Two Potters Revisited: Macy Dorf, Larry Paul Wright, & Frank Gray
Exhibit Dates: July 2 - August 22, 2010
In December of 1981, former Littleton Independent editor Garrett Ray, reminisced "…near the end of the tumultuous '60s, the mere existence of a pottery shop in old Littleton run by two long-haired young men was a constant, continuing surprise."
Macy Dorf and Larry Paul Wright opened their shop on Main Street in the fall of 1967 and left an indelible mark in the community. They later sold their shop to Sarah Molyneaux, who in turn sold it to Frank Gray who operated Two Potters until the building was sold in 2005.
See the retrospective work of 3 of the 4 potters who operated the shop on Main Street for over 40 years: Macy Dorf, Larry Paul Wright, and Frank Gray.
Wonders of the Weavers: Maravillas de los tejedores
19th Century Rio Grande Weavings from the Collection of the Albuquerque Museum
Exhibit Dates: March 25 - June 27, 2010
Wonders of the Weavers: Maravillas de los tejedores features the Albuquerque Museum's collection of nineteenth-century Rio Grande textiles. Since the arrival of Spanish colonist to the Rio Grande valley in 1598, weaving was an important part of everyday life for Hispanic settlers of New Mexico.
By 1800 the Rio Abajo district which included Albuquerque began to prosper using both wool and cotton.
By the mid-1800s, merchant traders were collecting local products and transporting them to central locations for shipment over the Chihuahua and Santa Fe Trails to Mexico and Missouri, and over the Old Spanish Trail to California. Weavings from the Rio Grande region were prized for their workmanship; the expensive finer grades were so well made that they were nearly waterproof.
The Double-Edged Weapon: The Sword as Icon and Artifact
Exhibit Dates: November 18, 2009 - January 24, 2010
From the Higgins Armory Collection, Worchester, Massachusetts
A Double-Edged Weapon: The Sword as Icon and Artifact introduces modern audiences to an object that is already universally familiar in imagery, yet relatively unknown as a physical artifact. This exhibition, showcasing approximately 100 swords, cutting tools and sword elements, is drawn from the rich collections of the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, Mass., the only museum in the northeast United States dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of arms and armor.
The story of the sword around the globe is one of diversity reflecting local cultural tradition. The exhibition emphasizes the multiple facets inherent in the sword as an artifact. In these deadly works of art, elegance grapples with brutality, esthetics with functionality and reality with myth.
From the medieval knight's broadsword to the Olympic fencing foil, from the Japanese katana to the light saber of the Jedi knight, the sword has proven a uniquely timeless and universal artifact. Its global reputation as a high-status weapon probably owes much to the cost of producing it: made almost entirely of metal, the sword was a relatively expensive weapon until the development of industrial metallurgy in the 1800s.
The mystery of the bladesmith's art contributed to a mystique that surrounds swords in many cultures. The most famous sword of medieval European legend is certainly King Arthur's Excalibur, bestowed on him by the mysterious Lady of the Lake. In Japan, some ancient swords are still venerated as deities. Hinduism traditionally attributes the invention of the sword to Brahma, the creator god, who used it in his struggle against demons; it is also an attribute of Vishnu the preserver of the divine authority of kingship. In many societies, the sword's deeply imbedded cultural meanings helped preserve ancient forms of the weapon long after they went out of practical use.
Even so, the sword has shown considerable staying power in the modern age. Armies worldwide employed swords into the twentieth century, and the saber served with some cavalry as late as World War II. In many parts of the world, swords continue to reinforce important cultural connections with the past. As an icon of power, emblem of courage, and symbol of destruction, the sword reflects the often conflicting attitudes toward violence in human culture.
The showing is part of a national tour developed and managed by Smith Kramer Fine Art Services, an exhibition tour development company in Kansas City, Mo." Smith Kramer Fine Art Services, with items from Higgins Armory Museum.
Step on It: Braided Rugs Then and Now
Exhibit Dates: May 29 - July 5, 2009
From LHM & private lenders. Some loans from Rocky Mountain Rug Braiders Guild
The Littleton Museum, in collaboration with the Rocky Mountain Rug Braiders Guild, presents an exhibition incorporating braided rugs from the museum's collection and contemporary rugs made by members of the Guild. This traditional craft takes several forms including crocheted, shirred, knitted, and, of course, braided.
These rugs have had a long tradition in the United States, reaching the height of prominence in the early 19th century in New England. It is believed that, as the country moved west, these types of rugs were brought with pioneers. Though popularity has waxed and waned through the years, they again became fashionable in the early 20th century due to Wallace Nutting's photographs depicting women dressed in Colonial attire engaged in a variety of crafts in rooms decorated with braided rugs. Later, they were admired and were considered trendy by interior decorators and once again their esteem grew.
