 Welcome to the Longmont Museum, a center for culture in northern Colorado, where people of all ages explore history, experience art, and discover new ideas through dynamic programs, exhibitions, and events. I'm Justin Beach, manager of the Stuart Auditorium here at the Longmont Museum, and we are coming at you live and direct this evening from the museum's gallery to celebrate the opening of the museum's new exhibition, Enduring Impressions, Degas, Monet, Pizarro, and their printmaker, William Thorneley. This evening's virtual opening reception kicks off our Thursday nights at the museum series. Now through the end of April, we'll be offering free panels, lectures, conversations, and live performances every Thursday evening beginning at 7.30 p.m., streaming live on Facebook, LongmontPublicMedia.org, and local Comcast Cable Channel 8 and 880. I'd like to thank those who have made our programming possible, the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District, the Stuart Family Foundation, the Friends of the Longmont Museum, Museum Donors, Museum Members, and of course our media sponsor, KGNU Community Radio. There are a lot of people to thank for making this particular exhibition possible. Our extraordinary staff, Jared Thompson, our exhibition's curator in particular, for his usual hard work, his elegant exhibition design, and keen attention to detail. Drs. Morton and Tobiah Mower for so generously lending us the work from their marvelous collection, and of course our guest curator, Simon Zalkand. This gorgeous show is Simon's brainchild, and it's my honor to have the privilege of introducing him to you this evening. Simon is a highly revered museum professional who has spearheaded exhibitions at the Denver Art Museum, the Meisel Center for Arts and Culture, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, and the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, to name but a few. Simon was in fact mentored to the director of our museum, Kim Managé, who is unable to join us this evening and sends her regards. Simon and Kim have remained dear friends over the years, and they've worked on many projects together, in addition to this one, ranging from Alan Ginsberg's snapshot poetics, to no joke, the spirit of American comic books, to poisons, potions, and panaceas, medicinal and pharmacological botanic illustrations. Kim tells me that she finds Simon's analysis to be poignant and timely. He was thrilled to have yet another opportunity to work with him, and to bring his inimitable voice to Longmont. Ladies and gentlemen, it's my pleasure to introduce to you Simon Zalkand. Good evening. Am I on? Okay. Good evening. It's lovely to see such an enthusiastic and crowded opening with lots of appreciative gallery goers. You can tell I'm being a little funny or cynical. We live in strange times. I hope there's an audience that I'm speaking to, and if so, welcome. And at some point, art is meant to be experienced directly. And because of current conditions, Zoom is the best we can do for a lot of situations. I mean, I'm on Zoom for much of my day. But I hope that a time is coming soon when you will feel comfortable and able to actually come to the Longmont Museum and visit this extraordinary exhibition. I'd like to introduce it to you, but I'm not going to do anything overly art-critical or art-historical. We have a program in April where I'll be in discussion with Molly Medakovich from the Denver Art Museum, and she's a scholar and an art historian, and will delve into the more arcane and art-historical implications of this. The other thing I want to acknowledge is that my good friend and colleague, Kim Manajie, who's the director of the Longmont Museum, is unable to be here tonight with us, mostly out of really concerned for us. She wasn't feeling well, and that sort of raised a red flag. And she didn't want to potentially, you know, be a cause for any distress or infection. But Kim, I know you're watching, and I have more to say about you later. So most of what I want to say is anecdotal and acknowledgements, and will leave the art-historical and art-critical stuff for the other event. But ordinarily, you know, this gallery would be filled with live bodies and lively conversations. For now, this is the best we can do, and I hope that it approximates in some way the experience of seeing these works in person and in context. I have a lot of acknowledgements to make and people to recognize. I also have anecdotes that I hope will not only inform your experience of the exhibition, but intrigue and entertain you as well, because they're funny. I'd like you to know how I first encountered Drs. Morton and Tobiah Moer. It's an anecdote that actually does link to the Longmont Museum, although I didn't know it at the time. I'm the director of exhibitions at a gallery, which is a little obscure. It's a destination. It's called the Fulgeniti Gallery, and it's on the Anschutz campus. And I was thrilled to do an exhibition with a bolder artist named Terry Maker. And the exhibition was basically based on her work with pharmacological and medical detritus. So