Art museum publishes Newcomb Pottery coloring book
Adult coloring books are especially popular right now, and the Newcomb Art Museum offers a historical version that will be fun for grownups, kids and more.
The museum’s Newcomb Enterprise: Coloring Book contains 14 line drawings of drawings of Newcomb arts and crafts including pottery, metalwork and textiles.
“We wanted a project that will give people an opportunity to engage with Newcomb pottery and have a dynamic, interactive experience.”
Teresa Parker Farris, deputy director Newcomb Art Museum
The pamphlet-size book also provides a brief history lesson on the art pottery, an enterprise of Newcomb College that started in 1895. It reveals that another distinctly American art form — jazz — was also “born” in New Orleans that year.
Teresa Parker Farris, deputy director of the Newcomb Art Museum, expects the book to appeal to children, adults and collectors of Newcomb pottery. She also hopes it will attract Tulane students so that they may learn about on-campus collections and Newcomb’s rich artistic legacy.
Farris wrote the text and designed the book. She said, “We wanted a project that will give people an opportunity to engage with Newcomb pottery and have a dynamic, interactive experience.”
Christine Carlo, who graduated with a master’s degree in architecture this spring, meticulously produced the book’s drawings from photographs of the original artworks.
The book includes notes about the decorators (as the Newcomb artists were called), their ciphers (the unique mark of each artist), the works’ decorative motifs and the materials from which the original art work was made.
When people color the images, Farris hopes that they will think about the Newcomb artists who created the designs.
People often think of Newcomb pottery as something they only see behind glass in a museum, said Farris. ”It can feel very staid, but this coloring book, I think, will make it fun and approachable.”
The coloring books will be available free of charge beginning June 15. For more information, email Farris.
