Final day of Benton Waterways exhibit celebrated at IU Art Museum

The typically silent IU Art Museum Special Exhibitions Gallery overflowed with sounds of live music, spoken-word literature and environmentally friendly speakers May 18 at the Jordan River Fest. \nThe Fest honored the final day that the exhibit “Shallow Creek: Thomas Hart Benton and American Waterways” was displayed at the IU Art Museum. The exhibit commemorates the 75th anniversary of Benton’s historic 1933 World’s Fair murals hung in the IU Auditorium, Woodburn Hall and the University Theater.\nThe exhibited art focused on waterways across America. Benton enjoyed waterways, and they heavily influenced his work, event director and Works on Paper Curator Nan Brewer said.\n“He became an environmentalist when he saw the places that inspired his works deteriorate,” she said. \nGuests at the free event enjoyed presentations by folk musicians Tom Roznowski and the Living Daylights, IU Distinguished English Professor and author Scott Russell Sanders and Hoosier Riverwatch instructor Kriste Lindberg or took in Benton’s artwork displayed in the same gallery.\n“Very often we take nature for granted. Here in Indiana we have a strong connection with rivers,” Roznowski said in a preface to a song. “We make decisions every day about our connection to nature; let’s make sure they’re good ones.”\nPerformances by Roznowski and the Living Daylights were interspersed with readings by Sanders from books and poems outlining the incredible beauty of rivers and how they influence people’s lives. Sanders also read a passage from one of his own books “Wilderness Plots.”\nSanders explained how the Jordan River eventually connects to the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Mississippi River.\n“What we do here in Bloomington can affect things down there and everywhere along the way,” he said. \nAfter Lindberg gave an introduction to Hoosier Riverwatch, food was served in the atrium of the IU Art Museum. Vendors providing food and drink included Oliver Winery, Bloomingfoods, Bloomington Brewing Co. and Capriole Farms.\nBrewer said Bloomington’s small Jordan River might seem insignificant when compared to the neighboring East River or Ohio River, but its health is equally important because it connects to those larger waterways. \n For Brewer, the event, similar to a waterway, made an important connection between art, music, literature, food and ecology. It also brought home the importance of our small but mighty Jordan River, Brewer said. \n“It is part of our social fabric,” she said, “as well as our ecological environment.”