Randomly Pixellated

Across the room from the Rotunda entrance is a large, colorful painting depicting musical and cultural contributors to the country music tradition. Viewed from left to right, one sees a gospel choir, a mountain dulcimer player, fiddlers accompanying dancers, a Black banjoist with a cotton sack, and a lone, guitar-playing, singing cowboy, all of whom represent the roots of the music. In the background of the painting is a steamboat on a river, a train with smoke billowing, and a remote country church, which reflect common themes and rural imagery that have permeated country songs. The painting, Thomas Hart Benton’s The Sources of Country Music, was commissioned by the board of the Country Music Foundation in 1973, with financial support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Tennessee Arts Commission. A celebrated American Regionalist painter, Benton had by that time created many works that could be found in the collections of major art museums, and the eighty-four-year-old artist had decided that he would not paint any more of the mural-sized paintings for which he was well known. However, the idea of creating a work to represent country music and its folk roots was intriguing to the Missouri-born painter, an amateur musician himself, who grew up with country music. When visited by representatives from the museum, including Country Music Hall of Fame member, recording artist, and singing cowboy film star Tex Ritter, Benton enthusiastically accepted the challenge. Benton modeled many of the figures on real musicians he met in his travels, and the train is based on the one driven by locomotive engineer Casey Jones, the subject of a popular song recounting a famous train wreck in which Jones died. Benton worked on the painting steadily throughout 1974, and it lacked only a coat of varnish and a signature when, on January 19, 1975, he returned to the studio in the carriage house next to his Kansas City, Missouri, home. While giving the mural one last inspection before signing it, Benton collapsed after suffering a massive heart attack and died.

The members of the Country Music Hall of Fame are country music’s elite, and they are appropriately honored in a special place in the museum. The Rotunda is the museum’s most hallowed space and the final stop on the visitor’s museum tour. A soaring, majestic space commanding respect and reverence, the Rotunda is large, open, and skylit. It was designed to recognize Country Music Hall of Fame members in a style befitting the high honor of membership. The likenesses of all of the Hall of Fame members ring the walls of the Rotunda on bronze plaques, suspended on a metal framework in a loose arrangement symbolizing notes on a musical staff. The room is round to ensure that every Hall of Fame member has a place of equal importance. The members’ plaques are placed randomly on the walls of the room ...

The members of the Country Music Hall of Fame are country music’s elite, and they are appropriately honored in a special place in the museum. The Rotunda is the museum’s most hallowed space and the final stop on the visitor’s museum tour. A soaring, majestic space commanding respect and reverence, the Rotunda is large, open, and skylit. It was designed to recognize Country Music Hall of Fame members in a style befitting the high honor of membership. The likenesses of all of the Hall of Fame members ring the walls of the Rotunda on bronze plaques, suspended on a metal framework in a loose arrangement symbolizing notes on a musical staff. The room is round to ensure that every Hall of Fame member has a place of equal importance. The members’ plaques are placed randomly on the walls of the room ...

The members of the Country Music Hall of Fame are country music’s elite, and they are appropriately honored in a special place in the museum. The Rotunda is the museum’s most hallowed space and the final stop on the visitor’s museum tour. A soaring, majestic space commanding respect and reverence, the Rotunda is large, open, and skylit. It was designed to recognize Country Music Hall of Fame members in a style befitting the high honor of membership. The likenesses of all of the Hall of Fame members ring the walls of the Rotunda on bronze plaques, suspended on a metal framework in a loose arrangement symbolizing notes on a musical staff. The room is round to ensure that every Hall of Fame member has a place of equal importance. The members’ plaques are placed randomly on the walls of the room ...

The members of the Country Music Hall of Fame are country music’s elite, and they are appropriately honored in a special place in the museum. The Rotunda is the museum’s most hallowed space and the final stop on the visitor’s museum tour. A soaring, majestic space commanding respect and reverence, the Rotunda is large, open, and skylit. It was designed to recognize Country Music Hall of Fame members in a style befitting the high honor of membership. The likenesses of all of the Hall of Fame members ring the walls of the Rotunda on bronze plaques, suspended on a metal framework in a loose arrangement symbolizing notes on a musical staff. The room is round to ensure that every Hall of Fame member has a place of equal importance. The members’ plaques are placed randomly on the walls of the room ...

