As a child, Palo Altan Jane Woodward dreamed of living in a museum. She spent the winter visiting her grandmother in Manhattan and imagined what it would be like to live in the Metropolitan Museum
Woodward grew up studying geology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Stanford University, and then at Stanford Business, but always maintained her love for the arts and the museum with her love of the desert, especially with her Western American love. She now teaches energy and environmental courses at Stanford and is a founding and managing partner of MAP Energy, a renewable energy and natural gas investment company, Stanford said.
Decades ago, she went to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and was struck by Tony Foster’s colorful waterfalls. Foster, a British watercolor and explorer, was on a trip to John Muyer Road to show off California’s highest seraphs.
Her connection to those works of art, her love for the artist’s work, led her to create the largest museums in pencil decades later and the only museum dedicated to the living artist in the world, The Foster.
Even though it is 14,000 square feet, it is easy to lose The Foster if you do not want it. Modified Ambulance Storage for Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, Museum at 940 Commercial St.
The exterior of the museum is covered with vines. It is an ideal outdoor venue for an institution that respects desert arts, and is home to a range of light-colored, non-natural light sources. Walk around the place and it is easy to lose time, absorbing more than 17 trips around the world by Foster’s bright and engaging plane operations.
Foster holds a permanent collection of the Foster Art and Desert Foundation, founded by the Woodward, and features two of these 17 Foster works, “Sanctuary” and “Exploration of Beauty.” Each “trip” represents the complete cost of the collected artwork. Admission is free.
Tony Foster is a unique artist for a variety of reasons, explained the museum’s co-directors Elin Howard and Anne Buckster during a recent visit to the museum. The artist from Cornwall carries art supplies from around the world using lightweight materials and a small box of paint, but always with a full color brush and – as a real Englishman – enough supplies of afternoon tea.
He pioneered new water-painting techniques, such as plastic velvet and colored pencils, in the most difficult environments, drawing genes at high altitudes during painting in the Himalayas, or coral reefs.
Christine Poole, director of Foster Art, Foster’s work is based on the tradition of artists such as JWW Turner, who highlight the cruelty and inhumanity of nature, and explorers such as Thomas Moran, George Kathleen, and William Henry Jackson.
“Its process requires a great deal of physical exertion and a great deal of patience in anticipation of the place, the weather and the time of day of cooperation,” she said.
Along with the paintings, one of the signatures is the so-called “souvenirs” – small notes, taken or made, highlighting the details of any area where Foster was. For example, there may be a study of leaf colors. Spring jungle paintings, or small bottles of water samples carved alongside a river.
The Sanctuary represents Foster’s 15th Journey to the Four Corners Southwest America. Exploring Beauty represents Foster’s 16th Journey, and asks the various wrestlers in science, exploration, writing, and the environment to choose the places they think are the most beautiful in the world. Then he went to those places and saw them from his own perspective.
After his first foray into the art of Tony Foster, Woodward worked hard to learn more. She went on to call on the museum to give her some details about the art. Finally, Foster learned that she was represented at the Montgomery Gallery in San Francisco. Over the years, she has become a staunch supporter of Foster’s work. Years later, Woodward Foster invited her to join her journey on the San Juan River.
While on the trip, Woodward began to think that there was a “market failure” that there was no art institution with enough space to display a complete “trip” or complete artwork on one of Foster’s trips.
“It was a very organic evolution to know that we needed a place if we really wanted to capture Tony’s travels and share them with the public. We just called it a museum in the last few years.” She said. The museum, Akla, serves as a resting place for other and larger museums to see what Foster’s trips look like in terms of total control. The Foundation works with other museums that want to showcase Foster’s work and provides contractual support through Howard and Baker’s common knowledge.
The museum When it opened in 2016, Woodward said, one of the most exciting things he heard from his friends and visitors to the museum was that the art reminded them of the places they had been to or inspired them to enter. In their own wilderness.
“I like Tony’s art because it’s beautiful to see, but I like to use it to talk about all these conversations,” she said. “I strongly believe that it is very important to reflect on the place and why it is important to wait.”
Howard and Buxter were calmer than expected as the plague affected museum operations.
Yes, Foster was closed for a long time, and it was very difficult to know if the term was rescheduled, but there are generally some benefits.
For starters, they say, because travel is limited, Foster himself is more than available for interviews and archives.
Foster, in the UK, was caught up in the “Lockbook” during the outbreak of the epidemic in the face of strict isolation. During that time, he will find new walkways and new things to study in his paintings. In time, Foster created some beautiful small works of art, including one of the 56-day value-added paintings he sells to support local and international non-profit organizations focused on the desert.
Regarding the travel restrictions of the epidemic, he said, “It made me study my backyard in depth, and I find great pleasure in studying small issues. The closer you look, the more you see!”
One lesson Foster plans to continue with is “Be patient and seek happiness where you are – even if you are in a small area.”
Returning to the Palo Alto Museum, Howard and Buxter say that not only is the museum reopening, but every booking place guarantees that the museum will be open for about an hour.
Foster’s next trip to the Green River has been rescheduled for this year, but there is a special exhibition at the Royal Cornell Museum called “Fragile Planet: Watercolor Journeys to Wild Places.”
In recent years, people familiar with Foster’s work say that they have become increasingly vocal in their opposition to climate change. According to Baxter, the work is based on the environmental changes he has seen in recent trips. He expressed shock.
“I have practiced my art for almost 40 years in the world’s great deserts – rainforests, deserts, valleys, arctic and tropical areas. No one can spend long hours in these places without worrying about their future,” he said. Email.
“While I was painting in the first rainforest, I heard chains weeping and huge trees falling to the ground. They’re coming in.
“I hope that when people practice my work, they will be strengthened to strengthen their desire to protect the planet’s ecosystem. Every time I am given a forum, I have made it clear.”
Go to thefoster.org for more information or to book a place.