Tales from The Social Club: Artistic Storytelling
Meeting Date and Time: Tuesday, August 20, 2024 from 5 PM to 7 PM
Meeting Locations: Museum of Arts and Design, 2 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10019, and Fresh & Co., 200 W 57th St., New York, NY 10019
Website Links: Museum of Arts and Design, and Fresh and Co.
For this event, we met at the Museum of Arts and Design right on Columbus Circle in the shadow of a famous statue of Christopher Columbus. On this day, we had gorgeous sunny weather with temperatures in lows 70s degrees Fahrenheit and low humidity. Considering this summer in NYC has had its fair share of hot and humid days, not mention a lot of rain, this weather pattern was a breath of fresh air.
Images from Left to Right: Columbus Statue, Exterior of Museum, and Museum Entrance
This museum was unique for a number of reasons. For one, there were not a lot of people in the museum. Also, the museum was quiet (it did not have loud music and/or noise in the background).
The quietness was important because it allowed for reflection on the story the exhibits at the museum told. The The exhibition We Are Each Other told the important story of our past history with racism while also portraying an optimistic vision of the future. The artist is Sonya Clark, who you can read about more below.
Sonya Clark We Are Each Other Exhibition Description
One piece of interesting work I observed was, Monumental Cloth, The Flag That We Should Know, which is a replica of the Confederate flag of truce. This flag was used by Robert E. Lee at the end of The Civil War to come to agreement on surrender terms with Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia on April 9, 1965. You can read more about the Truce Flag in the description below. The artist makes the exhibit interactive and educational by providing the looms below which are used by museum guests at designated times (not when we were there) to create replica truce flags with the help of the gallery facilitator.
Images from Left to Right: Description of Truce Flag, Truce Flag, and Looms
What I was able to create when I was there was my own flag using black paper and chalk.
The next display I saw was the Confederate Battle Flag being unraveled. The unraveling is a call to action from Sonya Clark to rid our culture of racism and white supremacy.
Confederate Battle Flag Being Unraveled
The wall of words below are products that have had the Confederate Battle Flag on them.
List of a Few Hundred Products Emblazoned with the Confederate Battle Flag
The next work highlighting issues with racism and the Confederacy is what I least expected: the red color on the wall. Yes, you read the correctly, the red color on the wall. Benjamin Moore paint had named one of their colors Confederate Red. Only after a lawsuit was filed did they rename their color to Patriot Red. The renaming occurred relatively recently too: in the year 2014.
Given that the museum closed at 6 PM, we only had one hour to view the exhibits at the museum but we did see them all and it was a productive hour. I found the We Are Each Other exhibit interesting because it provided a unique and interactive look into our complex history with racism.
After leaving the museum, we took a nice walk to our location that we had dinner: a grab and go place called Fresh & Co. I ordered seltzer, and a sausage and egg sandwich (which was tasty). As a group, a number of conservation topics were discussed. Among them were past and upcoming vacations. One of our members recently got back from a vacation in London. I also discussed my upcoming vacation to Old Orchard Beach, Maine. I recently discussed that in the recent Olympic Games in Paris, Rai Benjamin, won gold metals in the Men's 4x400m Relay and Men's 400m Hurdles. This was notable for me in that he was born in Mount Vernon, NY which is the city that I currently live in. We also discussed the Democratic National Convention, which was occurring at the time. I also discussed with a couple other members plans we made to go to an upcoming Yankees game. I will be writing a blog entry on that soon.
