The Reece museum is currently showing three new prominent exhibitions: ‘Exuberance! Kids Make Art about Art,’ ‘The Magic of Mongolia’ and ‘Textures’ from the Reece Collection.
Exhibition Coordinator Spenser Brenner said each exhibit is expected to last about six weeks, with the exception of the ‘Exuberance’ exhibit.
“That exhibit may stay up a little longer because there was so much work involved into it,” Brenner said.
With the help of Sammie Nicely, an artist and resident of the Reece museum, and students at Northside Elementary and Carver Recreation Center in Johnson City, ‘Exuberance’ was able to come to life in a vivid array of color.
“He [Nicely] wanted to work with kids so he took three pieces of art, one which he actually created, and took these three pieces and he asked kids to respond to it by making their own artwork,” Brenner said.
The students used royal pastels, graphite and clay to help create their own masterpieces.
“And that’s where we get ‘Exuberance,’ which it’s pretty intense to be in this gallery,” Brenner said. “There’s so much color.”
The collection consists of over 175 pieces of work.
“The student’s PTA meeting will be in here so all the parents and all of the kids will see their art,” Brenner said. “I think the only thing this exhibit lacks is a list of their names but since there’s so many names, we’re trying to figure out which names go where.”
‘Exuberance’ is a nice open exhibit so we can have events, where people can easily walk around, Brenner said.
“As a small museum, that’s something we always try to think about,” Brenner said.
Last semester, after a visit from the Loseling monks in bringing their Mystical Arts of Tibet tour to campus, Brenner said at one time there were over a thousand visitors coming to see the creation of a mandala.
“It was great for the museum,” Brenner said. “That’s kind of another reason we have the Mongolia exhibit here is because Mongolia and Tibet are neighbors, and they’re both Buddhist so a lot of it kind of goes back and forth.”
The Magic of Mongolia collection was donated by Richard Kortum and Theresa Markiw.
“They both wanted to show it off,” Brenner said. “And more or less it’s a way for them to fundraise because they can bring students in, who might want to go to Mongolia.”
Unlike the Mongolia exhibit, ‘Textures’ was created solely in the Reece museum.
“We just went to the downstairs collection and tried to find some interesting textures to put together,” Brenner said. “So sometimes that’ll happen. We’ll just do our own.”
Many more exhibitions are to be anticipated throughout the semester.
