Years ago, long before I considered becoming a designer in a museum, I made a fateful visit to the Freer|Sackler. In 1990, during my sophomore year at the University of Montana, I traveled with my dorm roommate George to DC for spring break. He was studying to be a scholar of Chinese Buddhism and made a special point of visiting the Freer and Sackler Galleries, which were his favorite museums on the Mall. As a Montana native, I didn’t have much firsthand exposure to Asian art or any non-Western art, for that matter. For me, it was an eye-opening experience.
That spring, there was an amazing exhibition on view at the Sackler, The Noble Path: Buddhist Art of South Asia and Tibet, that sparked my appreciation for Asian art. The works, on loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, featured rich oxblood-red and gold Tibetan thangkas and mandalas. The imagery was expressive, hyper-detailed, and exuberant. You could almost smell the yak-butter lamps burning nearby and imagine the sound of Tibetan monks chanting. The experience was transformative, and I was hooked.
Some fifteen years later, I was offered a rare opportunity to work as a graphic designer at the Freer|Sackler. I carried with me my love for Asian art born that afternoon on spring break. In 2010, I was reminded of that moment when we installed “The Tibetan Shrine from the Alice S. Kandell Collection” as part of the exhibition In the Realm of the Buddha. Every time I walked by that gallery, I’d stop and spend a few contemplative moments drinking in the atmosphere of the room, which contained hundreds of works of Buddhist art including sculptures, scrolls, and textiles. I’m looking forward to the reinstallation of the shrine in the Sackler in the coming years.
that picture full of statue that very awesome, looks so sacred, nice post