Jul 12, 2018 Art & Collection Eleven. the restaurant at Crystal Bridges, specializes in modern American comfort food with an emphasis on traditions that hail from the “High South” region: the Ozarks. The robust cuisine of Eleven not only nourishes, but tells a story—a story of the American spirit, inspired by the artworks, natural surroundings, and fascinating regional history connected to our Museum. In this episode, you’ll meet Executive Chef William McCormick to hear about what goes into planning a tasting menu inspired by a temporary exhibition, and you’ll hear a sneak peek of some exciting new menu items heading to Eleven. See our full restaurant hours, and make dinner and brunch reservations here. Crystal Bridges Interpretation Manager Stace Treat is the host of Museum Way. New episodes of the podcast are launched each month! Subscribe to be the first to listen, and head over to our social media channels to let us know what you’d like to hear on future episodes. Episode Transcript Stace Treat: Welcome to Museum Way, the podcast of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. We’re sharing all the ins and outs of the museum from the galleries to the trails, the architecture and more. You’ll learn the Museum Way of Crystal Bridges. Stace Treat: On today’s podcast, we’re exploring The Beyond: Georgia O’Keeffe and Contemporary Art. This exciting exhibition is on view now at Crystal Bridges through September 3. Stace Treat: We’ll talk with curator, Chad Alligood to learn more about the exhibition and we’ll meet Executive Chef William McCormick to hear about his role in our Eleven restaurant and The Beyond tasting menu. Let’s jump into this episode of Museum Way. Stace Treat: We’re here with curator Chad Alligood, co-curator of The Beyond: Georgia O’Keeffe and Contemporary Art. Welcome, Chad. Chad Alligood: Thank you, Stace. Stace Treat: I should say, welcome back, Chad. Chad Alligood: That’s right. Welcome back, me. I’m excited to be back. Crystal Bridges holds a special place in my heart. My years here really helped form who I am as a curator and really as a person, so it’s a joy to be back. Stace Treat: Yeah. For the listeners that may not know, Chad was a curator here for years and he actually curated such shows as State of the Art and Warhol and Wyeth among others. We worked on a Lichtenstein project together. Chad Alligood: Yeah, we did. Stace Treat: Yeah, it’s been fun. And I’ve actually gotten to work with you again on this show, The Beyond. But I want to hear about what your experience has been like working with Lauren Haynes on this project. Stace Treat: This is a unique show. I find the concept fascinating and I’m curious, how did you all get to this idea of looking at Georgia O’Keeffe, who is this huge icon of American art and emerging artists? Chad Alligood: Well, it really came out of the Lauren’s coming online at Crystal Bridges when she and I worked here together. I so admired Lauren’s work. She worked for nearly a decade at the Studio Museum, working with mostly artists of color and I so valued that, and I wanted to find a way for us to collaborate and she did too, thankfully. Chad Alligood: So we started looking at the Crystal Bridges collection and seeing ways where we could elaborate on some of the strengths in the collection. We honed in on Georgia O’Keeffe partly because she is such a foundational voice for American artists working across the twentieth century, but even today. Chad Alligood: She and I batted back and forth this idea. Okay, so we could present objects by O’Keeffe next to artists who are elaborating on ideas that O’Keeffe explored throughout her career and maybe integrating them too. So it really started from there, and we built the show from that initial idea to collaborate across our respective areas of expertise. Stace Treat: So you landed on some really key themes. What are some of those? Chad Alligood: Yeah, so part of the idea of the show is to give viewers an understanding of who O’Keeffe was and what themes really marked her career. She was incredibly prolific. She came back to certain subjects again and again. Chad Alligood: By the same token, to show that many of those themes and approaches extend into the present day for artists working today. Some of those range from subject matter so the landscape, for instance, cities and deserts, both of which fascinated O’Keeffe. Stace Treat: Yeah, New Mexico in particular. Chad Alligood: Yeah. Well, the rolling deserts of New Mexico, the sense of spirituality and beauty that O’Keeffe found there. She felt it was intrinsically American and she thought a lot about Americanness. Chad Alligood: There are other artists that we brought into the conversation with O’Keeffe, who are thinking about the landscape in related ways and expanding it in their own ways too. Chad Alligood: So I’m thinking about, for instance, Cynthia Daignault, whose project Light Atlas took her across the country. She