{"id":8114,"date":"2018-06-10T14:36:34","date_gmt":"2018-06-10T14:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114"},"modified":"2018-06-26T00:29:58","modified_gmt":"2018-06-26T00:29:58","slug":"serenity-and-joy-at-butler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114","title":{"rendered":"Serenity and joy at Butler"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Palm Pattern #125, Edith Bergstrom, at Butler Institute of American Art<\/p><\/div>\n

The Butler Institute of American Art, the nation\u2019s first museum devoted exclusively to American art, is a jewel tucked way in an old, slimmed-down Rust Belt\u00a0town, which was booming when America\u2019s industrial age was in full swing. Youngstown is probably one of the communities hardest hit\u00a0by the migration of heavy industry out of the U.S. and has had to rebuild\u00a0since huge job losses in the 1970s. Once a city of 170,000 people, it shrank to around a third of that in the 70s and 80s. As with most cities once nourished by the Erie Canal (like the one in which I live), it has had to find ways to diversify its economy and attract and grow innovative new technology firms despite the Great Lakes climate. In the past decade, Youngstown began to stir with\u00a0new economic life<\/a>\u00a0and because of its history as an industrial powerhouse, back when it attracted immigrant workers from around the world, it remains one of the most racially and culturally diverse cities in the nation. Flint and Detroit may get all the publicity, but Youngstown has to have been buffeted and betrayed by the global economy about as severely as any town in the world\u2014and yet it has found a path forward to a new sort of identity and pride in itself. The Butler seems to assert a kind of unassailable character, an affirmation that a few quiet human virtues\u2014gratitude, appreciation, taste\u2014won\u2019t just survive but can prevail in our current feverish media culture. It feels a little miraculous to walk into this little oasis of beauty and wisdom hidden in \u201cflyover country,\u201d among the ghosts of steel mills almost exactly halfway between New York City and Chicago, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.<\/p>\n

I delivered a painting to the Butler this past week for the Midyear exhibition by driving west through Buffalo and Erie. I was startled, when I turned onto Wick Avenue, where the\u00a0museum<\/a>\u00a0is situated on the Youngstown State University campus. It\u2019s a beautiful structure, a little grander in person than in its photographs, with a columned fa\u00e7ade that looks as if it were modeled after one of Piero\u2019s early Renaissance piazzas. After I dropped off my still life in its wooden crate, I decided to linger for a look at my destination. It was such a pleasure, I ended up staying far longer than I\u2019d intended. It was like being introduced to someone with whom you feel a deep affinity\u2014both the permanent collection and the current temporary exhibits were evidence of a guiding, deeply affectionate intelligence about great art. That sense of welcoming affinity is how I feel every time I visit the Phillips Collection, and to a slightly lesser degree, smaller museums like the Morgan and the Frick\u2014as if I\u2019m perfectly at home in the space and with the work itself. Many of the museums in cities that once thrived because of the Erie Canal offer art museums whose character is akin to the Butler\u2019s\u2014The Albright-Knox, the Memorial Art Gallery, The Everson and Munson-Williams Proctor. The emphasis on American Art at Butler makes it somehow feel the most companionable of them all. By contrast, this hospitable sense of belonging is what I\u00a0don\u2019t <\/em>feel when I tour<\/em> many\u00a0galleries and some museums. The Tate Modern in London, for example, had an atmosphere of severity, an almost impersonal sense that the art on display was meant to be a rude awakening, which is fine. That\u2019s certainly a recurrent quality in\u00a0modernist and post-modern work, and there\u2019s nothing wrong with the occasional swift kick to the head, but here, everything I saw seemed to be imbued with a sense that art can celebrate life as a welcome gift. It was moving to feel this kind of serenity in a community that has endured enormous\u00a0tribulations<\/a>\u00a0as America\u2019s economy reconfigures itself.<\/p>\n

It was a pleasure that a few of the paintings I was seeing for the first time had been familiar to me from reproductions for decades–while others were unfamiliar works by some of my favorite artists. It was a delight to finally see, in person, Edward Hopper\u2019s\u00a0Pennsylvania Coal Town<\/em>, James Valerio\u2019s\u00a0Ruth and Cecil Him,\u00a0<\/em>and Music<\/em>\u00a0by John Koch along the mezzanine in the museum\u2019s central gallery.