Visiting the Phoenix Art Museum

Visiting the Phoenix Art Museum

When I finalized my trip to attend Phoenix Fashion Week, I connected with my friends Marissa and Aggie to plan time to see each-other during my short stay in Arizona. Thankfully, these ladies are absolutely amazing and planned a YUMMY South West Breakfast, where I got to meet the LOVELY Sophie Kay and nuzzle with the cuteness that she is.

After breakfast, Marissa took me to the Phoenix Art Museum to meet her horse (You'll see what I mean later on), touch my first Palo Verde, walk in the middle of the sky (video at end of post), and see the Frida Kahlo commissioned painting "The Suicide of Dorothy Kay." As a huge museum nerd and art fan, it made me so happy to be surrounded by so many beautiful works of art, at what happens to be the largest museum in the South West.

Some of the exhibits that I saw included the permanent Contemporary Collection, which is the most active and growing area in the museum.

We were also given a tour of the "From New York to New Mexico, Masterworks of American Modernism from the Vilcek Foundation Collection," which is on display until September 7, 2015.

It was there that I was introduced to the works of American modernist painter Marsden Hartley and saw my first Georgia O'Keefe sculpture.

We also saw the "One-of-Kind, Unique Photographic Objects from the Center for Creative Photography," which unfortunately I couldn't document with photos. But I do want to share the names, quotes and/or a quick overview from the photographers that spoke to me:

I was trained as a painter and was drawing with photographic detail and large scale before picking up a camera for the first time. As this body of work evolved, I got to envision the making of the negatives as drawing with light. - Patricia White  

The negative is like the composites score and the print is like the performance. Not only is each print (even from the same negative) a necessarily distinctive object, but that variation between orients was a desirable reflection of the changing mood and experience of the artist. - Ansel Adams 

Betty Hahn - Used her photographs as a canvas, and decorated each picture with her paintings or drawings to create a unique visual perspective on simple panoramas.

These are just some of the highlights from my visit to the Phoenix Art Museum, that also included a stop at the Museum Store - and of course I picked-up some goodies. My favorite? I GORGOUS summer scarf that I promise to share picture of very soon!

It goes without saying that I'm looking forward to visiting the museum again and spending time at the sculpture garden and viewing the fashion collection - which I didn't get to see this time around.

Learn more about the Phoenix Art Museum and their current exhibits here: https://www.facebook.com/phxart

Ana Lydia

P.S. Marissa and I walked in the sky!