painted 360 little canvases, snapshots of this cross-country trip. A different way of thinking about the expansiveness of American landscape and also a way to comment on what America looks like today. Stace Treat: Yeah. These pieces are like little jewels, each and every one of them. Chad Alligood: They are. Stace Treat: I love the way that looking at that piece of like, oh, there’s a buffalo, there’s a cemetery, there’s a barn. Chad Alligood: Right. Stace Treat: There’s a city. It’s beautiful. Chad Alligood: Yeah. And it’s expansive too. There are 360 little canvases and they sort of encompass you in the space. It’s a different way of thinking about scale. Chad Alligood: O’Keeffe thought a lot about scale and you see it in her flowers, for instance, where she magnified and cropped these flowers. That’s another section in the exhibition, the focus on flowers and what they can tell us, what they can symbolically communicate. Chad Alligood: Of course, Jimson Weed is the icon in this section, the jewel of the Crystal Bridges collection. And to be able to expand and tell a broader story of that painting is a real treat. Stace Treat: Yeah. There’s another artist that’s featured near that work. Wardell Milan does beautiful things with flowers. Chad Alligood: Yeah. Flowers are timeless, iconic symbols, and depending on the context and painting, they can take on any number of meanings. For O’Keeffe, they were a response, really, to the kind of building rampage that was happening in New York in the ’20s, the race to the top of skyscrapers. Stace Treat: The skyscraper age. Chad Alligood: Yeah, exactly. These larger-than-life flower forms were a kind of response to the machine age. Similarly, artists working today are using flowers in their own way to tell their own stories. To critique social ills that they see in the American landscape. It’s really fascinating. Stace Treat: Yeah. Jennifer Packer, her philosophy behind her flower bouquets is quite moving. Chad Alligood: Incredibly moving. She paints these beautiful small, intimate portraits, really, of funerary arrangements that are meant to commemorate Black victims of violence in the United States today. So they make a very pointed reference through this timeless symbol of organic, natural beauty Stace Treat: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Chad Alligood: Gorgeous things. Stace Treat: They really are. Chad Alligood: Yeah. Stace Treat: So tell me a little bit about how you came to the title, The Beyond. Chad Alligood: Yeah. The title was an ongoing question for Lauren and I. The thing about O’Keeffe is that she lived for so long. She saw so much of the American twentieth century and paid witness to it from her perch out there in New Mexico. Chad Alligood: So we are gifted with all of these incredible quotes and many of which you read and researched too in your work on this exhibition. She said some really beautiful and wonderful things. Chad Alligood: But ultimately this title comes from the last completed oil painting that she did unassisted in her career and it’s called The Beyond. It’s included in the exhibition. Chad Alligood: Near the end of her life, O’Keeffe traveled a lot. She was an icon; she was a living legend. And she was so fascinated by the view from the plane. She loved the way the horizon line stretched out in front of her, the way the clouds met the earth. Chad Alligood: The Beyond is really this rumination on the limits of perception and maybe the limits of her own career. In the painting, you have this beautiful blue stripe, you’ve got a blackness too and a highlight of white. Chad Alligood: Together, you get a sense that O’Keeffe is thinking not only beyond the realm of her perception because, at this moment she only had her peripheral sight. She couldn’t see directly. Chad Alligood: And thinking beyond the limits of her own experience. I think that idea of thinking beyond oneself and the ongoing effects of O’Keeffe and her inspiration for a new generation of artists really boiled down into that one concept, the beyond. Stace Treat: Yeah, I really love the layered ideas built into that. Should say that she was born in 1887, died in 1986, so she was 99. Chad Alligood: Yeah. Stace Treat: And she painted for a majority of those years. Chad Alligood: Oh, yeah, yeah. She was. And at the O’Keeffe Museum out in Santa Fe, which was such a generous lender to this exhibition, they have objects in their collection that range almost entirely across that span of time. Chad Alligood: Too, in our exhibition, you’ll see incredibly important works from the 19-teens all the way up to that last painting that she painted unassisted in her career. So you get a real breadth at the same time as you’re getting this in depth thematic approach. Stace Treat: It’s funny because we think about her, as you said, spanning most of the twentieth century. And the idea of her being in these jet planes, the jet age, she literally was