorial Fun and the House of LaRose.

ArtTalks@Dusk 2013 is made possible by a gift from the Sam & Kathy Salem Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Community Board of Akron.

Third Thursdays are made possible by a generous gift from The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company.

Downtown@Dusk: 15 60 75 The Numbers Band

The second to last Downtown@Dusk concert on August 8 from 6:30-8:30 pm will feature local Abstract Blues and Rock band 15 60 75 The Numbers Band. Attendees can also attend a lecture from Chief Curator Janice Driesbach and food from Old Carolina BBQ while kids can partake in fun and wacky art activities in the museum’s classroom for ArtCamp@Dusk.

Concert goers will enjoy rocking out to the 15 60 75 The Numbers Band’s boisterous sound and style.

The band, which formed over 40 years ago, has remained without a record label and therefore able to create original, uncategorized music. Formed after guitarist Robert Kidney opened for another band, Pig Iron, here at the Akron Art Museum, 15 60 75 The Numbers Band has continued to delight audiences across Ohio with their fun-loving sound.

Chief Curator Janice Driesbach will be giving a lecture titled Women of Surrealism for this Thursday’s ArtTalks@Dusk from 7:30-8 pm. Featuring more than 60 paintings, drawings, prints and photographs dating from 1930 to 1955 drawn from the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Real/Surreal examines how American artists used strikingly naturalistic details to imaginative images inspired by dreams and how they introduced disconcerting undertones into compositions that featured seemingly ordinary scenes.

Thursday’s ArtCamp@Dusk class is SOLD OUT! Sign up for the final class here.

The Museum Store and galleries are open during Downtown@Dusk until 9 pm (admission is not required to shop in the store). Museum galleries and exhibitions will be open until 9 pm with paid admission.

Exhibitions currently on view in the museum galleries include Line Color Illusion: 40 Years of Julian Stanczak, With a Trace: Photographs of Absence and Real/Surreal. For information about these exhibitions and other events, please visit the museum’s exhibitions page and calendar.

Finally, 15 60 75 The Numbers Band answered a few questions about themselves and Downtown@Dusk.

The band was formed after Kidney opened for another group at the Akron Art Museum. Does the museum have any special meaning to the band?

That took place in 1968 when the art museum was in the very small building across the street. We’ve been playing Downtown@Dusk since the late 1990s. It remains the band’s favorite show of the year for many reasons; we’ve always been treated well by the people at the museum, it is also an opportunity for many fans with families who support our music to come out and hear us play. We are always humbled by their respect and appreciation.

On the band’s site, it is stated that the band is in it for the music, not the fame. Has that affected the band in any way?

Yes, we are not famous. We are not rich. We are highly respected for our music which is truly unique and original because we have the freedom to do what we want to do creatively, and our fans expect it. We are now in our 43rd year. Music is an art form, and does not need to just be a commodity. In my opinion, our culture at this point is glutted with entertainment and starved of artistic commitment.

After 40 years of shows and recordings, what keeps the band motivated to keep playing?

Two things; one is the continuing support of the people who come to see the band in northeast Ohio, the media and organizations like the Akron Art Museum. Two, the band is in a constant process of creating new material, which is the driving factor that attracts people to the band in the first place, our original music.

What keeps the band coming back to perform at Downtown@Dusk?

You invite us, we love to play outdoors, we love the crowd.

What is your favorite memory of playing at Downtown@Dusk?

Looking out over the mass of people who come to see us, the diversity, and the fact that they are paying attention to the subtlety our music offers.

Downtown@Dusk 2013 is made possible by The City of Akron. It is presented in cooperation with 89.7 WKSU.

ArtCamp@Dusk 2013 is made possible by a gift from The Howland Memorial Fun and the House of LaRose.

ArtTalks@Dusk 2013 is made possible by a gift from the Sam & Kathy Salem Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Community Board of Akron.

Downtown@Dusk: The Speedbumps

This week’s Downtown@Dusk features Kent-area band the Speedbumps. Concert attendees can also enjoy a discussion from Collections Manager Arnold Tunstall and food from Old Carolina BBQ while kids are entertained by fun art activities during ArtCamp@Dusk in the museum’s classroom.

Concert goers will be delighted by the Speedbumps’ eclectic sound and organic feel.

Through the utilization of hollow-bodied instruments like cello, upright bass, ukulele and acoustic guitar, the Speedbumps produce music that is both approachable and relatable to any audience. The Speedbumps have opened for many well-known artists including Amos Lee, Andrew Bird, OK GO and the Verve Pipe.

Collections Manager Arnold Tunstall will be leading a discussion titled “Cycle Maniacs and Reckless Women” for the ArtTalks@Dusk (http://akronartmuseum.org/calendar/arttalksdusk-cycle-maniacs-and-reckless-women/3889/) on July 11 from 7:30-8 pm.