there was a lot of prescription pads and vials, empty vials of pills, and there were beautiful works, and at the same time, you know, a little creepy, but gorgeous. And I was in the gallery one day, and there was this man there who was looking at them very intently. And I thought I should be a good host and go and introduce myself and ask him what his response or interest in all this was. And I did, and it turned out he was the dean of the School of Pharmacy on the Anschutz Medical Campus. And he was very interested in this work for obvious reasons. And then just in the course of our chatting together, he happened to mention to me that his ex-in-laws, with whom he maintained a very affectionate and ongoing relationship, were art collectors. You know, and that's the point at which I roll my eyes into my cranium. Because in my 47 years of doing curatorial work, I can't tell you how many times I've been approached by people whose in-laws or parents or aunts and uncles are art collectors, and I need to go see them. And inevitably, I try to be responsive, and I do. But my experience is usually not that great. You know, I applaud people for acquiring and being interested in pictures. But usually I'm confronted with, you know, kind of sentimental and not particularly interesting things or things that compel me. And I've become expert of warming out of those situations and still being polite and having good manners. So when this guy told me his in-laws were art collectors, I did the eye roll into the cranium. But I did say, well, what do they collect? And he said, well, they collect things like Passaro, Monet, Degas, Mary Cassatt, then going into post-impressionism, Chagall, Picasso, etc. And I said, oh, really? Well, do you think you might ask them if they would mind giving me their contact information? Their names were, their names are, Drs. Morton and Tobiah Moer. And he said, no, not at all. Please, they'd welcome a phone call, I'm sure. And so I did call them. And they invited me over. And their easygoing hospitality and kind of like ordinariness was remarkable to me. They clearly had no inflated or exalted sense of themselves as important based on their collection and on pursuing the things that gave them pleasure, which was very refreshing. And I only had the vaguest idea of an exhibition I'd like to do with them. But they said, you know, look at the things and just sort of see what happens. See what gels for you. And it was amazing because I was in an apartment in Denver. And I was looking at things both on the wall and stacked against the walls that one would be more likely to encounter and say the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Louvre. These were world-class works by people whose art historical significance is, you know, is, you know, I mean, if you ask people who aren't, who aren't particularly oriented toward the visual arts as a main way of securing pleasure, intellectual and aesthetic, both. Most people say, well, I like the Impressionists. You know, maybe these days people would say, I like Andy Warhol, you know. But the Impressionists moved from being a group of outliers about whom there was tremendous ambivalence to being probably the best known and the best loved group of artists. And also, I think I feel safe to say that we can date the inception of modern art, of what we call modern art, to the Impressionists. So the Moors casually allowed me to go through all the works that proliferated in their home. I was a little overwhelmed. And as I was foraging through this, really, this treasure trove, I would occasionally come across and notice smaller, modest works. They looked like sketches. They were, in fact, lithographs by Degas, Monet and Pissarro, which, while they didn't pack the wow factor of the larger canvases and drawings, they were, to me, they were very riveting and beautiful in perhaps a more subtle way than the major paintings and drawings that the Moors also made available to me. I quickly noticed the lithographs, that's what they were, were signed by two people, suggesting that these were the result of a collaboration. The artist's signature, Degas, Monet and Pissarro, was always accompanied by the signature of someone named George William Thornley, with whom I was totally unfamiliar. And the evidence of both signatures implied to me that these were real collaborations. The artist's signature provided the imprimatur, the evidence of his claim to them as original works. And Thornley, well, who was George William Thornley? I had never heard of him. And at this point, the project turned into a kind of sleuthing detective story. Why hadn't I ever heard of George William Thornley? And Dr. Moer was able to provide me with basic facts about these collaborative efforts, but otherwise there was scant information available on the web about Thornley. In fact, when I did find something substantial, it was usually because he was an artist known primarily for painting traditional maritime and seascape paintings. And his work as a lithographer was kind of sidelined or a footnote. Anyway, the whole nail-biting narrative can be