a witness to that. Chad Alligood: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Stace Treat: So I always think, imagine Georgia O’Keeffe going up in an airplane for the first time or doing these different international travels that she started doing. And what an impact that must make on a visual artist and how they translate that into their work. It’s fascinating. Chad Alligood: Well, from even early in her career, as we talked about earlier, she was responding to the machine age in the ’20s. So she did; she saw so many of the changes that came about in the American twentieth century. Chad Alligood: In some way, she was responding to those things even as the paintings read as timeless, even as she was attracted to the desert and floral forms and other kinds of imagery that feel timeless. She was definitely of her time. Stace Treat: So how’s it been, working with these contemporary artists? Chad Alligood: Oh, it’s been a blast. I mean, as much as I revere and adore Georgia O’Keeffe for what she contributed to American art in general, I love working with living artists, because they have this spark of creativity. And you never know what’s going to happen. Chad Alligood: Just this week we had Pearl C. Hsiung, who is one of the artists we include in the exhibition. She did this incredible painted installation and it was assembled here on site. Over the course of the exhibition, we have the opportunity to bring a majority of the artists who are included in the exhibition here to do programming. So I’m excited to see how that plays out. Stace Treat: Yeah. In fact, Louise Jones was here painting the beautiful mural that sat in our corridor. Chad Alligood: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Stace Treat: We were already getting all kinds of hits on social media from that wonderful work. Chad Alligood: Oh, no, it’s gorgeous. And I’ve got to tell you, being a curator of contemporary art, you have to be open and engaged and always looking. Chad Alligood: So the way I found Louise Jones was driving around Grand Rapids. She was included in a program that they do called ArtPrize, and she was completing a huge mural that overtook an entire building. Chad Alligood: I saw her just over there with her assistant, and I just pulled the car over and I hopped out. I was like, “Well, this is beautiful. Tell me about this.” She was like, “Hey.” So that was probably three years ago. Chad Alligood: It just so happened that a lot of her work focuses on floral form and its explosive, natural beauty. So from the beginning, Louise was definitely someone I thought would be a great fit for this exhibition. And man, that mural, it’s 30 feet tall. Stace Treat: It’s stunning. And she actually did it quickly. Chad Alligood: Yeah. Oh, no, she’s very skilled. Stace Treat: Yeah. She’s got that old street art experience. So what are you most excited for with this exhibition, Chad? Chad Alligood: I’m really excited to share a new view on some O’Keeffe objects that our visitors may have seen before. So Jimson Weed or the beautiful Abstraction, a very rare sculpture that we have in our collection. Chad Alligood: I’m also really excited to introduce 20 artists to our public. One of my previous exhibitions that you mentioned was State of the Art, which we brought a hundred artists here on site and were able to do some really amazing things. Chad Alligood: I want to be able to connect these artists who are from all over the country. Louise Jones is from Detroit, Britny Wainwright is from Ohio. We’ve got artists from New York and LA and everywhere in between. Stace Treat: Boulder, Atlanta too … Chad Alligood: Yeah. Stace Treat: They’re all over. Chad Alligood: Yeah. And to be able to connect folks from all over with the people here of Northwest Arkansas. Chad Alligood: Then when this exhibition travels, so it will go to two further venues, the North Carolina Museum of Art later on this year, and then in 2019 it will finish up at the New Britain Museum of American Art. Stace Treat: In Connecticut. Chad Alligood: In Connecticut. So share it with all your friends and family who are in those regions, because we want everybody to see the show. Stace Treat: Well, I love it, and, of course, I’ve loved it for over a year working on it. Chad Alligood: You’re biased. Stace Treat: Yes, I’m very biased, but I have been telling people honestly, if you come for O’Keeffe, that is great, but you’re going to leave with a new favorite artist or two or three. Chad Alligood: Oh, yeah, that’s hopefully the take away. I’ve got some new favorites, that’s for sure. Stace Treat: All right. Well, thanks so much, Chad, for being here. Chad Alligood: Of course. Thank you, Stace. Stace Treat: This summer, The Beyond is within your reach. Become a member and save all season with free admission to the exhibition. See over 30 of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings, paired with the work of 20 contemporary artists