Giants of the Alaskan Coast

Museum Practicum: Objective Blog: Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University 

Oktavia LaBarge, December 5, 2013

Title: Giants of the Alaskan Coast: Kodiak Brown Bear

Year: 1930

Material: Not available 

Creator: Academy of Natural Sciences

Collection: Collected on Academy expedition by Harry Whitney, Academy Trustee, Gift of Members of the Academy

This is a diorama of a Kodiak brown bear from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University in the North American Hall.  The Kodiak brown bear is a subgroup of the grizzly bear.  These bears can be found in Alaska and parts of Northern Canada.  Interestingly, they have been seen as far south as Mexico and as far west as the Sierra Mountains.  The Kodiak brown bears are the largest bears in the world.  A male Kodiak brown bear can weigh up to 1,500 pounds!  

Typically, visitors of the museum would not be able to see a Kodiak brown bear in person.  Many natural science museums create dioramas to allow visitors to see different and exotic animals first hand.  The animals in the dioramas are real animals that are stuffed and mounted in a representation of their natural habitat.  At the Academy of Natural Sciences, the painted background behind the animals in the dioramas are artistic renderings of the actual location of the animals.  In the past, many of the animals at the zoo were poorly kept, so people could come to a natural science museum and see a realistic version of different healthy animals.  

This diorama was created in 1930 in an expedition by Harry Whitney.  Considering the time period this diorama was created, the animals were probably intentionally hunted to be used at the museum.  In the past, laws were a lot more lenient when it came to hunting animals.  The museum probably wanted to create a diorama about these bears and led an expedition to do so.

When a visitor enters the North American Hall at the Academy of Natural Sciences, they are surrounded by a hallway of different dioramas.  The dioramas line the walls of the hall and animal and bird noises play softly in the background.  The animal and bird noises are part of a composition called, “Unfrozen in Time: The Collective Voices of North American Hall.” The combination of noises and different animals from similar locations in the hall creates a sense of being in the wilderness as well as a multi-sensory experience.

  In the Kodiak brown bear diorama, there are three bears, two parents and their cub.  The mother is standing on her

hind legs with the cub next to her, while the father is on the opposite side of the display.  The background landscape is meant to represent either Alaska or Northern Canada where these bears are typically found. The foreground seems to resemble a fall day in the woods.  All of trees are missing their leaves and the ground is made up of mud and pine needles. 

The accompanying label tells the visitor information about the Kodiak brown bear, such as, what they eat and where they are located.  The label also mentions that the bears do not attack humans unless they feel threatened or have been injured. I believe that many children would probably want to know if the bears attack people because of their large size, so it was a good idea to include this on the label.  The label also has a map of North America with a white outline revealing where the Kodiak bears are typically found.  This allows visual learners a better understanding of their location.  On the bottom corner of the label is a “Kids’ Quiz” with a question relating to the bears.  This allows every age group as well as different learners to have their own experience with the bears. 

If someone was interested in learning more about the Kodiak brown bear, then they might consider researching bears.  The Academy of Natural Sciences offers a teacher’s guide for pre-kindergarteners to 2nd graders, which examines the different types of bears and their abilities to adapt to different habitats.  This would be interesting way for children to learn about different types of bears.

Someone who might not be interested in this object would be someone who dislikes dioramas.  Many people believe that dioramas are outdated.  This is because they often display animals in an aggressive act, which creates false ideas about the animal.  For example, on the second floor of the Academy of Natural Sciences in the North American Hall there is a diorama of a polar bear with its claw on a seal and blood around the head of the seal.  This may lead visitors to believe that all polar bears are constantly on a bloody attack, which may not be the case. Someone else who might not be interested in the Kodiak brown bear diorama may be an animal activist. They may believe that the dioramas represent cruelty to animals and become very upset by the way the museum collected the animals for the dioramas.

To further engage viewers with the Kodiak brown bear the museum could consider hosting an event about bears.  During this event, they could create short tours about the different types of bears that they have in their diorama collection.  This would allow visitors to learn about similarities and differences about bears.  They could also have different activities about bears.  For example, they could have a coloring activity to color in a bear picture.  The museum could also host an after hours event with bedtime stories about bears.  Children could come dressed in their pajamas and the museum could read Goldilocks and The Three Bears and Winnie the Pooh in front of the different bear dioramas. After the reading, children could compare the fictional bears to the bears in the dioramas.

My bearfriend, Noah and I as goldilocks and a bear!