Greek, late Classical period, 350-340 BCE Marble (Mt. Pentelikon, Greece) This majestic head once topped a seated colossal cult statue. The sculptor, who may also have worked on the famed mausoleum of Halikarnassos, included refinements to heighten the visual impact of the god's head, like carving the eyes at an oblique angle to make them more visible to worshippers far below. The god originally wore a headdress, which, along with the geographic origin of the head in Mylasa (Turkey), indicates the statue represents Zeus Labraundos, one of the local forms of the supreme god.

Roman, early Imperial period, late 1st century BCE Marble (Carrara, Italy, for body; Mt. Pentelikon, Greece, for head) The head, identified as Juno by her diadem and features, is made of a different kind of marble than the body, clearly indicating that they do not belong together. The original statue was carved from a single piece of marble. Juno, wife of Jupiter and queen of the gods (Hera to the Greeks), was worshipped as the goddess of marriage and childbirth, and protector of the Roman state. The colossal body, the largest Roman statue in the United States, matches in style, technique, and type of marble five other statues now in several European collections. They most likely belonged to a group representing Apollo and the Nine Muses, commissioned by the future emperor Augustus for his remodeling of the Theater of Pompey in 32 BCE. At some point, the original head was lost and replaced with another ancient one, probably in the 17th century when the statue entered the collection of Cardinal Ludovisi in Rome. There this statue stood in the famed Esquiline gardens until it was sold to Mrs. Mary Pratt Brandegee, who installed it around 1904 in the Italianate garden designed for her estate (still intact) in nearby Brookline, Massachusetts.

Oriental beetle clings to the aluminum support tubing of a rooftop bench. Cambridge, MA.

2nd century AD Eastern Han Chinese cast bronze drum with concentric rings and frogs in high relief. At the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.

2nd century AD Eastern Han Chinese cast bronze drum with concentric rings and frogs in high relief. At the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.

Nashville, TN.

Nashville, TN.

Couple of photobombers deleted with CleanUp.

David Boxley carved this totem in 1989 out of Western redcedar (Thuja plicata). It depicts the story of the strong Grizzly Clan who tried to abolish the smart Beaver Clan. After a fierce battle, one female beaver and her children survived and sought revenge on the Grizzly Clan. She dug a large, deep pit near the lake and camouflaged it. She taunted the Grizzly Clan, who chased her as she led them toward the covered pit. She jumped over the pit, but the Grizzly Clan crashed into the pit and drowned in the mud. The moral being that intelligence will always win over brute force. On this totem pole 1) the bottom figure symbolizes the battle between the two clans and shows a grizzly defeating all but one female beaver and her children, 2) the middle carving symbolizes the Grizzly Clan falling into the pit and trying to get out, and 3) the top figure is the beaver mother after her victory. David Boxley is a member of the Eagle Clan of the Coast Tsimshian tribe. His carving career began in 1979 in Metlakatla under the tutelage of Tsimshian master carver Jack Hudson. In addition to carving, he is dedicated to helping revitalize and carry on the rich culture of his tribe, stating, "I want my sons and other young Indian people to be proud of their heritage."

That's what it says around the circumference, celebrating Judge David Mazzone, who was instrumental in the clean up of Boston Harbor. At the David Mazzone park on Deer Island. Boston, MA.

From 1985 to 2004, Judge A. David Mazzone presided over the federal lawsuit brought by conservationists and others condemning the state of Boston Harbor. His landmark rulings led to a massive public works project to restore the Harbor as a spectacular natural resource. The Boston Harbor clean-up is récognized as one of the nation's greatest environmental success stories - a far cry from the Harbor's notoriety in the 1980s as "the filthiest harbor in America." For 19 years, Judge Mazzone closely monitored every aspect of the clean-up project, from design and planning to financing and construction. "The Judge" was a familiar face on Deer Island, often visiting the site to check on progress and encourage the workers. When given credit for the Harbor's restoration, Judge Mazzone always recognized the many contributors whom he admired: the thousands of construction workers and "sandhogs" who built Deer Island's treatment plant and tunnels, the MWRA operators and managers who run and maintain it, and the many lawyers, officials, and citizen advocates involved in the lawsuit and clean-up.

Like feathers of a giant wing.