Celebrate Hallie Ford Museum of Art at 20

Bike Reflectors!
Detail of "Portals Through Time" - Hallie Ford Museum of Art

There are many reasons to love Willamette's Hallie Ford Museum of Art. It's one of Salem's finest things.

Much more narrowly here, it also has what might be the highest possible expression of the bike reflector, elevated into multivalent signs and symbols and art.

Large 3-page feature

The museum is also perfectly sized. Though staff and artists may wish they had more room, one of the things that is great about it for the public is that it's small enough you don't get fatigued and can engage all the art as deeply as you please. By international museum standards it's a dinky thing, but for ordinary humans who may not already be attached to art, it's a perfect serving size. The virtues of this modesty may not be appreciated enough!

And if it leaves you a little hungry, well isn't that better than feeling overstuffed?

They're celebrating 20 years today and admission is free all this week. Check it out!

via Twitter, by Ron Cooper

Just between the interests here in climate disruption, urban form, local history, and bicycles, there have been many fruitful shows over the years. Here are posts on a few favorites:

• "Environmental Art at Willamette's Hallie Ford Museum" (2010)
• "Hallie Ford offers Highway to Hell with an Urban take on Dante" (2010)
• (not at Hallie Ford, but a sequel, "From Hell to Heaven: Sandow Birk's Highways and Byways in Paradise" [2011])
• "Dumpster Diving at the Speed of Bike at Hallie Ford" (2011)
• "Constance Fowler Show at Hallie Ford Offers Quiet Respite from Heat and Noise this Weekend" (2013)
• "Apotheosis of the Bike Reflector: Primal Op at Hallie Ford" (2014)
• "Show on Photo-Secessionist Myra Albert Wiggins Opens this Weekend" (2015)
• "Flashback: Roger Shimomura's 2015 Show at Hallie Ford was too Timely" (2016)

Kara Walker, detail of "Harper’s Pictorial History
of the Civil War (Annotated):
Bank’s Army Leaving Simmsport," 2005
(in the current show on Social Justice)

The current shows also look very interesting:

• "Witness: Themes of Social Justice in Contemporary Printmaking and Photography from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation"
• "Strength and Dignity: Images of the Worker from the Permanent Collection"

Post's Carnegie Library (1912), Belluschi's YWCA (1954),
and Belluschi/Doyle Pacific Telephone and Telegraph (1930)

The museum is also located on a perfect block face, with four buildings from different eras, harmoniously proportioned but each very different.

You should check it out this week!