I’ve not usually been interested in museums. When I was a child my attention span was non-existent and my interests changed with the weather. As a result, museums weren’t exactly my parent’s go-to activity unless the day was particularly rainy and my usual excitement subdued. That’s not to say I haven’t had good experiences at museums, in 2012 I went to France with my mother and older sister where we went through the Louvre, Musée D’Orsay, Musée de l’Orangerie, Versailles, and more I can’t hope to name, where I saw beautiful and famous pieces I had only ever seen in movies and television. Additionally the North Carolina Museum of Natural History has had a few amazing exhibits about animals that I’ve enjoyed on occasion. That said, the average museum hasn’t exactly gained my attendance or attention.
For my final Semester of College, I decided to branch out and take a non-fiction writing class. For the second class, we went to a small museum on campus that I hadn’t even known existed, The Gregg Museum of Art and Design to pick artwork to write an Ekphrastic Essay about. The Ekphrastic Essay, according to Rebecca Olson at Oregon State university, is a “literary description of art.” A photo caught my eye in the museum soon after I started looking for something, Desert Garden by John Mark Hall. It was recently put up so there was little information but through google, and a little bit of conversation with those working at the Gregg, I managed to piece together some information about Hall. He graduated from NC State in 1975 and moved to New York to pursue a career in photography. Mostly, he photographs architecture, interiors and gardens although he was a Print Model in Paris and Milan for a short while.
Desert Garden is a picture of a desert garden, shockingly. The focal point is a desert fern, so named for its ferned leaves, with a number of cactus species littering the floor around the tree. There’s a path made of small taupe rocks which twists through the Arizona garden and goes past a massive Saguaro Cactus older than my grandmother. I didn’t grow up in Arizona so the plants themselves didn’t call to me, but I did grow up in California and a piece of me recognized the heat of the image in the paleness of the sky, dryness of the tree bark, and color of the rocks. It was obvious that I should write about it, there was no other choice and I didn’t bother to look even though I had seen very little else of the collections in that space.
Desert Garden is on the back of a half wall just past the front doors of the Gregg Museum. I was mesmerized when I first looked at it, glowing softly against the backdrop of the rain pattering against the plexiglass doors behind the wall. The stormy weather was seeping into the building, tainting artwork with its gloom but not so Desert Garden. A silver-white hot glow emanated from the picture in the ashy wooden frame, banishing the gloom from itself like a halo. A picture filled with heat, life, and warmth could not be sullied by something so commonplace as rain.
Desert Garden is pictured here as taken by me at The Gregg Museum of Art and Design with the rainy window in the background.
I recognize this sounds absurd, and I don’t expect every person who looks at this artwork to see what I did, but I would swear on my life the frame was glowing. In any event, it was an experience I won’t soon forget, as simple as it may have been, and it brought out some of the best writing I have ever done. I don’t have a grade back for my Ekphrastic Essay on Desert Garden yet, but I find myself caring very little about the number it will receive.
A collection of John Mark Hall’s works, including Desert Garden will be on display at The Gregg Museum until April 13, 2024.
More information about the collection and The Gregg Museum can be found here