Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Friday, Sept. 14, 2001
1 p.m.

Breaking my normal Friday routine of waking up and heading straight to work, I instead took a trip to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden on the Mall.

While walking past the art department in Smith Hall one day, I realized that I haven’t taken an art class since middle school, and I missed the days of water colors, sketch pads, Exacto knives and molding clay.

I knew the various Smithsonian museums offered education programs for adults. With a quick search on the Smithsonian’s Web site I found an art class fitting my interests.

The Hirshhorn Museum runs a program called “Art Explorers
Workshops for Adults.” The free 2-hour classes are held once a month at the museum, and only pre-registration and an interest in art are required.

The workshop I registered for was titled “Secret Spaces.” The brochure for the classes described that the workshop would include a discussion of negative space, and I should bring “an article to be destroyed during the mold-making process.”

I packed my bag and picked up my cracked 50-cent bowl from Ikea and headed to the Smithsonian Metro stop on the blue line. Upon my arrival, I discovered the Hirshhorn is closer to the L’Enfant Plaza stop on the blue line, but I didn’t mind the four-block walk to the museum.

The workshop was about to begin, so I made my way to the lower level of the museum where a brief tour and the workshop would be conducted.

Suzanne Pender, a former Hishhorn staff member and artist who teaches the workshop, greeted me. The other workshop participants were also there – four women of various ages. I was the youngest in the group.

Walking through the newly renovated minimalist collection, the group stopped at a piece by British artist Rachel Whiteread. “Untitled (Library)” was supposed to be the focus of the workshop, with attention to Whiteread’s use of negative space or a molded cast of the space around an object.

The object of “Untitled (Library)” was indeed that – the bookshelves of a library. The work was a first for Whiteread, and she continued with the library motif for a Holocaust Memorial she designed in Vienna.

I viewed Whiteread’s work as quite provoking, with an emphasis on the frailty and perseverance of human life. I could see why Whiteread was commissioned to design the memorial in Austria.

After the half-hour discussion on Whiteread, the group moved into a classroom to begin the hands-on part of the workshop. Making the negative space mold of the bowl I brought was fairly easy.

I first painted a thin coat of a separator liquid on the inside of my bowl so that the plaster would not stick to it. Then I prepared the plaster by mixing water and casting plaster powder. I had to keep adding plaster powder until the consistency was formed. When the casting plaster mix was ready, it looked like marshmallow fluff.

To mold the negative space, all I had to do was pour the plaster into my bowl and wait for it to set. While waiting for the plaster to set, I took a break to explore the other floors of the Hirshhorn.

The second-level houses the permanent collection of European sculpture from 1850-1935. Sculptures by such artists as Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse and Auguste Rodin are on display.

The third level of the Hirshhorn is devoted to 20th century modern art. Visitors can view paintings and sculptures by artists such as Salvador Dali, Jackson Pollock and Pablo Picasso.

“Directions: Tacita Dean” is an installation of Tacita Dean’s two films, Disappearance at Sea and Fernsehturm. “Disappearance at Sea” combines the confusion of being lost at sea and the security of a coastal lighthouse. Fernsehturm pays homage to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey with a rotating restaurant in Berlin substituting Kubrick’s spaceship.

My time at the Hirshhorn Museum was coming to an end. I made my way back to the lower level where I picked up my bowl, complete with negative space, thanked my instructor, said good-bye to Andy Warhol’s “Self-Portrait” and left.

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has a noteworthy collection of modern and contemporary art. The circular building only has three floors, yet a second visit would reveal more art treasures. The outdoor sculpture garden on the Mall is also a great place to check out on a beautiful fall day.

I may not be an artist, but I certainly enjoyed my time at the Hirshhorn.