Reconstruct: Filling in the Missing Pieces

The Jinks Room mural segments in the Fisher Museum’s collection are only six of the original nine that made up the cycle. The three other segments have remained with the family that donated the segments to USC. Lucky for me some of those mural segments are still in the area.

I was put in touch with Mrs. Mary Regis, the daughter of Lowry B. McCaslin the original donor of the Jinks Room murals to the Fisher Museum. Mrs. Regis is conveniently located in Pasadena, just a short trip north from USC. Never having visited a museum donor before, I was feeling nervous about making a good impression on her. It turns out there was no reason to be nervous; Mrs. Regis invited me very warmly into her home and spoke with me enthusiastically about Anoakia and the Jinks Room.

There on the wall of Mrs. Regis’s sitting room were two Jinks Room segments. One had a single figure of a sinister-looking jester. The other had a jester, a leprechaun and a fairy. This segment was fascinating because the cover for the lightswitches of the room was still attached to it—a reminder that these mural segments were once in a functional room of an estate. And low and behold along with the switch cover, Mrs. Regis also had original light fixtures from the Jinks Room, which were displayed alongside the mural segments.

It turns out that Maynard Dixon not only painted the murals in the Jinks Room (as well as a mural cycle feature Native Americans now in the California State Library), but also designed light fixtures for this room and throughout the entire Anoakia estate! Mrs. Regis even had a book of Dixon’s original designs for the fixtures with directions for fabricated by Tiffany and Co. Mrs. Regis said Dixon even designed doorknobs for the Jinks Room that had little jester heads on them!


Something that Mrs. Regis did not have in her house was the last mural segment. This segment is with Mrs. Regis’s sister. Luckily the museum had photos of this last segment on file so that we could develop a silhouette of this segment.

Going through the museum’s files on the Jinks Room I found an archive photograph of the last mural segment in its original setting. The lone figure of a jester was situated between a doorway and a large craftsman style fireplace. Now I have images of all the mural segments and can begin to reconstruct the Jinks Room.

Next week’s update will be on the creation of the silhouettes, which will be featured in the Reconstruct portion of the intervention.

- Francisco Rosas

Selma in Christian Science Monitor

Selma Holo, one of the professors behind this blog and "intervention" project, was quoted today in the Christian Science Monitor about Los Angeles museums such as LACMA planning exhibits to honor the bicentennial of Mexico's independence and the centennial of its revolution: "This kind of comprehensive look gives Mexico the respect of having a civilizational series of curves, not just a modern history but one that goes way back and really represents a huge cultural moment in the history of the world," Holo said. Holo is director of the Fisher Museum and the International Museum Institute at USC.

Remember: Exploring the Jinks Room's past

The intervention entitled “remember” explores the relationship between artwork and viewer, as well as the ways in which the changing interpretation of an artwork throughout time manifests the evolution of an individual and of a generation. For this intervention, I explored the history of the Jinks Room murals as told through the eyes of the viewers that have been a part of that history. Six interviews with alumni and faculty of the Anoakia School tell the story through a short video documentary (filmed by Grace Talice Lee). 

Before arriving at the USC Fisher Museum of Art, Maynard Dixon’s Jinks Room was housed at the Anoakia Mansion in Arcadia, California (pictured below).  The mansion once served as a lush pad for Anita Baldwin and her entourage, but was later converted into an all-girls boarding school and then a co-ed day school in the latter half of the 20^th century.  Our interviewees are all associated with Anoakia, whether they themselves are alumni whom attended music lessons in the Jinks room, school librarians and staff members searching for an escape from their daily routine, or a young boy encountering the murals for his first time.

The meaning and reception of artworks evolve over the course of time and with changing contexts of display. To fully understand a work of art, it is important to realize that its original location, maker, and viewers cannot tell the entire story. Rather, we must research other places, other people, and other rooms to truly understand a work’s history, significance, and long-term impact upon our society.  More to come on days one and two of filming in the near future – stay posted!