\u00a0\u00a0Each is an example of the painter\u2019s mastery at its peak. They were on display along with equally powerful work by Janet Fish, Neil Welliver, Alfred Leslie, Will Barnett, Jules Olitski, Paul Jenkins, Motherwell, Avery, Gorky, Ivan Albright and Pollock. Much of the work is exceptionally good, sometimes in ways that aren\u2019t entirely characteristic of the painter\u2019s best-known style. Alfred Leslie isn\u2019t represented with one of his figures lit from below, but with a large grisaille watercolor landscape, a twilight view of a road in Massachusetts. A large abstract by Jenkins,\u00a0Phenomena Panning Gold<\/em>, isn\u2019t anything like the intensely colorful swirls of paint most familiar to his admirers, but an almost monotone study of molten lobes that look like a fossil record of an orchid blossom. The work by Chuck Close was a complete surprise, maybe one of the most charming images he\u2019s ever done, a mid-sized portrait of his daughter, Georgia. It\u2019s another grisaille image, hung on the wall opposite the Leslie watercolor,\u00a0constructed as a mosaic of thick paper pulp chips squeezed through a metal mesh. As always with his more recent work, it\u2019s a marvel how Close creates an impressionistically accurate and convincing glimpse of the human face\u2014this time cheerful and smiling\u2014through such rough deconstructions of its photographic source. His usual grids are here replaced by chunks of pulp organically arranged, like an assembly of thumbprints. Even seeing Arsen Roje\u2019s work for the first time was eye-opening. In reproductions, his depictions of scenes from classic movies look a little too ironic, sharing the slightly jaundiced irony that seems to be essential to Pop Art, yet the dramatic scene from To Have and Have Not<\/em> is technically masterful. It goes to interesting places with oil paint that seem unique to Roje. It made me grin to see the perfect likeness of Sheldon Leonard\u2014the bartender from\u00a0It\u2019s a Wonderful Life<\/em>, and an actor who went on to produce of the Dick Van Dyke show\u00a0\u2014finding his nook here in an art museum.<\/p>\n

And that was just the central gallery. Other smaller gallery spaces at the museum were\u00a0devoted to different\u00a0themes and mediums: print-making, pastels, art about sports, art about the American west. Each one was just as interesting, surprising and beautifully curated. Wolf Kahn\u2019s small drawings of old barns looked exactly right in proximity to Mary Sipp-Green\u2019s twilight scenes as well as an Olitski impressionistic drawing of a dusk landscape. In the print room, a lithograph by Bellows, a quick sketch of one of his daughters, showed amazing draftsmanship, as quick and confident as a Rembrandt or a Matisse line drawing, the shine of her hair effortlessly rendered with a few quick strokes of crayon on stone. And the solo show,\u00a0Edith Bergstrom: Exotic Palms<\/em>, was equally impressive. Her work uses the distinctive patterns of palms, their fronds, the thorny armor they leave behind as they wither and fall off the trunk, the spikes, all aspects of a palm\u2019s anatomy are sources for her to use in creating images that straddle representation and abstraction, some palms looming up like titans, others just a web of syncopated light and dark blades and stripes. Most exceptional were Bergstrom\u2019s watercolors that simplify a dense thatch of leaves into backlit plumage, plants that look like winged raptors swooping in for the kill, or angels\u00a0hovering directly in your path, just off the ground. The confidence, precision and simplicity of these paintings, as well as their sense of color, is breathtaking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Butler Institute of American Art, the nation\u2019s first museum devoted exclusively to American art, is a jewel tucked way in an old, slimmed-down Rust Belt\u00a0town, which was booming when America\u2019s industrial age was in full swing. Youngstown is probably one of the communities hardest hit\u00a0by the migration of heavy industry out of the U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSerenity and joy at Butler - represent<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Serenity and joy at Butler - represent\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Butler Institute of American Art, the nation\u2019s first museum devoted exclusively to American art, is a jewel tucked way in an old, slimmed-down Rust Belt\u00a0town, which was booming when America\u2019s industrial age was in full swing. Youngstown is probably one of the communities hardest hit\u00a0by the migration of heavy industry out of the U.S. […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"represent\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-06-10T14:36:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-06-26T00:29:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_4489-1024x1024.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dave dorsey\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"dave dorsey\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/?p=8114#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/?p=8114\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"dave dorsey\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/5f1b414f169df69053f04f66b929fd57\"},\"headline\":\"Serenity and joy at Butler\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-06-10T14:36:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-06-26T00:29:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/?p=8114\"},\"wordCount\":1350,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/?p=8114#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/06\\\/IMG_4489-1024x1024.