Day: September 29, 2023

sketching the new gorman museum

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Gorman Museum UC Davis 090823

There’s a new exciting museum on campus. Well when I saw ‘new’, it just celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, so not new exactly, but it just opened up in a brand new location near the Arboretum. It’s the Gorman Museum of Native American Art, at UC Davis, and occupies a building that has been completely transformed for the new museum, including the installation of a large, circular public artwork by the artist  Tsinhnahjinnie, and is based upon Native American basketry designs. The grand opening of the museum was last weekend; I missed the Friday ribbon-cutting, but I did visit on Saturday when there was live music and dance, and public viewings of all the amazing art. I went with my family after our sketchcrawl at Wyatt Deck, and loved all the artwork. I drew the building earlier in the month. I have sketched this building before, several years ago when it was the Nelson Hall and housed the Della Davidson Performance Studio (this was for the UC Davis Arts Explorer guide in 2016). In fact I’ve attended many meetings and events in that building over the years, but what I always think of was that I went to my New Employee Orientation here back in 2006, when I was fresh-faced newbie to UC Davis. It is interesting having watched this campus evolve over the years.

the hydrant’s robotic arm

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hydrant by MSB 091223 sm

It’s always time for a fire hydrant. This one is outside our building on the UC Davis campus, and recently grew an unusual robotic arm, which is propped up by some metal leaning device, making it look a bit like Charlie Chaplin, I suppose. I do love drawing fire hydrants though. Recently I gave a talk to the Urban Sketcher Jacksonville group (via Zoom, I didn’t fly out to Florida), they were very friendly and we all did a drawing of a fire hydrant at the end which was nice. That was my demo, drawing a hydrant, simplest thing there is really. Other sketchers who are more typical art teachers probably do much more complicated demos, but I’m always very nervous drawing live (especially from a photo) so my demos usually feel a bit flat. I was able to talk to people about sketching which is always the most fun. I tried to avoid going all Rolf Harris with those “can you guess what it is yet?” phrases because ugh, Harris. Still, the hydrant we sketched actually had a fun little smiling face and seeing everyone else draw the happy hydrant made us all feel good, I think. Draw fire hydrants, they are perfect urban sketching material.