found in this lovely publication, which is both for sale, but I also, we're going to make sure they're distributed throughout the gallery, and that people can have a chance to read this. Really, what for me became a detective story, and I was the detective. So I'm thrilled to have played a part in the rediscovery of Thornley and his profound impact on the Impressionists. And while I can't say this for certain, I believe this exhibition is the first that I'm aware of to bring all these works together and to assess their impact on the progression of Impressionism. They are not a footnote. They are important works that invite us to intimately engage each artist's themes, concerns, and processes in a condensed and economical way. So I'm so grateful to doctors Morton and Tobiah Moher who welcomed me into their home and gave me access to their remarkable collections. I wasn't required to jump through hoops to win their trust and support. This is unique in my experience as a curator. I had no need to dazzle, court, or seduce them, or even take them out to dinner. So I'm so happy that this project also, and I wish you were here, this project brought me and Kim Managé, the director of the Longmont Museum, together again. Around 20 years ago, Kim wandered into my office. At least that's how I remember it. You know, maybe she called before. I was at that time director of an institution called the Sinker Gallery, which was affiliated with the Meisel Center for Arts and Culture. And immediately we became friends and she became a very valued and trusted assistant to me. And the first show we worked on was just a blast. It was called No Joke, the History of American Comics. And it was a lot of administrative work. We had fun together. And our relationship, both friendship and collegial, continued through today. And I think the Longmont Museum is really fortunate to have her at the helm. I also want to mention Jared Thomas, who is a consummate professional, and I've relaxed into trusting his instincts and decisions, as well as Justin Veitch, who has been so helpful to me. And so the elegance and coherence of this exhibition is really entirely there doing. It was very odd. Ordinarily, I would have been here placing the works and installing them. But Jared and I would get on Zoom and we'd kind of, you know, and I kind of relaxed. Once I saw what he was doing, I really relaxed into trusting his instincts. And it worked out beautifully. I hope you can come see this in person. So they all made the project flow beautifully. I hope that you'll be able to see the show in person. Zoom is great. And in many ways, it's the best that we can do right now. But there's no there's no substitute for a direct encounter with works of art. Many thanks to all of you who are out there. I don't know who or many there are. I'm thrilled that you opted to share this evening with us. We have more programming to come. And you know, who knows? Time may be coming very soon when we'll bump into each other in the gallery and can chat and talk about whatever might interest or compel you. Again, I'm so grateful to have had this opportunity. And thank you so much. Oh, right. So actually following my little chat, we'd like to introduce Morton and Tobiah Moore. They'll be speaking to us on on video or is it a Zoom connection video? And and they're delightful and articulate. And and I'm happy to have this connection with them and to introduce them to you. Thanks so much. Tobie really likes the French Impressionists. So we went heavily into French Impressionists. And well, I like them too, but you are the expert on French Impressionists. And I became interested in the interactions between the Impressionists. It was an interesting group, for example, you know, about a stay together for about four decades, but then broke apart because of the Dreyfus trial in France. And that just tore the group apart. Anyway, Sir William Thorneley was a printer who made lithographs and he was a good friend of Camille Pizarro. And Camille Pizarro brought him into the group. And he was considered so good that they allowed him to sign his name alongside theirs. So these are additions of Thorneley, Camille Pizarro's, Thorneley de Ga, Thorneley Monet, and the original additions, which we have, are original signatures. And you can get copies, of course, that were made later on, but they are not the original signatures. These are original signatures. And if you look at the lithographs, they give you insight into what the Impressionists were doing and what they thought, for example, there was a time when Monet became an amateur of Japanese art. And so Thorneley put chomp marks at the bottom of his lithographs, like the Japanese artists used to sign. We tend to look upon people who lived several hundred years ago as maybe savages, or at least not learned, not up to date like we are. And yet they had lives and they had knowledge and interactions between themselves that were very interesting and in an effort to try and understand that, I find that fascinating. Like, for example, we have a lot of Mary Cassatt. Mary Cassatt worked in pastels