It's Norman Rockwell's birthday—America and my Dad's favorite illustrator would have been 121 years old! Join us, starting at 1:30 p.m. today, at Norman Rockwell Museum for cake and a look at highlights from each decade of the artist's career.
If you can't make it to Stockbridge, enjoy this articleI was asked to write for biography.com (cool website), sharing interesting facts about some of the artist's most iconic works.
As if that wasn't enough, last month I spoke at length about Rockwell's career and the Museum's 2015 season on WGBY's Connecting Point. My friends at the Springfield, Massachusetts PBS affiliate interviewed me on a bone-chilling winter afternoon at nearby Naumkeag (the beautiful 19th century estate, formerly owned by lawyer Joseph Choate). Here's the segment:
The Museum and I certainly appreciate all the great exposure— so here's to you, Norman!
There's a big old snowstorm brewing in the Northeast... called Nemo. Heh heh, I know. What harm can a storm named after a lil' animated fish do? Eh, maybe enough... I'm looking out our living room window to see my car submerged in a mountain of white... wow.
I decided not to risk traveling out to the Berkshires today, so I worked from home. It was a productive day... actually, it's been a productive week. We've been getting quite a bit of media attention at the Museum following the CBS Sunday Morning and Fox News segments. Yesterday I spent much of the morning battling a killer tripod, as I set out to photograph the bomber jacket worn by the figure in Norman Rockwell's painting, Freedom of Speech. Yeah, the Museum actually owns the original jacket worn by model Carl Hess, and it caught the attention of one of the Boston newspapers working on a story about fashion designer Michael Bastian, who has just debuted a Norman Rockwell line (I kid you not). It's sort of an all-American, rural/preppy look, which harkens back to the look of many of the paintings Rockwell created during the 1940s/1950s. Funny how the media catches on to these thing... it reminds me how Rockwell still continues to find relevance after all these years . We'll see if the paper uses my photo, but it was a cool excuse to try some more elaborate photography (with help from our curatorial department).
Speaking of the Museum, I finally had a chance to watch the segment on our Alex Ross exhibition, which aired this past week on WGBY-TV's Connecting Point. I was pleased with how my interview came off, and they even used quite a bit of my exhibition video during the piece. Big thanks to producer Tony Dunne, who seemed to share my same level of enthusiasm for the comic book subject matter. You can view the whole show now on the station's website (the segment starts at 18:13):
Recreating "The Runaway." Photo courtesy Owlery. All rights reserved.
As if that's not enough... tomorrow, Saturday, February 9, marks the debut of the TV Tokyo show they are running on Norman Rockwell, which was filmed at the Museum last December. The show, Great Masters of Artlooks at Rockwell's career, and includes an interview conducted with yours truly, as well as some recreations of the artist's best-known work (my nephew portrays Rockwell's The Runaway). I'm dying to see it... we'll be "big in Japan," I have no doubt! The episode starts at 10 p.m. (something like 8 a.m. here).
Finally, I also learned today that WEXT Radio will be re-airing my Chrysalis Dreams: 30 Years of A-ha tribute show on Monday, February 18, starting at 6 p.m. The response to last month's broadcast was literally overwhelming (locally and nationally), with the station's online stream getting overloaded by all the listeners tuning in. Hopefully this will give those who were shut out a second chance to hear the show.
Hmm... who knew? It's like a blizzard of a-ha moments today...
