Springfield Regional Arts Council

Arts Adventurers Bound for Botanical Delights

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Springfield mosaic artist Christine Schilling will join the Springfield Regional Arts Council’s May 24th Arts Adventure to the Missouri Botanical Gardens and will give a tour of the Gardens' featured exhibit of some 40 monumental mosaic sculptures by the late Niki de Saint Phalle. Created in rainbow colors and with a variety of materials, some stand18-feet tall and others weigh over a ton. Niki de Saint Phalle, a prolific self-taught artist influenced by the Spanish artist Gaudi, was known in the ‘60s for her oversized female figures called Nanas that became a symbol of female empowerment and were referred to by many as the “heralds of a new Matriarchal Age”.

De Saint Phalle, the only female member of Europe's New Realist Art movement, a contemporary of American Pop Art, collaborated with Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns and first gained fame for her "shooting paintings" which she created by firing a 22-caliber rifle at cans of paint mounted onto canvases. Born in Paris, educated in New York, and a world traveler, she spent the last 20 years of her life creating a gigantic sculpture park in Tuscany called the Tarot Garden.

On the trip up to ST. Louis, the group will enjoy an en-route lecture by William Bowman, an associate of the Arts Council who is familiar with the history of the Gardens and its incredible variety of flora and fauna. A dutch-treat lunch will be taken by the group in the Gardens’ Sassafras Café. After strolling the lush Botanical Gardens, exploring Buckminster Fuller’s climatron filled with exotic tropicals and desert plants, and browsing the large collection of plant specimens in the gift shop, adventurers will enjoy Champagne and chocolates followed by a dutch-treat dinner stop at Sybill's Restaurant in St. James. Coffee and muffins will be served at the Arts Council offices in the Creamery Arts Center at 6:30AM and the group will depart in a 15-passenger van promptly at 7:00AM with a 9:30PM return to the Creamery. Cost is $80/person.

Other Arts Adventures lined up and open for reservations are: June 21 – OKC Museum’s “Roman Art Of The Louvre”; July 19 – Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (Kansas City) AND the Liberty Memorial (Overland Park); Aug. 16 – Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa; Sept. 27 – Sprint Center and Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; Oct. 25 – Gilcrease Museum of Art, Tulsa.

Call the Arts Council for reservations to the May 24 adventure or to any others, 417-862-ARTS(2787). For further details, go to www.SpringfieldArts.org