The theme for ArtCamp@Dusk is “Cityscape Collage,” where kids will create their own vibrant city using images from magazines and postcards. Free for members, $5 each session for nonmembers. Registration is required for this class. Sign up at http://akronartmuseum.ticketleap.com/artcampdusk2013/#view=calendar.

The Museum Store will be open during Downtown@Dusk until 9 pm (admission is not required to shop at the store).

Exhibitions currently on view in the museum galleries include Danny Lyon: The Bikeriders and Draw Me a Story and Line Color Illusion: 40 Years of Julian Stanczak. For detailed information on these exhibitions and other events, please visit the museum’s exhibitions page and calendar of events.

Want to know more about the band before you see them perform? The Speedbumps were kind enough to answer a few questions about themselves and Downtown@Dusk!

How has your newest album been received?

“Our new album comes out in October! But we will play a few new songs at Downtown@Dusk.”

Where and how do you gather your inspiration for new music?

“Our music tends to be autobiographical, so many of the songs we write are personal. The people we love or the places we go and the experiences we have with those people and places have a lot to do with what we create. Music is all about the human condition.”

You’ve played for some well-known bands like Amos Lee and Andrew Bird. What keeps you coming back to play for Downtown@Dusk?

It’s always fun to play for Downtown@Dusk. It’s really a chance to touch base with family and friends in Akron. We are happy to be coming back again this year!

What is your favorite memory playing at Downtown@Dusk?

…the thing about Downtown@Dusk is the vibe of the people. We always leave in a good mood and I think that is a direct reflection of the people who frequent the concert series. True art and music fans.”

Downtown@Dusk 2013 is made possible by The City of Akron. It is presented in cooperation with 89.7 WKSU.

ArtCamp@Dusk 2013 is made possible by a gift from The Howland Memorial Fun and the House of LaRose.

ArtTalks@Dusk 2013 is made possible by a gift from the Sam & Kathy Salem Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Community Board of Akron.

Downtown@Dusk: Robin Stone

The Akron Art Museum’s popular concert series Downtown@Dusk will continue on Thursday, June 27 from 6:30-8:30 pm with a performance from singer Robin Stone. Concert goers can also enjoy a sneak preview of the upcoming exhibition With a Trace: Photographs of Absence from Senior Curator Ellen Rudolph and food from Urban Eats while kids are entertained and educated by fun hands-on activities during ArtCamp@Dusk in the museum’s classroom.

Concert attendees will thoroughly enjoy Stone’s soulful, intelligent groove music and be inspired by the personal hardships she has endured and overcome. For the past few years, Stone has struggled with health issues that have affected her life in many ways. In 2008, Stone was diagnosed with a tumor on her vocal chords causing loss of voice. One year later, she was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder. Instead of succumbing to these ailments, Stone succeeding in starting a record label, She Loves You Records, and released a new record and live album. Stone was also awarded “Best Vocalist of 2009” from Scene Magazine.

Senior Curator Ellen Rudolph will be giving a sneak preview of the upcoming exhibition With a Trace: Photographs of Absence for the ArtTalk@Dusk this Thursday. The exhibition features images that do not merely capture a single scene but create unique, individual moments in time. Unlike many digital photographs today, the images in this exhibition, created by analog or camera-less photographers, include traces of human presence, atmospheric phenomena, the transmission of energy and experiments with light. The lack of specificity and context in the photgraphs heightens the presence of something uncanny, creating with them otherworldly scenes. With a Trace: Photographs of Absence will be on view July 27, 2013-January 26, 2014, in the Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell Gallery.

While the adults enjoy the concert and museum galleries, children 6-12 can explore fun and wacky hands-on art activities in the museum’s classroom at ArtCamp@Dusk. This Thursday’s class is “Express Yourself,” where kids will use lines, shapes and colors to make an abstract painting and discover their artistic expression. Free for members, $5 each session for nonmembers. Registration is required for this class. Sign up here.

The Museum Store will be open during Downtown@Dusk until 9 pm (admission is not required to shop at the store). The museum collection and galleries will also be open until 9 pm with paid admission except for July 18 and August 15 when the museum premieres Third Thursday.

Exhibitions currently on view in the museum galleries include The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats, Danny Lyon: The Bikeriders, Draw Me a Story and Line Color Illusion: 40 Years of Julian Stanczak. For detailed information on these exhibitions and other events, please visit the museum’s exhibitions page and calendar of events.

Finally, the Akron Art Museum would like to thank all who attended last week’s Downtown@Dusk concert. We hope you had a great time and return to see more great local music every Thursday evening at the museum!