Retrieve: Inside the "Icebox"

Presumably, the average museum visitor gives less thought to what it means for a museum to have a “permanent collection” than to the actual art on view. To be brief, what isn’t shown is stored--a much larger percentage of the collection of works remains normally unviewed. And if what’s in storage is “unseen,” then more so is the room itself; USC Fisher Museum’s storage room is a very small space concealed slyly within the USC Roski School of Fine Arts, an ordinary doorway un-announcing to the everyday student-passersby.

Behind these double-doors are a variety of artworks resting within a climate-controlled environment. All along the walls hang paintings, drawings, prints and mixed media works, while framed photographs are shelved on what appears as a tall, black bookcase at the back of the room. Older/larger paintings/works take their residence on sliding metal racks. Pulling out a single rack without knowledge of the collection is as if to uncover a treasure; you’ll find a painted portrait of Lincoln on one, a Warhol screenprint on another.

Reproduce: Our Baby's Conception

Have you ever found yourself standing in front of a work of art, wishing you could steal have it? Maybe you even went so far as to think about how amazing it would look above your fireplace or in your dining room. But masterpieces, especially oil paintings, can never be reproduced…right?

Wrong! Thanks to Ocean’s Bridge, an oil painting reproduction company/ artist collective, you can now buy your very own hand painted masterpiece, free shipping included! According to Ocean’s Bridge, they are able to reproduce a bevy of renowned oil paintings because a painting enters the public domain once the artist has been deceased for more than 70
years ago (so make sure that your desired oil painting was done by an artist that has been long gone).

I can say from experience that Ocean’s Bridge is a dream to work with. I contacted them when we were first thinking about buying a reproduction for re:View. After fully interrogating the company through emails, I got all my questions answered and concerns taken care of. After deciding to purchase the Jacque painting for our exhibition, I have continued to keep in touch with James at Ocean’s Bridge. He sends me reassuring emails that our painting is in good hands, even sending me pictures of the “artistic process.” James has become our painting’s surrogate mom and we are so excited for our baby’s arrival!

- Jayme Wilson

Reconsider: Palm Trees Found

From an early stage in planning our intervention, Ed Ruscha’s Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966) was identified as a potential work to add to the exhibition’s landscape painting galleries. Every Building, a small object in book form, unfolds into a 25 foot long accordion with two continuous horizontal bands of photographs depicting both sides of the Sunset Strip. Every Building is one of many artist books Ruscha created during the 1960s and early 70s that have subsequently been identified as significant across multiple historical categories: pop art, conceptual art, artist books, post-war photography and theories of postmodernism being a few. The USC Architecture and Fine Arts Library has many of Ruscha’s books in its collection (including two copies of Every Building), but (of course?) they are now held in the libraries rare books section.

While doing research on Every Building and other books by Ruscha I noticed that A Few Palm Trees (1971), the last book Ruscha published in this period, was listed as “missing” at the AFA library (concerning), however another copy was available at Leavey, a general reference library at the university. I thought this seemed peculiar and possibly just a typo on the library’s website, but to be thorough I decided to investigate.

Reconstruct: Part One

The USC Fisher Museum of Art has in its collection a mural cycle painted by the Californian artist Maynard Dixon, called the Jinks Room. The Fisher Museum has six of the original nine segments; the other three segments have remained with the donor family.

For the portion of the intervention re:View called reconstruct, all nine mural segments needed to be studied. Reconstruct aims to recreate the original architectural space of the Jinks Room. The permanent collection exhibition happening right now at Fisher is Four Rooms and a View, which presents the Jinks Room murals with only the six mural segments in the Fisher Collection.

Below is a video of the installation of the Jinks Room murals in Four Rooms and A View.



The mural segments in the Fisher’s collection (the ones in the video) were:

Procession with Couples
Feast with a Friar
Dance with the Fairy Queen
Monk with a Leprechaun and a Jester
Procession with Reluctant Monk
Reluctant Cat

This means I need to track down the three unknown segments.

- Francisco Rosas