I am always down for a scavenger hunt, and so when I heard the Memorial Art Gallery (MAG) was hosting an event called “Petals, Pours, and Picasso” where the main activity of the night was a scavenger hunt, I immediately signed up. I managed to convince my friend to come with me via subterfuge (sorry Aeryn), and so we boarded the 4 p.m. shuttle last Friday to head over. At the check-in, we were handed a sheet of paper with six fragments of paintings and sculptures that could be found throughout the museum. These fragments showed a flower or two from a larger painting or sculpture that we needed to find and record the title of. There was a prize, of course, but neither I nor my friend were very interested in a candle from Scents by Design or a gift card from Stacy K Floral; we were more interested in seeing the collections and completing the activities.
This was my first experience at the MAG. I am new to Rochester, and as of Friday, I hadn’t yet gotten the chance to take advantage of my free admission as a student at URochester. The museum is pretty well laid out and navigable, and though I am severely directionally-challenged inside buildings and got lost a few times, my friend had no trouble, despite this also being her first time.
The first fragment we found was in the painting “African Violets” by Douglas Warner Gorsline, a Rochester-born artist. It is a gorgeous and mildly-trippy painting as it is a still life from several angles, all on the same canvas. Next, we wandered through the Picasso exhibition, which surprisingly, did not contain any of the flower fragments we were searching for.
The second fragment we found was in a sculpture called “Victorian Hair Wreath” by Kate Miller. It is — as labeled — a wreath made of beads and human hair, shaped into a flower crown. It was a very interesting piece to read about, and through which to see the ways that people chose to remember their loved ones and how they have changed over the years.
“Floral Still Life” by Rachel Ruysch and “Rose Garden” by Maria Oakey Dewing were our next finds. Both are realistic renditions of flowers, the first being a still life of a bouquet and the second being a depiction of a rose bush. As someone who has taken studio art classes in the past, I found the techniques of these paintings to be almost more interesting than the paintings themselves. Both are oil paintings — a medium I have yet to work in — and I was curious to see their brush strokes or where any paint built up. I highly recommend for those doubting their art skills to really look closely at professionals in that medium. Often you will find that the only reason you see so many flaws in your own work is because you are physically too close to it. You will find that the “mistakes” you are making are common across the medium and not something someone unfamiliar with your work will notice.
Venturing upstairs, my friend and I found our last two scavenger hunt items, though not without detours to view the rest of the floor. We found “Girl with a Tricorne (Vénitienne)” by Henri Matisse first. We had originally theorized that this painting would be in the medieval section, because the fragment we were given was of the wallpaper in the back and it looked like the border of a medieval manuscript or painting to us. It is French, though, from the early 1920s, and the painting as a whole is very impressionistic. There’s a lot of vibrant colors that blend together, but there is also a lot of detail work on the shadows and the scratchiness of the fabric especially.
Our last find in the scavenger hunt was by an unknown Japanese artist. The work was titled “Stencil (Katagami)” and is a thin sheet of mulberry paper with the white space around the flowers and leaves removed so that the design could be used as a stencil when dyeing fabric. This is an interesting piece because it brings up the debate of the form and function of art and the question, “are the tools used to make art also considered art?”
Once we had completely filled out our sheet, we brought it back to the front desk and turned it in. Then we went back into the museum space to try and find the other activities of the night. We found the live music very quickly, as it was immediately at the entrance of the museum. While the music was very good, it was also incredibly loud and the room amplified it. In addition to the music, there were drinks and food. Since my friend and I are underage, we were unfortunately unable to participate in the “pours” segment of the event. There were three themed drinks: the Wildflower Margarita, the Pink Petal Spritz, and Lavender Day Dream. I was very sad to be unable to try any of them.
It took us a while to find the paper bouquet workspace, mainly because, as stated before, I am directionally challenged, and it was my friend’s and my first time visiting the MAG. When we did find it, the room was unfortunately full, and we would have had to wait for a space to open up to join. From observation though, it seemed it was mostly younger kids in that area, and they were crafting paper and felt flowers. I got the vibe that this was likely an area that kids could be in while their parents wandered the museum, which makes sense.
The event as a whole was definitely centered around the scavenger hunt and the music, and both really pulled through in quality. As a first experience at the MAG, it was overall really enjoyable, and I liked having a specific theme to pull me through the exhibits and focus on certain artworks that, otherwise, I might have not. I would highly recommend any other events the MAG hosts, such as tours or other themed events.