Curious what Downtown@Dusk is like? Check out Summer in the City 2013: (Volume 2: Downtown@Dusk):

Downtown@Dusk 2013 is made possible by The City of Akron. It is presented in cooperation with 89.7 WKSU.

ArtCamp@Dusk 2013 is made possible by a gift from The Howland Memorial Fun and the House of LaRose.

ArtTalks@Dusk 2013 is made possible by a gift from the Sam & Kathy Salem Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Community Board of Akron.

A Week In Denver Part Two: …and ALE

By: Corey Jenkins, Communication Volunteer/Visitor Services

Those of you who read my previous blog know that I recently spent a week in Denver, during which I was fortunate enough to experience some of the city’s art offerings. The art was only part of the experience. This particular region of Colorado is home to several breweries, two of which I visited.

My first night in Denver I was treated to dinner at the Breckenridge Brewery. Breckenridge is a microbrewery, and much like you might find at Goose Island in Chicago or Great Lakes in Cleveland, they operate a restaurant with their brewery. I enjoyed a platter of smoked wings and pork covered in a unique sauce that complimented the Breckenridge Agave Wheat ale that I had chosen to try. The Agave Wheat is an unfiltered American style wheat ale with a hint of agave. This particular ale was flavorful and bitter, yet still refreshing and light. Although I did not tour Breckenridge, it was an excellent experience and introduction to Colorado brew.

A couple of days later I made it the largest single site brewery in the world, Coors of Golden, Colorado. I realize that those of you with sophisticated beer palettes may not be excited by Coors, however in terms of an everyday beer of choice Coors Banquet is my go to, so I was particularly excited for the tour. The brewery looks exactly like the Coors mythology would lead you to believe, nestled in the Rocky Mountain Foothills with a fresh flow of mountain stream water running beside it.

Coors offers free tours that guide the visitor through their entire process and history. From their beginning in 1873 with founder Adolph Coors to their survival during Prohibition making malted milk, to Bill Coors’ innovation of aluminum cans in the 1950’s all the way up through their merger will Miller and their latest offerings.

MillerCoors produces and feature a large variety of products including Coors Banquet, Coors Light, Keystone Light, the Miller Family of Beers, Killian’s Irish Red, Blue Moon, Colorado Native, Leinenkugel and Batch 19 among the others that they either produce, import or have partnered with. Midway through the tour, visitors of age are offered a sample of fresh beer. I opted to sample Banquet, and I can honestly say that it may have been the best sip of beer I have tried. It carried a quality that I have never experienced in any beer I have found at the store.

The end of the tour also included free beer, at which point I had the chance to enjoy Colorado Native, a superb lager that Colorado is apparently keeping to themselves, Batch 19, a lager brewed according to a Pre-Prohibition recipe, and of course a mug of fresh Banquet beer.

I would encourage any beer lover to check out the local flavors of any given region they are visiting, as well as the ones that may be in your own back yard that you never considered visiting. Many breweries and distilleries for that matter offer free tours along with free samples, and typically only take up forty-five minutes of your day.

Some of you might be wondering what this has to do with the museum. It has everything to do with Art and Ale on March 8, 2013. Each year some of the greatest local brewmasters in the region bring their beer to the museum for adults to sample while enjoying the museum and for the first time, the galleries will be open for the first hour. The sooner you purchase your tickets, the cheaper they are. Also, a “green” membership for the year is including in the price!

Akron Film+Pixel

It’s that time of year when film critics release their lists of the best movies of the past year. But many of the films listed won’t play in the Akron area until months later, if at all! Since it’s more exciting to see films when the rest of the world is talking about them, Akron Film+Pixel began a new series that brings current, critically acclaimed films to the Akron Art Museum. The first film, Miguel Gomes’s TABU, was warmly received, and we continue on Thursday, January 24th with NEIGHBORING SOUNDS by Kleber Mendonça Filho.

“We’re filling a gap for ‘arthouse’ cinema,” says Akron Film+Pixel Film Curator Tim Peyton. “Cleveland has the Cinematheque and Cedar Lee Theatre, but until now there’s been no place in Akron to see new festival films on the big screen, with an audience.”

NEIGHBORING SOUNDS deals with the fallout of a series of petty crimes in a seaside community, and the private security firm that is brought in to solve the problem. The Akron premiere is at 6:30pm on January 24th, and is free and open to the public. Seating is available on a first come, first served basis. Get full details here, or watch the trailer below.

2012 in Review

By: Bridgette Beard Klein, Communications Assistant

This image is from one of the most popular posts from our blog this year (and ever). Here the Inverted Q is shown through the Chromatic Vision Simulator’s Protanope filter. To view the Q’s typical appearance, visit the Akron Art Museum’s Online Collection.

