Visitors to the Museum always delight in discovering Devorah Sperber‘s After the Mona Lisa 2 in the permanent collection. Sperber used an amazing  5,184 spools of thread to re-create Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous painting, the Mona Lisa. Her piece explores the reproduction of images in the digital era, the links between art and technology, and visual perception (how the eye and the brain make sense of the visual world).

Taking a popular image and manipulating it into something new is a way both to honor the masters of art and to express personal creativity. This echoes the reason we developed our Teens, Inspired blog and our annual Teen Art and Video Competition. Sperber’s work inspired 2010’s first-place winner, Virginia Niver, who recently graduated from Broughton High School in Raleigh. Niver’s submission, made from M&M’s, is a great example of how a high school student can reinvent a piece from the NCMA’s permanent collection. Current students are invited to submit art or video entries to this year’s competition. For details on how to do that, visit Teens, Inspired.

Today’s guest contributor is Sydney Snedeker, who will graduate from Apex High School in May and plans to attend the University of Texas to major in public relations. Sydney is a member of the Museum’s Teen Advisory Council and is the intern responsible for managing the Teens, Inspired blog. The blog contains posts by Sydney and other members of the Teen Advisory Council as well as images of works from last year’s Teen Art Competition.

Every year on or around May 18, museums around the world celebrate International Museum Day, a day that focuses on museums and the role they play in our ever-changing society. This year’s International Museum Day theme is “Museum and Memory,” which reflects beautifully the role of museums. The NCMA’s collection—like that of every museum—preserves the memory of cultures and people, past or present.  By visiting the permanent collection galleries of West Building, you can discover these cultures and eras, and create your own memories as well.

The NCMA is celebrating International Museum Day on Wednesday, May 18, with free admission to 30 Americans, a superb exhibition presenting the works of contemporary African American artists, and a free screening of Purvis of Overtown, a documentary on contemporary artist Purvis Young, an icon of Black culture whose work is featured in 30 Americans. East Building will be open until 8 pm for those attending the screening and visiting 30 Americans.

This year during International Museum Day a special focus is also placed on Africa and highlighting its important cultural contributions to the world. Come celebrate International Museum Day and African heritage at the NCMA on May 18! Visit the African collection in West Building until 5 pm (and as the NCMA’s unofficial spokesperson for IMD, I can make a shameless plug for my own galleries—Egypt is in Africa, so take a look at the ancient Egyptian galleries as well and marvel at the long history and cultural diversity of this fascinating continent). 

Happy International Museum Day to all!

In honor of this year’s theme “Museum and Memory,” we want to hear about your most  memorable NCMA experience. Share a story or a photo on our Facebook wall by May 18 and we’ll randomly select one person to win an NCMA prize pack.

The prospect of wading through record snowfalls in Philadelphia did not deter the Museum Store in its pursuit of unique offerings for our Museum visitors.

The Philadelphia Buyers Market of American Craft is a show for artists and craftspeople actively involved in designing and producing crafts and artistic pieces. Gallery owners and art institutions flock to this yearly show in search of the best handmade and one-of-a-kind pieces available in a broad range of artistic styles and mediums. There was an Asheville, N.C., artist who crafts boxes out of a marriage of glass, wood, copper, and steel, and a woodcarver whose hand-painted bird sculptures call to mind images of the Audubon folios.

Over 800 juried artists were in attendance at the show, including Jim Whalen of Horseshoe, N.C., a 2011 NICHE Award winner for wheel-thrown ceramics. The NICHE Awards celebrate excellence and innovation in North American fine craft, and the Museum Store is proud to have several pieces for sale from a number of Niche Award winners, including Jim.

Despite the long hours walking the halls of a convention center (and a five-hour snow delay on the flight home!), I happily realize that the best part of my job is the privilege of meeting many of these incredibly talented artists, learning the stories behind the creation of such beautiful artistic pieces, and bringing their work to the visitors who shop in the Museum Store.

Susan Piercecchi is the director of retail operations for the Museum. She and her staff attend major gift shows as well as local shows on a quest to discover the varied selection of merchandise featured in the Museum Store.

Home, sweet home.  In today’s third and final post, Shannon and Caroline look back on Golden Boy’s big move.

Moving Day at last! Our Golden Boy is ready to take up residence in the West Building Egyptian Gallery.

Bright and early on February 16, our beloved glittery hero was escorted from Art Storage, in the old East Building, to the new gallery by an entourage of 12 people. TWELVE! GB’s personal assistants included one curator, two art handlers, one registrar, one conservator, one conservation assistant, one exhibition designer, one mountmaker-installer, one photographer, and one webmaster-videographer . . . Oh! Mini-Mummy-Me was there, too!

The entourage made certain Golden Boy had all his personal belongings before departing. Pectoral piece. Check. Apron. Check. Soles. Check. Plaques of protective deities. Check. Helmet. Wait! Where’s the helmet? For safety the blue helmet traveled on a separate gurney from the rest of the pieces, which were already secured on the mummy.

After a long trip down the art tunnel and up the art lift, Golden Boy was ready to be installed in his new home by his unusually large entourage. That’s a lot of people to squeeze into a small gallery already full of casework and other objects, so the work required some delicate choreography. First we gave Golden Boy his helmet back (he was relieved; he was afraid of not being able to see, hear, and talk in the afterlife). Then we placed GB and his designer mummy mount into the display case and made sure the whole thing was centered.  To keep Golden Boy stable and safe, we secured the mummy mount to the backboard using long bolts. This required a bit of finagling by our mountmaker-installer (it looked like a scene from a cheesy horror flick), but we got it done.  We replaced Golden Boy’s pectoral to cover the hole where the bolts were hidden.

Finally, the case was closed with a custom-made vitrine, and we all stepped back to admire our work. (Mini-Mummy-Me gave us a standing ovation.) Golden Boy and his new designer mummy mount were finally home. Congrats to the whole team!