featuring enormous flowers, luscious colors, landscapes, and more. Other member benefits include discounts on classes and programs, 10% off in the Museum Store and special members-only events. Join today at crystalbridges.org. Stace Treat: We’re here with William McCormick, our executive chef at the Eleven restaurant in Crystal Bridges. Welcome, William. William McCormick: Thank you, Stace. Glad to be here. Stace Treat: Well, we’re glad to have you. You’re a new arrival to the museum and you bring a wealth of cooking knowledge with you. We’re going to talk about that in a little bit. But first of all, why don’t you just tell us what you do as an executive chef? William McCormick: Yeah, so as the executive chef of Eleven restaurant at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, I oversee the food service operation within the restaurant. We have a lunch portion of that; we have dinner, as well as a few coffee bar items. I’m excited to put my local Arkansan twist on an already well-established food scene. Stace Treat: Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about your background because it’s really fascinating. I’d like you to describe your background and also your culinary philosophy. William McCormick: Yeah. I’m an eighth-generation Arkansan. Stace Treat: Wow. William McCormick: It’s pretty exciting. So I have grandmothers upon grandmothers, recipes to pull inspiration from. Really, it’s important for me to represent the ingredients and of this region of the country that we define as the High South. William McCormick: The High South is known for beautiful black walnuts and wonderful apples and tomatoes. And there’s really this rich bounty of ingredients that we can get utilize. Stace Treat: Yes, indeed. And have you done that before? William McCormick: I have. Most recently I served as executive chef of MOD Restaurant & Social here in Bentonville. Stace Treat: Right. That place is great. William McCormick: Yeah. So had a lot of fun there. And then the opportunity to come to Crystal Bridges opened up and that’s an opportunity I just couldn’t pass up. Stace Treat: Well, I know that you’re trained classically in food. Tell us about that. William McCormick: That’s right. My culinary training really started at a young age. I attended New England Culinary Institute in Vermont, which teaches classic French cuisine. William McCormick: I really liked the connection and the comparison between classic French cuisine and Southern American fare. You have these kind of low-and-slow techniques that you apply to this nose-to-tail philosophy of cooking and you get this really unique, special blend of other cultures’ cuisines. Stace Treat: Well, I never had thought necessarily thinking about French cooking, which I tend to think of as very highbrow. It’s like the Julia Child, the essence, the mark of, I guess, a really accomplished chef would be French cooking. William McCormick: It is, but at its roots, French cooking is peasant food that throughout time has made its way into defined recipes. And there’s certain techniques that are shared among Southern dishes and French dishes. Stace Treat: Wow. So are you bringing some of that to some signature dishes here? William McCormick: I am, absolutely. Since we are rooted in French technique, I wanted to have these really great experiences for people to share with one another. So a big part of French cuisine are having these big special dinners, whether it’s for a holiday, a special event, or just a weekly Sunday supper. Stace Treat: Oh, yes. William McCormick: Part of that is the Sunday chicken dinner, right? Stace Treat: Mm-hmm (affirmative). William McCormick: So something to look forward to all week. On the dinner menu right now we have this beautiful braised chicken thigh with, this brined in sous vide chicken breast. Stace Treat: Sous vide. William McCormick: That’s right. Stace Treat: Hey, you used a fancy word. William McCormick: I did. Stace Treat: So tell me about that. William McCormick: Sous vide is a French term, meaning under vacuum. It’s drawing inspiration from the scientific laboratory. It’s a modern nouveau way of cooking that really lets you hone in on a specific textures and flavors. Stace Treat: You’re also gathering a lot of your food materials locally sourced or from the state, right? William McCormick: That’s right. We look at our local climate and we try to be, is there a micro-region within Crystal Bridges and the museum grounds that we can pull from or how local can we get? For me, it’s important to represent the artisans, farmers and farms of Arkansas, so that always will make its way onto the plate. Stace Treat: Yeah. So you’ve got a rice that’s from Arkansas? William McCormick: I do, yeah. We feature Ralston Farms rice out of Atkins, Arkansas. What’s special about this rice, we use the golden rice. And golden rice is great because you get the health benefits of brown rice, but the ease of cooking of white