mainly. So did de Ga. It turns out that Mary Cassatt was a protege of de Ga. I find this just, you know, the fascination between the collaboration between the artists at that time. They collaborated much more than people do now. We say that de Ga was the one who did a lot of ballerinas and ballet dancers, but all of them did. Monet did de Ga, Matisse, and they all helped each other and were gave criticism to each other on how to do it, because it was a small group that was really on the outside. This wasn't the favored way of art in France at the time. The classical style was the thing. You know, the establishment in order to really make it. The Impressionist group persisted and finally became popular and then because of the Dreyfus trial, this went apart. We love to loan our art out for the public to see. If you keep it in a vault or never let anyone see it, the public doesn't benefit. So we see things in these pieces that we appreciate and which gives us pleasure and we like to do the same for the public. And being able to share them with others. That's what's important to us to me. I don't know about them, because I can only speak for myself. But it's important to share it. We usually have a lot people coming over to our apartment to look at our art and they say to us, why are you showing us this? I've never been so close to a Rembrandt or Remlord before. I said, because it's here and why should we be the only ones to enjoy it? We would like to see other people enjoy it too. I'm the Curator for Education at the Longmont Museum. Thanks so much for joining us. And my name is Jared Thompson. I'm Curator of Exhibitions at the Longmont Museum and I'm going to ask Ann a few questions. She used to work in a print shop. So Ann, you actually worked in a lithography shop. What was your role? Well, it was a pretty cool job. I worked there for about three years and I was an assistant. So it was kind of the lowest of the low. I do all the menial tasks. What kind of jobs did you as an assistant? Well, a lot of sponging of stones, a lot of cleaning, a lot of preparing of stones, a lot of soaking of paper. So what makes lithography unique? Well, I think lithography is really kind of a magical art form. It's so special because when you look at all the different kinds of printmaking there are, for instance, etching or intaglio printmaking, the process for that is that you lay down a layer of wax on top of a metal sheet and then you draw into the wax with a stylus or another sharp tool. But with lithography, you really get a sense of the artist's hand in the work because the artist draws directly onto the stone and then that stone becomes the image printed on the paper. So it's almost, you know, just like reproducing a drawing. It's very different. There's no tool in between the artist and the medium. And then on top of that, of course, they can approach it with a pencil, a crayon or even they can paint onto the stone. So there's a lot of ways to transfer an image onto the stone and establish it in the first place. It's just really special. So in your experience in the litho shop, why would an artist collaborate with a print maker? Well, there's a lot of reasons. I mean, first of all, collaboration is fun. But essentially, when it comes down to it, visual artists such as painters or sculptors, their medium is paint. It's very direct. When you get into printmaking, whether it's lithography or another process, there's a lot of technical expertise that you really need to be able to produce a finished work. And most visual artists don't have that skill set on their own. So they collaborate, they work together because it's the expertise of the print maker. And then the vision of the visual artists that sort of come together, they work in tandem kind of off of one another to build a final, final piece. So yeah, we actually have a really good print maker here in Boulder County and Bud Shark. And if you guys aren't familiar with him, definitely check it out. He does amazing stuff and his work with some really big name artists. I think it's Studios and Lions. Yeah, yep, just outside. What do you like best about this exhibition? Well, there's a lot of things I really like about this exhibition. I think that it's really special to see William Thornley's work with these three different artists to see a whole collection of prints, of lithographic prints together. You really get a sense of the daily life of the artist, of the space they lived in, of their process even. It's a little bit like getting a peek into an artist's sketchbook. And I think that's really special. Another thing that I think is super special about this exhibition and just lithography in general is that with sort of the evolution of printing, art became more accessible to more people. Most people couldn't afford a giant grand oil painting, but many more people could afford a lithograph because it's a reproduction. There's more than one typically. So it makes it just a more accessible and it's more for the people. I think that's special. So going back to your apprentice in the print shop, what were some things