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/?p=8114#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/?p=8114\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/?p=8114\",\"name\":\"Serenity and joy at Butler - represent\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/?p=8114#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/?p=8114#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/06\\\/IMG_4489-1024x1024.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-06-10T14:36:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-06-26T00:29:58+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/5f1b414f169df69053f04f66b929fd57\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/?p=8114#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/?p=8114\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/?p=8114#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/06\\\/IMG_4489.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/06\\\/IMG_4489.jpg\",\"width\":2448,\"height\":2448},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/?p=8114#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Serenity and joy at Butler\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/\",\"name\":\"represent\",\"description\":\"the painting life\",\"alternateName\":\"the dorsey post\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/5f1b414f169df69053f04f66b929fd57\",\"name\":\"dave dorsey\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/1b459062818b38ed5bb3f68365bc2557f760412a5db1278493176a6a45bb1c8f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/1b459062818b38ed5bb3f68365bc2557f760412a5db1278493176a6a45bb1c8f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/1b459062818b38ed5bb3f68365bc2557f760412a5db1278493176a6a45bb1c8f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"dave dorsey\"},\"description\":\"I'm a painter living in Pittsford, NY. I've authored two books and also work as a ghostwriter. I sell my work through Oxford Gallery, and have exhibited around the U.S. and internationally.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/www.daviddorsey.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thedorseypost.com\\\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Serenity and joy at Butler - represent","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Serenity and joy at Butler - represent","og_description":"The Butler Institute of American Art, the nation\u2019s first museum devoted exclusively to American art, is a jewel tucked way in an old, slimmed-down Rust Belt\u00a0town, which was booming when America\u2019s industrial age was in full swing. Youngstown is probably one of the communities hardest hit\u00a0by the migration of heavy industry out of the U.S. […]","og_url":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114","og_site_name":"represent","article_published_time":"2018-06-10T14:36:34+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-06-26T00:29:58+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_4489-1024x1024.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"dave dorsey","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"dave dorsey","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114"},"author":{"name":"dave dorsey","@id":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5f1b414f169df69053f04f66b929fd57"},"headline":"Serenity and joy at Butler","datePublished":"2018-06-10T14:36:34+00:00","dateModified":"2018-06-26T00:29:58+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114"},"wordCount":1350,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_4489-1024x1024.jpg","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114","url":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114","name":"Serenity and joy at Butler - represent","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_4489-1024x1024.jpg","datePublished":"2018-06-10T14:36:34+00:00","dateModified":"2018-06-26T00:29:58+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5f1b414f169df69053f04f66b929fd57"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_4489.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_4489.jpg","width":2448,"height":2448},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=8114#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Serenity and joy at Butler"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/","name":"represent","description":"the painting life","alternateName":"the dorsey post","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5f1b414f169df69053f04f66b929fd57","name":"dave dorsey","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1b459062818b38ed5bb3f68365bc2557f760412a5db1278493176a6a45bb1c8f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1b459062818b38ed5bb3f68365bc2557f760412a5db1278493176a6a45bb1c8f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1b459062818b38ed5bb3f68365bc2557f760412a5db1278493176a6a45bb1c8f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"dave dorsey"},"description":"I'm a painter living in Pittsford, NY. I've authored two books and also work as a ghostwriter. I sell my work through Oxford Gallery, and have exhibited around the U.S. and internationally.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.daviddorsey.com"],"url":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8114"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8149,"href":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8114\/revisions\/8149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}