rice. Stace Treat: Oh, wow. William McCormick: That’s featured on our watercourse. So whenever we wanted to feature fish on the menu, we call it our watercourse. It’s a fun little play on words. The highlight of that dish isn’t necessarily the fish that we bring in from the Gulf or the Northern Atlantic. But this wonderful rice that is special and unique to Arkansas. Stace Treat: Yeah, I mean, it’s one of our staple crops, historic. William McCormick: It is. Between the rice, the soybeans, the tomatoes, we have it all. We have an abundant resource of great ingredients to pull from. Stace Treat: You’re making me hungry. So we just spoke to Chad Alligood, who’s the co-curator of The Beyond and for each exhibition, we always partner with our culinary team. Usually, it’s our executive chef, you, for a tasting menu that’s inspired by the artwork. Can you tell me a little bit? This is your first tasting menu. William McCormick: This is my first tasting menu. And let’s describe exactly what a tasting menu is first, right? Stace Treat: Yes. William McCormick: A tasting menu is a multi-course dinner composed of smaller portion sizes, but more dishes. So more courses. And for this, it’s a really unique and fun process to create these tasting menus to compliment the art. We always talk about Crystal Bridges, our three pillars are art, architecture and nature. Stace Treat: Yes. William McCormick: So whenever we are defining these tasting menus, what can we pull from those three concepts that are going to help define our food? Stace Treat: Do you select from … How does the inspiration work? Do you look at some of the artworks and then you start thinking about correlations or it brings things to mind for you in flavor profiles? Or what? Tell me a little bit about your process. William McCormick: Yeah. There’s a lot of different ways that you can approach this. The way I think about it is what inspired the artist to create this art? And then there’s an exact visual replication of the art. For Chihuly last year, that was a fun one to think about. It’s a very visual experience. William McCormick: Then the other one for me is how does the art make me feel? And how can I translate that into an experience for our guests? Stace Treat: Can you give us an example of an artwork that found its way in to the plate? William McCormick: Yeah, absolutely. I’ll give you the first course for The Beyond tasting menu. It’s a beautiful spring salad with edible flowers on some beets. Georgia O’Keeffe loved beets. William McCormick: Of course, all the floral patterns that are found within the exhibit really define that first course. I want people to be introduced to this tasting menu with the idea of this very fresh light, new floral experience. Stace Treat: She actually produced a cookbook, did she not? William McCormick: She did, yeah. There’s a cookbook out there and the name escapes me, but I think there’s roughly 50 different recipes of hers. She was a very avid eater and advocate for local foods. Another dish that is featured is a beautiful mole-braised short ribs to kind of represent her time in the southwest. Stace Treat: Oh, wow. William McCormick: Yeah. Stace Treat: That sounds delicious. You can check out The Beyond tasting menu, by the way, on our website at crystalbridges.org/eleven. So what do you, William McCormick, Chef William, want our guests to take away from a dining experience at Eleven? William McCormick: Yeah, absolutely. When you’re dining among the art, dining amongst the architecture in this beautiful natural setting where you really feel connected to the earth and to share that experience with friends or family and have this this kind of laid-back approach to this tasting menu that helps guide you through an experience, is a really special thing. So we’re trying to curate shared experiences amongst friends and family. Stace Treat: Great. We should mention that along with dinner, Crystal Bridges is open for dinner on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights. Want to point that out. But also during the daytime we have lunch service, which is a little different. Tell me about what your approach to the lunch service is. William McCormick: Yeah. Lunch is important for me, because it’s our busiest service and that’s where I think we see the most out-of-town guests. It’s an opportunity for me as a chef to really define who we are and give them an introduction into the hospitality of the southern United States. William McCormick: If we have people that are coming here from out of state or out of country, let’s show them how beautiful Southern hospitality can be and how it is done our way. Stace Treat: Right. So you play with some stuff. One of the great things, by the way, for all our friends and folks listening, one of the best things about being on staff at Crystal Bridges is being able to come down to the restaurant at noon and try your specials. Or when the menu rotates, you’ll