you enjoyed doing in the print shop and what were some of the jobs you did not enjoy? Well, you know, the whole process of how a print shop works is kind of a special thing. Typically, there's a master printer or someone whose shop it is like William Thornley. It would have been his print shop. And then there would be a whole handful of other people who worked for him, apprentices like I was, who are there to learn the tricks of the trade, to learn the process. And it takes years and years. The printmaker that I worked for, I remember him telling me that when he was training, they would blindfold him. And he had to learn how much ink to put on the stone by the sound and the feel of the roller over the stone. So just kind of, I think one of the things that's so special about lithography is that it takes so many people working together to create a finished work. And that's just, it's just so unique. Plus lots of variables, right? So you have to get everything right every time. So all your prints look similar. Yeah. And I think that that's, you know, that's how you become a master printer is that you've, you've gained the skill to be able to, from the artist drawing on the stone to then process it and then re-ink it, reproduce it over and over again. You can't, you can't have too much ink. You can't have not enough or that's a print that you have to throw away. So that is kind of a really amazing skill and a neat thing to be able to watch and observe and learn. Yeah, it must have been a really interesting job. It was super fun. So do you have any favorite pieces in the show? And why are they your favorites? That's such a good question. I do. There's, I mean, first of all, I love that it's just a show with so many lithographs in it. And again, that quality of being able to see the artist's hand in the work. But my actual favorite piece is the, the Pissarro painting, I think it's called the Cabin in the Woods. And I just love it so much because the, when you get up close to it, you can really see how luscious the paint is. It's almost like frosting. And it's so bright and colorful. And it has so much life and motion and light. And it really, you know, you can get close and you can look so close at all these little bits of color that make up the image, but you can't really see it until you then step back. So I think that that's, that's my favorite piece for that reason. But that's actually a similar reason that I really enjoy a lot of the lithographs, especially the, the angry waterscapes, the Monet Agree waterscapes. There's so much energy and so much motion and so much emotion in the landscape. And it really comes through with the marks and the composition. And I love that. Well, thanks for the insight on that. Yeah. Now we're going to show you guys a video done by the Museum of Modern Art. And it just kind of shows you the process of lithography and what it takes to make the print. This introduction to lithography will show the artist's drawing process, materials that are used on drawing a lithographic stone, the process of printing, and the details and subtlety that can be achieved in the printing process, as well as a close-up look at prints themselves. Lithography or stone printing is an intricate printmaking process that revolves around grease and water resisting one another. An artist will draw with a greasy material on a lithographic stone. Once we've established a drawing or grease on the stone, we chemically treat the stone with materials like gum arabic to establish the areas where water goes, rosin and talc to help us through what we call an etch, or it's basically to establish the drawing down inside the stone. Once the grease is pulled into the stone, we can replace the drawing material with any colored greasy ink that we would like. The basic drawing materials that we use from a historic standpoint are things like litho pencils, and it's a pencil when it's in this sort of format. So the lower the number, or the greasier the wax here, that material is. So if you want a fine hard line, you use a higher number because that's a harder material. Lithographic crayons are in this format. So the surface of a litho crayon is such that you can use it for rubbing, or for a fine line, and it can be shaped also to fit your needs. They come in varying sizes and hardnesses as well. The surface of a lithographic stone is a very seductive surface to draw in. It's responsive and it's also sculptural because the stone in and of itself is receptive to water. So if I dampen the stone, it absorbs the water. And it's also receptive to grease, which means it will suck the grease down in. It allows me to put drawing material down and then remove it with things like razor blades, an exacto knife, sandpaper. So it allows you to draw in a more sculptural way rather than having the limitations of a piece of paper. This is a lithographic stone with a drawing by artist Steve Johnson on it. It was a drawing done with a lithographic crayon directly on the surface of the stone. This stone is made from limestone. It is completely open as we call it, which means it's receptive to