Almost a year later, the “” quilt is done! It was also accepted into the upcoming “Sisters in Cloth” exhibit at the in Colorado!! I got the letter yesterday and ran back and forth going “YAAAAY!!!!” She said “YAAAAY!!” too when I told her…I finally figured out what to do with the background and went with stylized mimosa tree leaves–like the ones I remember from our family’s country home in Virginia. My fave part is her hair. I what I did with the hair! And King Tut variegated thread ! The quilting in her dress was inspired by this curvy Chinese jade dragon ornament I saw once. The piece’s official name is “Grandma Hopes She is Never As Old As I Am” and here’s a closeup shot…

On Saturday, I visited San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum where i was blown away by the Mary Blair exhibition. A painter and Disney animator in the 1940s and 1950s, Blair is best known for creating the concept art for Disney’s Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, designing Disney’s It’s A Small World world, and illustrating several timeless and magical Golden Books such as “I Can Fly.” Blair was a tremendous influence on contemporary artists like BB pal Tim Biskup, Monsters, Inc. director Pete Docter, and our own Mark Frauenfelder. This retrospective exhibition is captured in book form in The Art and Flair of Mary Blair. Seeing her wonderful concept drawings and original Golden Book illustrations in person though was the perfect way to end a year filled with great art.

Link to selections from the exhibition
Link to buy The Art and Flair of Mary Blair
Link to Mary Blair entry on Wikipedia
Link to Cartoon Modern posts on Blair
Link to Blair work at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
Link to Disney Legends: Mary Blair

Previously on BB:
• Mary Blair “Small World” designs Link
• “Mary Blair Week” at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive blog Link

Over the last century the art gallery’s role and importance in society has been changing. New media and the digital image have irrevocably changed the nature of visual art and how it connects with society. The proliferation of visual culture through film, television, video and DVD diminished the power that art galleries have to arbitrate what is or is not visual art.

Visual art is no longer exclusive to the museum or art gallery. Communication innovation like the Internet are eroding hierarchal structures and democratizing the very foundations of the art world. On line images are able to inform, enlighten and entertain a great number of people.

As obsolete power structures decline, art galleries are finding a new purpose within society. The art gallery in the 21st century must survive the onslaught of a visual culture outside its authority. Galleries are becoming transparent and permeable, allowing a relationship to flow between the visual culture on the inside of the gallery walls and that on the outside.

To survive as an authority in interpreting and defining visual culture, do art galleries need to alter their essential purpose, divest of an elitist history and allow access to artists working outside of the traditional box?