try a new sandwich or a new salad. We really get a feel that you’re playing, you’re testing, creating. William McCormick: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s important to whenever you walk into someone else’s home, take in the aromas and the smells and the taste, the flavors. I think that’s all really special. And whenever you walk into Eleven, I want you to be hungry. William McCormick: I want you to be excited to sit down and have a wonderful meal and take it all in, have this beautiful experience that lets you feel connected to who we are and our region. Stace Treat: We’re also very health conscious, so we have a lot of menu items that are friendly to our vegetarian and vegan visitors as well. You have something special to announce. William McCormick: I do. We are working with the Impossible Foods vegan burger, right? What does that mean? That means that we’re going to do a vegan bacon cheeseburger. Stace Treat: Wait a minute. A vegan bacon cheeseburger. William McCormick: Yeah, as crazy as it sounds, it is delicious and I urge everyone to try it. Stace Treat: Oh, my gosh. Is that even possible? William McCormick: Yeah. So you have this beautiful, Impossible Foods meat replacement. It looks like meat, it tastes like meat. And that’s all thanks to a product called heme, H-E-M-E, and that is what gives meat its flavor, its texture, its snap. William McCormick: So you really, whenever you’re eating this burger, you have this bacon that is made with tempeh and seitan. It’s crispy and smokey and a beautiful cashew cheese that creates this really special, special dish that we can share with everyone. William McCormick: It’s not just a meat eaters that are going to love this. The vegans, the vegetarians, they’re going to fall in love with this as well. Stace Treat: That is so fascinating. And we’re the only ones that are using this product. Is that correct? William McCormick: Currently in Arkansas, yeah. Stace Treat: Wow. So see? You’ve got come to Crystal Bridges. Chef William, can you tell us a little bit about the different culinary programs we have at Crystal Bridges? William McCormick: Yeah. What’s special about Crystal Bridges is all the programming that goes on and all these special events. What’s great about these events is you’re able to connect with people that are really making a change in the culinary world. William McCormick: It might be an insight into beautiful honey or an insight into the way our Trails and Grounds team keeps up with the 135 acres of forest and the way we are able to utilize that as culinarians. I think that’s something that’s really special. Stace Treat: Yeah. What I like about the programs too is they’re diverse enough that if you want to just come for like an hour, like WOW, for example. You can come for an hour and have this delicious condensed meal. Or for example, with CR(EAT)E, you can come and have many dishes, right? Many courses. William McCormick: Yeah. Yeah, with CR(EAT)E. So it’s usually a coursed meal. We just finished doing one with the folks over at the Price Tower and it was all about Frank Lloyd Wright. And for me, creating an architecturally-based tasting menu. So that was a very special event and … Stace Treat: Wow, that’s fascinating. So they came over here, huh? William McCormick: Yeah, they came over here. Stace Treat: Bartlesville. William McCormick: From Bartlesville, Oklahoma and Frank Lloyd Wright was a master at architecture and really defined that Americana and that mid-century modern, beautiful style. That was a really fun way to look at food and try to create food on an architectural level. Stace Treat: So if anybody’s out there is interested in one of these programs, certainly go to our website and you can look into the programming. Look for Wednesdays Over Water – is what WOW stands for – CRE(ATE)E and DISH. Chef William, thank you so much for visiting with us on Museum Way today. William McCormick: Well, Stace, I thank you for having me and it’s been a pleasure. Stace Treat: On July 27, hear from culinary journalist, author and community activist, Toni Tipton-Martin. As part of our Distinguished Speaker Series, Tipton-Martin has dedicated her career to building a healthier community. Stace Treat: She is the author of The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African-American Cookbooks celebrating the important legacy of African American cooks and their cookbooks. A book signing will follow the lecture. Reserve your tickets now at crystalbridges.org. Stace Treat: Thanks for tuning in to Museum Way. We hope you enjoyed the episode and tune in each month to hear more. Head over to our social media channels and leave us a question or comment about what you’d like to hear on future episodes. Stace Treat: Don’t forget to visit The Beyond: Georgia O’Keeffe and Contemporary Art on view at Crystal Bridges until September 3. I’m Stace Treat. I’ll catch you next month, right here on Museum Way.