grease and water at this state. So if I were to put my thumbs on the surface of the stone, that would become image area because of the grease from my skin. So it's a fairly delicate drawing surface from that standpoint, but it's also a positive in the sense that every fine mark that you can put down with a greasy material will hold in that fidelity. So in this process, it's what's called a first etch. And right after that, we will remove the drawing material and apply printing ink to it, which is what's called proving the stone. So now the drawing material has a small amount of talc and rosin attached to it. And it's ready to be etched. So we first apply the gum Arabic to the stone. And this is to start to establish the non-image area of the stone. So what we're trying to make sure is that the whites of the stone stay that way, and they receive gum Arabic, which will help them receive water later on. Once the stone has begun to receive the gum into it, we can apply the acidified gum Arabic in this case, which is tapen. That acidification with tannic acid helps keep that gum Arabic permanently bonded to the stone. I'm also being very gentle at this point as to not scrub or disturb the drawing material that's on the stone. Once I've etched the stone, I'll remove some of that material and replace it with fresh gum Arabic. This is what we call cooling the stone down. It's basically reducing the quantity of acid on the surface of the stone so that when we buff in the gum Arabic into a very thin and even sheet, we don't run the risk of having too much acid remaining on the stone. We use cheesecloth to buff this in very evenly. Next, we'll be washing this drawing material out with lithotene. It's a greasy solvent, which is a refined turpentine made especially for lithography. The drawing material will be replaced with asphaltum, which has also been thinned with lithotene, to create a greasy, very ink receptive base for the ink on the roller to replace it with. At this point, your drawing will disappear. It's not actually gone, and what you can see is a residue or a ghost image as we call it there in the surface of the stone. That is where the stone has been converted to soap or oleomanganate of lime. Right now, when we buff the asphaltum down onto this, we're going to replace that drawing material, which is in effect grease sticking to grease. So it's the grease loving area of the stone or the oleophilic area of the stone, accepting new grease. When a stone has been etched properly, you'll be able to see a fairly clear ghost image on the surface of the stone. What will be happening next is that we are going to wet the surface of the stone. I will go over it with a wet towel and a dry towel. Kate will sponge that surface, and I will apply ink immediately to the stone, and that will bring up our image. In the beginning, we're not actually interested in transferring ink to paper. We're actually more interested in forcing ink into the stone so that it can start to fill up the greasy reservoir where it was. You can see only a very small amount of ink has actually been transferred because we're starting to push ink into the stone first. It's an average of four to six news prints for any given particular stone to come up to a full inking. When printing on a dampened sheet of paper, we can achieve a different tonal range based on the softness of that paper. What we want to do is match that movement and flow of the hand. What I'm looking for when I look at this is to see if it feels as if the hand has moved across that surface with a drawing material. If it has, and if it maintains that character, then I would consider that a good impression. Thank you so much. That was such a really amazing video. I love to watch that video because I think it gives such an organized and clear and structured picture of how a lithograph happens, how it's processed. He was super passionate about lithographs. You could definitely tell he came through. I have to say I also really love that duck image. I want one. I wonder if they auditioned it. Who might be? So, Jared, I want to talk to you about your experience a little bit now. So I've got some questions for you. Ready? All right. So what do you think is special about this exhibition? I think we're really fortunate as an institution to actually have this work in our galleries. We're very grateful to the Mowers for loaning us these works. It's a small piece of their amazing collection. It was really great working with Simon Zelkin developing this. He's got such a great deep knowledge of art history and contemporary art. It's so true. We collaborated with CSU in the printmaking department. So we worked with Johnny Plastini up there and he loaned us a bunch of objects related to lithography so our visitors can actually see the process and the tools they're used in making that. I'm so glad we were able to do that. Yeah. And I was an art major with a printmaking minor. So I really have appreciation for lithography because I've made prints myself and it just makes me appreciate what a master printmaker William Thorneley actually was in to see