"I paint life, and life is not always beautiful" - Ellen Powell Tiberino

Museum Practicum: Objective Blog, The African American Museum in Philadelphia 

Oktavia LaBarge, November 20, 2013

Title: The Listeners

Year: Unknown

Material: Pen ink on paper

Creator: Ellen Powell Tiberino

Collection: Unknown

This is a work of art titled, The Listeners, created by Ellen Powell Tiberino.  This work of art is from the African American Museum in Philadelphia in a changing exhibition space, which focuses on the artwork of the Tiberino family and their friends.  The Tiberino family are a family of artists from the Philadelphia area.  Ellen Powell Tiberino attended the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts and worked to express her own self-identity, death, alienation, as well as the African American and human experience.

This work by Ellen Powell Tiberino is important to artists working in Philadelphia, as well as, African American women.  Her work addresses difficult issues that many people must face in their life.  Tiberino died in 1992 after battling cancer for fourteen years. While battling cancer, she continued to create artwork.  After her passing, the Ellen Powell

Art during her sickness

Tiberino Memorial Museum of Contemporary American Art was created in West Philadelphia. 

This object is on display in the African American Museum in, “The Unflinching Eye: Works of the Tiberino Family Circle,” exhibition.  For the family it was like a memorial for Ellen Powell Tiberino.  She had a show at the African American Museum when they first opened in 1976.  The entire Tiberino family is made up of different types of artists.  The exhibition reveals the progression of the family as artists as well as their friends and mentors.  The art exhibited in the gallery is made up of a variety of mediums and themes.  Yet, for the African American Museum, this exhibition exemplifies the African American experience in Philadelphia over the past fifty years.  It is not stated where The Listeners work is from, yet one can only assume it is from the Tiberino’s museum.  

To enter “The Unflinching Eye: Works of the Tiberino Family Circle,” visitors must ascend up four different ramps to each the gallery floor.  On the way up the ramps, the visitor is confronted with two different works by the Tiberino family

One of the works on the ramp

members. Having visitors see these two works, before entering the gallery, entices them to walk to see more. Once they have reached the top of the ramp a quote is projected on one wall, while the adjacent wall has a slide show of images from the Tiberino house. Next to the quote, is a label which describes the ideas of the space and the Tiberino space.  Although, there is no descriptive labels next to many of the objects in the gallery space, many of the works speak for themselves.

As one continues to walk inside the space, there is a doorway to the rest of the gallery.  On the wall of the doorway is the work, The Listeners.  The work reveals the artistic ideas of Ellen Powell Tiberino, with her short brush strokes and thick layers of paint.  What drew me to this image are the vibrance of colors that are used throughout the image.  There are six women depicted in the work, yet their faces almost blend into the background.  When one considers depicting skin tones in color, it is almost impossible to only use one color.  This takes this idea to the other side of the spectrum, where the faces have a spectrum of all of the colors on the rainbow.  

Although, The Listeners piece was separated by being placed outside of the gallery space, her style is evident.  As a visitor continues into the gallery space, the work of Ellen Powell Tiberino is easy to recognize due to her use of short brush, pen, and pencil strokes. It was amazing to be able to see how she was able to depict complicated features of people, such as, curly hair, with a simplified stroke. However, the work is not laid out as a timeline.  In the presentation of her work, the work that she was creating during her battle with cancer is placed in the center.  This was somewhat confusing to understanding her work as a progression over time. 

Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci

If one would like to learn more about the Ellen Powell Tiberino or the Tiberino family, they may consider visiting The Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial Museum or visiting the exhibition at the African American Museum.  In addition, they may consider researching African American female artists.  Often, in art history, only the “geniuses” are remembered, such as Pablo Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci.  If one were to research African American female artists they would be surprised to learn about the variety of artists who are all working to address similar and different themes.  

Someone who might not be interested in The Listener would be someone who is not interested in the abstraction.  Although Ellen Powell Tiberino does an excellent job presenting realism in art, The Listener, is a more abstract image.  They would probably not understand why Tiberino incorporated such a large number of colors into the depictions of people.  In addition, someone who is not interested in learning about the African American experience through art would probably not enjoy this museum, let alone, the gallery.

To further engage visitors with this object, I would move it to a more prevalent location in the gallery.  Currently, it is placed next to a doorway and at a separate exit to the gallery, causing many visitors to walk past the work.  The African American Museum may also consider rearranging the work by Ellen Powell Tiberino in order to create a precise timeline of events. In addition, the museum could invite the Tiberino family to interpret this specific piece of work, since currently there is no description of the work.