Art Event Reflection

I attended a gallery opening, an exhibition of ancient Greek pottery, on March 23. This was the first art event I attended and I was pleasantly surprised with the knowledge that was presented during the talk. Jenna McKinley, the woman who arranged for the pieces to come to Loyola was clearly passionate about each piece and its history, and I particularly enjoyed that she mentioned what the pieces would have been used for originally as that says a lot about how they are created and how they are, or aren't, preserved. I was shocked by the details, that would have definitely required a lot of time and attention, on every single piece in the exhibit. A piece that would have been used as a cup was much more ornate than a cup we would use today. Because each piece had a practical use, it says a lot about the effort put into every day tasks and objects, and what people who lived in the time of this pottery would have been like. The practicality of a water jug, and the specific and beautiful decorations make for an intriguing combination. My favorite piece in the exhibit was a water jug that was black clay with red in the middle and portrayed a very detailed scene that included both people and animals. In one place at the lip of the jug, it had clearly been broken by being dropped or hit, so while it is an exquisite testament to what potters of the time could do, it was fully utilized as an every day object. Today, such a piece would be put on display and never used for such a task. Jenna's speech also included the more modern history of the pieces and how some of them may have been illegitimately obtained because of their great value. I found it very interesting and even more special that the pieces still hold great value today even after being used and in some cases, broken.