these works firsthand is just definitely a treat. Yeah. I mean, we're so lucky as well to be in a small community like Longmont and to have access to this work. Yeah, for sure. We don't have to to fly to Paris during COVID, for instance, to see it. We're lucky for that, I think. Yeah. So how is this exhibition different from other exhibitions that you've worked on and helped develop at the Longmont Museum? As you know, I've been here for quite a long time. So I've been involved with other 40 exhibitions. This one definitely is memorable. Just, you know, as Simon said, this is world-class art we're showing on our walls. And just to spend time with it and install it has just really been, you know, kind of a dream. And we're lucky the city of Longmont has been really supportive, you know, just to make this happen. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel like, too, that we have kind of a broad mission statement but allows us to do this variety of different kinds of things. Like maybe you would talk a little bit about this is a world-class art exhibition, but what are some of the other kinds of exhibitions that you've worked on here and the different groups of people that you've worked with to build them? It's varied. I get to work with all sorts of different people. Everyone is so passionate about what they do. Anywhere is from legal sculptures to low riders. You know, you name it, we've done it. We do have an exhibition coming up called Longmont 150 that's celebrating Longmont's 150th anniversary. And interestingly enough, it's the same time period, roughly, that these works were created so you can kind of see, you know, these are kind of a snapshot of what is going on in an artist's life. Yeah. And then you'll be able to see in the Longmont 150 exhibit what was happening in Longmont at the same time. Yeah, I think that's so fascinating, too, because like you said, you get this picture of what life was like in the late 1800s, you know, in Europe, around Paris and France. And then you can even, you don't even have to wait for Longmont 150, but you can go right across the gallery to Front Range Rising and get a snapshot of what life was like here in the West, in the United States, in the same time period. And the contrast is amazing. It's so different. Yep, I agree. Like just the life experience. Yeah. Wow, blows my mind. Well, considering that and how grateful we are that we don't have to travel to France right now to see an Impressionist exhibition, tell us a little bit about some of the challenges that you faced while developing and installing this exhibit during COVID. Well, you know, definitely challenges with the COVID world is, you know, everyone is experiencing these. So a lot of Zoom meetings, like Simon and I worked together online, phone calls. He wasn't actually able to come up for the install. So I would put the exhibit on the camera and show it to him and get his input on how that's going. COVID did affect our staff. So we were a little short staffed for this exhibition, but our amazing staff actually stepped up to the plate and helped out to make this show happen. And I'm very grateful for, you know, for everyone in the staff to kind of step out of the roles and actually, you know, step up to the plate and help us get this done. You included. Thanks. I actually feel so lucky. I mean, not only that I work here always, but especially in a time like this, that because we're, you know, friendly with each other, we like each other. We work well together. We really do step out and help each other out when things are tough. So it's been fun to be able to help you more in the gallery in the last couple of weeks. So thanks for that too. I really appreciate that. And I appreciate all the plexiglass barriers you've built during COVID. Right now, I know you guys at home can see that we're not wearing our masks. This is like the first time I haven't worn a mask and looked at my friend, even though he's on the other side of the glass. Anyway, let's get back to the topic here. Tell us about some of the themes in this exhibition. And what do you find interesting about those themes? Well, doing the layout and install, I got to spend a lot of time with these works. So I was kind of looking for patterns or common themes throughout, you know, each artist body of work that we're displaying. Pissarro, you know, we've got some really nice, they're not really portraits. It's more people kind of going about their everyday lives. And then he does kind of peasants working in the field, just doing their everyday job, you know, just making a living. There's some nice city scenes. So you know, I can see his take on, you know, city life, a few like of river scenes, boats. Dega, you know, a lot of figurative work, you know, 60% of his work was done, you know, with the dancers. Okay. We're really lucky in the show to have a charcoal sketch just to kind of see how he works. We also have, you know, lithographs and pastels. So you can kind of see how he translates the human form in those different media. That's really interesting to see. Monet, a lot of people think