2012 has been an exhilarating year for the Akron Art Museum. We continued to launch our new visual look, celebrated 90 years in the community, exhibited monumental art and made major leadership changes.

We really kicked off the year with our 90th anniversary celebration in February. The performance included abstract painter Al Bright in concert with the Jesse Dandy Band. In March, Ray Turner: Population opened featuring an ever-expanding series of portraits, including key Akronites from the University Park neighborhood and even some Akron Art Museum staff.

April and May saw the staff preparing for the sale of Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #96 at Christie’s Post War and Contemporary Art – Evening Sale on May 8, 2012. The money raised from the sale created a new acquisitions endowment. We retained another 1981 masterpiece by Cindy Sherman from the Centerfolds series, Untitled #93 (Black Sheets), subsequently named Sherman the 2011-2012 Knight Purchase Award recipient and purchased several works from her Bus Riders series.

Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui opened in June with the artist present in Akron! The Akron Art Museum was the first modern and contemporary art museum in the US to collect Anatsui’s work and is thrilled to organize the major traveling exhibition. Huffington Post recently called its presentation at the Brooklyn Museum one of “The 25 Most Anticipated Exhibitions of the New Year.” You can catch the exhibition on its national tour through 2014.

The summer sizzled with the always popular Downtown@Dusk concert series and the new to 2012 ArtCamp@Dusk for kids to enjoy while their parents listen and embarrassingly dance to music. In July, we launched our completely redesigned website and enacted two major admission changes. Children 17 years and younger are now admitted FREE to the museum’s galleries. Beginning in July, visitors receive FREE admission to the collection and exhibition galleries all day from 11 am – 9 pm, on the third Thursday of every month.

After 26 years as director, with one of the longest tenures of any art museum leader in the country, Dr. Mitchell D. Kahan announced to the Akron Art Museum’s Board of Trustees that his resignation, effective January 2, 2013, and assume the title of Director Emeritus. Janice Driesbach joined the staff in August after a yearlong national search, as the museum’s new Chief Curator and was named Interim Director in December.

The colder weather hasn’t slowed down this mammoth year. Sculpture exhibitions Adolph Gottlieb: Sculptor and New Artifacts: Works by Brent Kee Young and Sungsoo Kim opened in late October. In November, tribute was paid to Dr. Mitchell D. Kahan during a formal dinner on November 10 and a community day on November 11. Holiday mART expanded its hours to reach more people this year and the popular Island of Misfit Toys once again sold out.

You might think all of this is enough for one year, but think again. Just as many people were planning their final holiday shopping or how to best spend the time off with family, the Akron Art Museum announced a pledge from museum supporters Rick and Alita Rogers as the lead gift for the design and construction of its long awaited outdoor sculpture garden. The completed outdoor gallery and multi-use space will bear the name of Bruce and Susanne Rogers, Rick’s parents, who are among Akron’s most devoted community boosters.

From September to December, we added 131 new objects, many of which were donated in honor of Mitchell. The museum’s commitment to photography holds strong and over half of the works in the collection are photographs. You can check out the museum’s collection at www.AkronArtMuseum.org/collection.

As for the blog, some of the most popular posts have been The Q is Blue!, Staff Interview: Special Events Manager Sheri Stallsmith and Photographic Masks from the Collection. We have some posts planned for the next couple of months that we can’t wait to share with you.

Don’t think the Akron Art Museum will rest on its laurel in 2013. As the search for a new director continues, the museum will open some amazing exhibitions and put on some great events.

The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats pays tribute to award-winning author and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats (1916–1983), the first to feature an African-American protagonist in modern full-color picture books and will open on March 16, 2013. The exhibition Draw Me a Story (February 9 – August 4, 2013) will celebrate Keats’s legacy and the power of visual literacy and multiculturalism. Elementary students from area schools will created collaborative picture books. The student artists will also meet and work with award-winning children’s book author and illustrator Duncan Tonatiuh, who will be here in the spring.

Drawn entirely from the museum’s collection, Danny Lyon: Bikeriders highlights one of the artist’s most celebrated bodies of works. Now, nearly 50 years after their creation, the images retain their original power and raw energy. Line Color Illusion: 40 Years of Julian Stanczak showcases paintings and prints collected by the Akron Art Museum since 1970. The exhibition documents both Julian Stanczak’s impressive career as a master of color and the museum’s longstanding commitment to his work.

Art and Ale returns this year on March 8 and the galleries will even be open for the first hour! Get your tickets now to take advantage of special pricing. Meanwhile, kids and teens will be delighted with our studio class offerings, but don’t wait to sign up because these classes are in demand.

As always, check out the website, Facebook, Twitter and this blog for the most up-to-date Akron Art Museum information.