Staff Pick: Glenna Barlow
"Hi! I’m Glenna Barlow, CMA curator of education. I develop tour scripts for adults and school groups, train teachers, design programs for families, and more — my goal is to get folks to look at art in a new way and empower people to make their own interpretations. I’ve been here at the CMA for more than a decade and have led countless groups through the galleries, which means I’ve been fortunate enough to hear so many of the wonderful insights that y’all share with us.
"As a lover of abstraction, Sam Gilliam has always been a favorite artist of mine — even more so now that I’ve studied his lesser-known work as a printmaker. His spirit of exploration and innovation are evident in many of the techniques you can see in these prints, like the raking lines in this one. Visitors have likened these line groupings to topographical maps, rows for planting crops, or rippling water. In this case, we know he was looking at a painting from about a century earlier — his source material was Frederic Edwin Church’s epic painting Niagara (1857).
"Visitors seem to agree that this piece has a sense of movement, particularly the way the dynamism of the wavy lines seems to capture rushing water. Gilliam’s other inspiration here was a more local source — Great Falls on the Potomac, just outside D.C. where he lived. I grew up outside D.C. too, so it’s a place I fondly remember visiting. I love that he’s given us a vibrant interpretation of both a historic art reference and the majesty of a natural wonder. The question that always comes up is why the yellow square? It stands out, both in its jarring color and geometric form. Some have suggested it’s meant to represent the many rocks in the waterfalls. Others have said it provides contrast or a place to rest your eye from the busyness of the surrounding image. But my favorite was from a visitor with low vision who, after hearing a description, said it was perhaps the brilliant sun reflecting off the water."