Today, they continue in popularity and groups such as the Rocky Mountain Rug Braiders Guild insure [sic] that this craft and the skills needed to create them carry on.
These rugs are beautiful, some utilitarian, others whimsical, and all expertly crafted.
Difficult Times, Difficult Choices: Why Museums Collect After Tragedies
Exhibit Dates: April 21 - September 20, 2009
A museum's collections must reflect the story of their communities, whether the issue is a major tragedy with worldwide implications, or a controversial story with only local circumstances, museums play the role of repository of information. The difficult choices are determining what to collect. Curators must decide what artifacts best epitomize the event, the story that needs to be told. Why choose one item instead of another?
Tragedies happen in all communities. How to museums respond to these challenges? The story needs to be told, the artifacts collected and documented. Using the experience of the Littleton Museum after Columbine, and drawing on the shared experiences of collecting institutions from across the nation, this exhibit explores the professional responsibilities that museums face when the unthinkable happens. Tragedies do not define a community but they are part of its history, a part of what makes it a community - a shared experience.
Ceramica y Cultura: The Story of Spanish and Mexican Mayolica Ceramics
Exhibit Dates: November 15, 2005 - February 15, 2006
Cowboys & Their Gear
Exhibit Dates: November 24, 2008 - February 15, 2009
The very word “cowboy” conjures up romantic notions of rugged individualists, men who loved the outdoors, loved being “their own man,” and who adhered to the “Code of the West,” an unwritten creed understood by all cowboys. According to author Ramon Adams in The Cowman and His Code of Ethics, “Back in the days when the cowman with his herds made a new frontier, there was no law on the range. Lack of written law made it necessary for him to frame some of his own, thus developing a rule of behavior which became known as the ‘Code of the West.’ These homespun laws, being merely a gentlemen’s agreement to certain rules of conduct for survival, were never written into statutes, but were respected everywhere on the range.
These rules reflected the love of the land; respect for all people, especially women and children; loyalty and helping those in need. The exhibit runs through Sunday, February 15. The exhibition, mostly from the museum’s collection augmented by local collectors, depicts clothing, tools and equipment used by American cowboys, including saddles made by Colorado saddle makers Robert T. Frazier of Pueblo, Denver saddle maker H. H. Heiser, and a Slim Fallis saddle made in Elizabeth.
The Presidential Hopefuls
Exhibit Dates: August 7, 2008 - November 2009
Explore the often neglected stories of the candidates from the first presidential election in 1789 to the 2008 campaigns. Using dramatic and educational collections of photos, posters, original cartoons, and memorabilia, organized by Blair-Murrah Exhibits and augmented by artifacts from the Littleton Historical Museum and private collectors, The Presidential Hopefuls sheds new light on American history and the electoral process.
Life is a Leaky Boat: The Whimsical Sculpture of Don Mitchell
Exhibit Dates: May 23 - July 12, 2008
Visit the sculpture world of Don Mitchell at the museum and be introduced to his many whimsical works of art that appeal to both young and old and leave them smiling . Arne Hansen, noted art historian and museum curator, said of Mitchell’s work, “Don Mitchell, a nationally collected Colorado sculptor is an interesting study in contrasts . His somewhat surreal, colorful sculptures are reminiscent, but not derivative of the works of Miro, Calder, and Dubuffet . But the humor and odd juxtapositions of elements in Mitchell’s work makes it child-like and extremely sophisticated . This mixture of qualities attracts both very young viewers and major collectors of American art.
To date, Mitchell has sold more than 1,200 sculptures . Mitchell is known for his monumental works that grace parks, cities, and universities throughout the country including Gallup Park in Littleton; and Thornton, Lakewood, and Breckenridge in Colorado.
In 1991, Mitchell introduced his small sculptures at a museum store in Houston, Texas and now more than 30 major museum stores across the country, including the Smithsonian Institution, carry these pieces.
"From the moment I created Life is a Leaky Boat I knew its real purpose was to be the center of an opera. I envisioned a large sculpture with live singers in the leaky boat, interacting with more singers on the floor of the stage. The opera would be about a journey to find the source of light and inspiration. The scenery would move on two giant scrolls, so that it would appear that the sculpture was moving forward, lighting effects would create night and day and the costume possibilities would be as wild as the imagination will allow.
In the opening scene all the singers would be on the ground preparing for a long journey into the unknown. I see costumes as wild as Cirque du Soleil and singers shooting into the air. Each scene would bring the magic boat closer to the source of light and inspiration. In the last scene the leaky boat would disappear off the stage into the light. I have lots of pieces of ideas on how this opera should flow and would very much like to work with a professional in creating the opera." - Don Mitchell, Sculptor
In Focus: National Geographic Greatest Portraits
Exhibit Dates: April 5 - June 1, 2008
Courtesy SITES - Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service
Created by National Geographic and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, In Focus reveals that it is possible to portray the essence of people and places in two dimensions.