or just only know him from the water lilies or flower scenes. But as you mentioned before, the, you know, angry violent scene. Prints are really nice just to see how he translates that. And there's another portrait, portrait of Polly, which is another really nice one. The guy's got a really intense stare. He was, I guess he was just a fisherman that came into the inn that Monet was staying at, but just he's really good at capturing kind of a person's character. And it really comes through in that print. And doesn't Polly also appear in some paintings? I mean, not in this exhibit. He did an oil painting of the same guy. And it's got that same, you know, intense stare. Yeah, that look in the eyes. I think that's so neat, too, that you can see some of these, the themes throughout this exhibition are also reflected in other paintings and works that you might see elsewhere. I think that's really cool. And I love that you've organized it in that way so that things are sort of clustered together. And you can see a variety of different approaches to similar subject matter. I think that was, that was wise. Interesting. Okay, what was your favorite part of developing and installing this exhibition? It's just being able to work with these pieces up close and seeing them first hand and actually handling them, hanging on the wall, just spending a lot of time with them and just finding those themes and commonalities between them. Really fortunate. I really enjoyed working with CSU and Johnny Plastini in the print department. I went up there and learned a bunch of stuff from him. And it was great working with Simon, learned a lot from him. Nice. It sounds like you made a lot of really good connections with people and learned a lot from those interactions. That's cool. Isn't it great to have a job where you can do that? We're so lucky. Sometimes I can't believe I get paid for this. I know. Thank you, City of Longmont. All right, last question for you. Do you have a favorite work that's on display in this exhibition? I really like the portrait of Polly. That's probably one of my favorite lithographs in the show. The passaros, just his detail is amazing and his landscapes. And that's where lithography really comes through strong, where you can get that level of detail. Because before I installed it, I only saw pictures of these to actually see them in real life and just they're really beautiful. There's so much depth to anything and texture. I love that all of that really comes through in the lithographic approach. Yeah, you definitely have to see them in person. They don't really translate when you see photos of them. But to be honest, there's so many beautiful pieces in the show. They're all really enjoyable to look at. A little bit of something for everyone. Well, for those of you at home, if you would like to come visit, we welcome you to our galleries. We do have sort of limited visitation right now. So you'll have to reserve your tickets online. We are doing time tickets, but you can do that through our website. And Jared, thanks for chatting with me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you, Anne. You're welcome. And we're going to hand it over to Justin now. Thanks so much. For tuning in via Facebook, Longmont Public Media and local Comcast cable here in Longmont. It's been a great evening. You know, this has been a virtual opening reception, a COVID style opening reception for a really important show here in Longmont and in Colorado. What looks to be a first. Enduring impressions will be up as of tomorrow and available for you to come and take a look at it. There's a lot to see here and a lot to enjoy. It opens tomorrow, January 29th and runs through July 18th. So you have a lot of time to check it out, but that doesn't mean you should sleep on this. That means you should come and visit www.longmontmuseum.org and make your reservations in advance. Make sure that you get a chance to see this, but we expect it to be very popular. I know there are tickets available for tomorrow and this weekend if you're interested. I want to tune you into a program that we have coming up that Simon mentioned on April 15th. It's Simon will be back for a conversation with Molly Medikovic from the Denver Art Museum. They'll be discussing painters and print makers in light of this current exhibition. It should be a really great program. I'm really looking forward to that. And that again will be offered as part of our Thursday nights at the Museum Series. Every Thursday at 7.30 p.m. we have all kinds of things happening. In fact, next week we have a special birthday program celebrating the sesquicentennial here in Longmont. That's right, Longmont as of February 2nd will be officially 150 years old and we're going to be celebrating that next Thursday, February 4th. I want to thank everyone who's made this evening possible and I particularly want to thank John Boggs, who's our pianist this evening. He's been offering us up a sort of sampling of classic impressionist composers and I thought we'd close things out with a little more music. John, would you like to take it away?