UCLA's Fowler Museum

I returned to the Fowler museum on Thursday.  I enjoy the walk around the campus and trying to remember what it was like to be a Freshman at Iowa State University nearly 50 years ago.  The energy of the students is exciting and it us fun when students who are passing out fliers about their student organizations' activities hand one to me....the big old man roaming through the campus...and seem to include me as they recruit people to come to their activities.

The Fowler exhibits include their silver collection and a permanent array of artifacts from cultures around the world.  They challenge me to approach these treasures with the same excitement as I approach a Renoir and a Van Gogh painting.

The following is a Barkcloth painting from New Guinea.  Their exhibit also included Barkcloth paintings from Central Aftrica. The program guide says that Second Skins juxtaposes two separate traditions of fabricating vibrantly graphic clothing from the inner bark of trees:  one shared by diverse peoples who live in and around the Ituri rainforest in the Congo andthe other produced by the Omie of Paupau New Guinea in the South Pacific.  The patterning on the cloth was originally linked to forms of body decoration. " As wrap-around loincloths or skirts, the barkcloths become second, similiarly decorated 'skins'."

The above painting tells a story of the Lost Boy and Ninivo, the Bird of Paradise of Mt. Omie, 2010.