THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 11, 1996 TAG: 9604110528
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 116 lines
ART THAT toasts some of America's great moments is riding the rails this year, from Hamlet, N.C., to Owosso, Mich.
The next whistle-stop is Norfolk's Ghent neighborhood, where ``Artrain: America's Museum in Motion'' will be stationed today through Sunday.
No tickets are needed to board. Just park your car at the Norfolk Southern lot and climb into one of the old Pullman passenger cars that have been converted into galleries.
Inside, visitors will see 34 artworks, mostly fine art prints by well-known artists representing a diverse heritage. Guests will learn about the artists, their art styles and the subjects of their art. There will even be live artists on board, talking to visitors as they make clay sculptures.
`` `Artrain' introduces people to the arts who may not have those opportunities in their own communities,'' said Debra Polich, Artrain's executive director.
Train lovers will like it, too. The three gallery cars are converted passenger cars dating from 1924, 1930 and 1950. The studio car, housing the working artists, was built in 1946 as a baggage car; it once was used by the Ice Capades to carry costumes and props.
The theme of Artrain's latest traveling exhibition is ``Art in Celebration!'' The exhibit opened March 21 in Washington, D.C., and will tour the country into 1998.
Norfolk is the third stop. And, because Norfolk-based Norfolk Southern Corp. is the 1996 rail sponsor for Artrain, the nonprofit museum is not charging the city its usual community fee of $3,000 to $6,000, Polich said.
The show was pulled together from a collection created by the Smithsonian Associates, the outreach and educational arm of the Smithsonian Institution. Since 1972, the Associates have commissioned art to commemorate various major events, said Artrain publicist Ellen Rambo.
Initially, the commissions were related to major happenings at the Smithsonian, such as the opening of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in 1974, Rambo said.
In honor of the Hirshhorn, Pop artist Robert Indiana created a Pop-styled icon image in silkscreen and Kenneth Noland made an offset lithograph after one of his circle-within-a-circle ``target paintings.''
Lowell Nesbitt, a New York artist who once won best-in-show at the Virginia Beach Boardwalk Art Show, was well-known from the 1970s for his realistic flower paintings. Here, his 11-color lithograph ``History of Flight'' (1976) presents flight images through the years, from the fall of Icarus in Greek mythology to Moon travel.
Also for the Air and Space Museum, the Associates issued an offset lithograph - i.e., reproduction - of Georgia O'Keeffe's 1959 painting ``Blue A.''
Then the scope broadened to include events of broader significance, such as the ending of the Persian Gulf War. Crafting an image for that moment was Mindy Weisel, a Washington, D.C., painter who was in Israel during the war.
Weisel's 1991 abstract silkscreen print, ``Flowers for a Country,'' has a child's playful looseness and festive palette meant to suggest celebration and hope.
Luis Cruz Azaceta - a Cuban painter now living in New Orleans - is represented with a silkscreen print, ``Fragile Crossing'' (1992). The image of a single man in a small boat on choppy seas honors Columbus' great voyage, as well as the modern boat people who risk so much for a chance at a better life.
Other artists in ``Art in Celebration!'' include the great African-American painter Jacob Lawrence, famed expressionist Willem de Kooning, New York sculptor Nancy Graves and Seattle glass artist Dale Chihuly.
However well-known these artists may be, the art actually is the backdrop for an educational program.
``We're introducing the basic concepts of visual arts,'' Polich said. The educational aspect is important, she said, because so many schools have lost funding for arts programs.
She believes art is more than a luxury. ``The creative process has been proven over and over to be beneficial to an individual's ability to think creatively and to problem solve. And it's good for their self-esteem.''
Passenger car one - or gallery one - explores the fundamentals of art, she said. For a Sam Gilliam silkscreen inspired by Ravel's music, that piece of music is played and Gilliam's resulting abstract image discussed.
In gallery two, printmaking processes are described and explained. The third gallery focuses on the artists and how they take a commissioned subject and come up with a finished artwork.
Some places have been transformed after a visit from the Artrain, Polich said.
In 1972, the rolling gallery hit the brakes in Ypsilanti, Mich. To visit Artrain, citizens there had to venture into the rundown Depot Town neighborhood. Nobody liked to go there, and stores were mostly empty.
But it takes a lot of local volunteers to host an Artrain stop. And after Artrain left, the Ypsilanti volunteers had bonded. They decided to take on Depot Town as a project.
Two decades later, Depot Town remains a vital section of town, bustling with restaurants and shops, Polich said. Artrain will be making its seventh visit to Ypsilanti in August.
Meanwhile, Norfolk officials hope guests will pass through the Artrain and emerge anew - reborn as devout gallery-goers who may become regular visitors to the Chrysler Museum of Art, the d'Art Center and other Norfolk arts centers. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
VICKI CRONIS/The Virginian-Pilot
ABOVE: In the ``Art in Celebration!'' exhibit, visitors will see 34
artworks and meet artists on board.
Graphic
ALL ABOARD
What: Artrain, an art exhibit in train cars
Where: Redgate Avenue Station, 2200 Redgate Ave., Norfolk
When: Noon to 7 p.m. today and Friday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday
and Sunday
How much: Free admission and parking
Call: 664-4330
Directions: From Hampton Boulevard in Ghent, head west on Redgate
Avenue for 1.1 mile. Look for the Artrain signs.
by CNB