For well over 100 years, the name National Geographic has been synonymous with compelling photography. In Focus brings together a rare collection of expressive portraits and scenes from around the world and here at home. This collection of outstanding images, shot from the early 20th century to the late 1990s, not only parallels the Society’s interest in the ethnographic study of “exotic” lands, but also reveals the magazine’s idealized view of domestic life in the United States during the Great Depression and World War II.
From Steve McCurry’s haunting image of the green-eyed Afghan girl to lesser known scenes of tribal leaders, fishermen, and American workers, In Focus takes viewers around the globe and through the heights and depths of human emotion.
The Art of Westward Exploration
Exhibit Dates: March 23, 2007 - August 27, 2007
Rose in the Wilderness
Exhibit Dates: October 2, 2007 - March 5, 2008
Quilts from LHM collection
Paper Cuts: The Art of Contemporary Paper
Exhibit Dates: May 22 - June 20, 2007
"Paper Cuts” is an unusual exploration into the nature of paper, a material that we often take for granted. Paper is transient and enduring, delicate and strong. It can act as a filter or as a barrier. There is virtually no limit to what paper can do and how it can be manipulated.
The exhibit is a brilliant illustration of the resurgent popularity of papermaking and paper-based art over the past 20 years. Artists use paper in innovative and exciting ways to create everything from utilitarian objects to fine-art sculptures.
Paper Cuts consists of 40 objects made with paper by approximately 25 American artists. who employ a wide range of techniques and styles, including mixed-media assemblages, three-dimensional collages, and papier-mache. Many of the artists explore paper’s ability to be transformed from the flat to the voluminous, as well as the range of texture and organic nature of paper.
Courtesy ExhibitsUSA
The Saga of the American West in Prints
Exhibit Dates: March 22 - August 27, 2007
Art of the Stamp
Exhibit Dates: October 18, 2006 - January 7, 2007
Few works of art enjoy as vast an audience as American stamps. At their most basic, stamps are simple proofs of postage, but with the addition of graphic designs that honor national heroes and commemorate historical events, they become something much greater: compelling works of art that serve, in the words of W.B. Yeats, as “the silent ambassadors on national taste.
Recently on view at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, The Art of the Stamp comprises 100 small works of original art created by 52 top professional illustrators and designers working in the United States. These miniature masterpieces, whose design spans the 1960s to the present, reflect the evolutionary process of American stamps as new subjects and designs are explored.
The subject matter depicted in The Art of the Stamp runs the gamut of American history and culture, arts and entertainment, and science and nature—from birds to Broadway musicals, movie stars to the military, flowers to transportation. The exhibition also affords a rare opportunity to get a glimpse of how stamp designs are developed, from pencil sketches to final artwork. Preliminary sketches and behind-the-scenes material for other stamps show the complexity of the process.
One of the most famous stamps in recent memory is the “Elvis Presley,” the most popular stamp of all time with record sales of 500 million. The Art of the Stamp features the original art for this now-iconic stamp along with four preliminary concept portraits. Also presented are two original Norman Rockwell pieces commissioned by the United States Postal Service (USPS), one of the few times these two works have been publicly displayed.
This collection from the USPS achieves what President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who helped design several stamps, saw as the chief aim of stamp art: It “dispels boredom, enlarges our vision, broadens our knowledge, makes us better citizens, and in innumerable ways enriches our lives."
Courtesy SITES - Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service
Sneak Peek: The Curtis Collection
Exhibit Dates: June 1 - July 17, 2006
The Grogan Collection: Contemporary Native American Art
Exhibit Dates: May 18 - September 11, 2006
Asian Games: The Art of Contest
Exhibit Dates: March 25 - April 30, 2006
Feast Your Eyes: The Unexpected Beauty of Vegetable Gardens
Exhibit Dates: September 9 – October 30, 2005
An Endless Enthusiasm: rita derjue Retrospective
Exhibit Dates: April 14, 2005 - July 17, 2005
derjue’s work of 55 years in drawings, canvases and watercolors in the new enlarged gallery. rita derjue is a well known painter, educated at RISD and Cornell, as well as in Munich and Mexico. Her spontaneous brushwork, intense color, and variety of subject matter come to life in this large exhibit.
The Furniture Collection
Exhibit Dates: February 5 - August 22, 2005
The Littleton Collection Artwork
Exhibit Dates: February 5 - April 2005
Art for Healing Hearts
Exhibit Dates: September 1 - November 1 2002
Paintings (mostly watercolors) by Colorado artists for sale with entire proceeds given to NYC’s Twin Towers Orphans Fund
The Message of Maps
Exhibit Dates: May 2001 - September 2002