Saturday, July 12, 2008

Where in the World Are My Drawings?

The six of you who've followed my blog a while may remember me mentioning in January that the Norman Rockwell Museum, which borrowed eight pages of original art from Mom's Cancer for its "LitGraphic: The World of the Graphic Novel" exhibition, hoped to loan the show to other museums after it closed. The Rockwell curators tell me it's unusual for an exhibition of theirs to travel, but this one drew a lot of interest and was a real success for them.

Now I've received a letter with some details, including word that, if I agree to extend my loan (I will), I won't see my pages again until 2011. That makes me a little wistful. I'll miss them. However, as I told the Rockwell folks when I attended the exhibition's opening, they're better off hanging on their walls than sitting in a file folder under my desk.

Right now, museums interested in the show include the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; the Huntington Museum of Art in Huntington, West Virginia; and the James A. Michener Museum of Art in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. I don't have any dates yet, and am told that other venues may be added to the list.

Notwithstanding my own contribution, this is a terrific show with amazing art I'd encourage you to see if you get the chance. I have no idea which works will comprise the traveling exhibition, but at the Rockwell Museum it included original art by Will Eisner, R. Crumb, Howard Cruse, Steve Ditko, Milt Gross, Peter Kuper, Harvey Kurtzman, Frank Miller, Terry Moore, Dave Sim, Art Spiegelman, and many more. All together, it made up a real nice cross section of comic history and art.

I can't express enough what an honor and thrill it's been to have my drawings hanging in a museum. It's other-worldly. And I couldn't have greater respect for or confidence in the Rockwell staff that will be handling the travel arrangements and babysitting my pages for the next few years. They are a first-class group of professionals. Also, very nice. A lot of other people I would've said "no" to.
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At the Rockwell opening last November.
That's about as good as I clean up.

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4 comments:

ronnie said...

Hmm. I don't suppose there's a tinker's hope in hell of them landing anywhere in Maine, huh? I can think of a couple of people who'd probably make a road trip to see them...

ronnie "cool stuff never comes to Maine, sigh" cat

Sherwood Harrington said...

"Cool stuff never comes to Maine," ronnie??? What more than Mike Peterson do you want, for hevvinsakes?

I'm thinkin' that when ol' Beefies gets to be rich and famous, he will owe his old friends a celebratory get-together in a central place, equally easy or inconvenient for us all to get to. Like Wichita, for example, or Winnipeg.

Mike said...

Actually, I was just thinking that they had been in what is more-or-less the neighborhood (or "neighbourhood," for those of us in this rural splendor (or "splendour") and were now moving out of range. I mean, Stockbridge is only about five and a half hours away -- nearly next door in this part of the country.

Tell what -- Use your government contacts to book'em in NB. That's only four and a half hours away!

Brian Fies said...

Hey, look, it's my brain trust!

When it comes to buying plane tickets, lodging and foo-faw for a celebratory get-together spanning at least two countries, I think "rich" would be much more useful than "famous." Since neither is likely, please accept my long-distance appreciation and thanks.