PERU, Ind. (AP) – It’s difficult to fit 60 years of history into a single building, but Jim Price is determined to make the Grissom Air Museum entirely for the people who have shaped it over the years.

That is why Price, the museum’s executive director, is hoping the community will respond by submitting their own photos and memories of the Bunker Hill Air Force Base, which is embedded in nearly every part of the culture of Bunker Hill.

To keep the museum fresh and exciting for those who frequent it, he said, there must be an effort to reach out to them to tell the stories behind the people that made it what it is today.

“The only way we’ll ever do this job well is to include everybody that had a business or family here,” he told the Kokomo Tribune. “That group is our family that we need to build relationships with, so that we can become more of an owner-operated business. We’ve got to be more shareholder-driven. It’s all about what do you want us to do and how do we tell that story?”

On Sunday, people traveled from across the state to share those stories and celebrate the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Bunker Hill Air Force Base, which is now known as the Grissom Air Reserve Base.

Air Force veterans, military enthusiasts and those who had personal connections with the base stopped in to share memories about the facility with a reception at the Grissom Air Museum.

Earl Simon, who was stationed at Grissom following basic training and tech school in Denver, Colo,, said the base still brings to life many good memories as a native of South Bend.

“That was my first station that I was assigned to,” he said. “Those were really great days for me, because I lived close to home. When I was off duty, I could go home on the weekends, so that was really neat.”

Reg Wagle, who recently retired from the Air Force after serving for 22 years, said Grissom was constantly a source of inspiration for him as a kid growing up in Mishawaka, Ind.

Wagle, who later became a fighter crew chief in the Air Force, said he used to watch planes take off from Grissom during hot days in the summer as a child and dream about someday working on them.

“I used to work on A-10s and seeing them out here was awe-inspiring,” he said. “I remember driving by before the (A-10s) got here and those were (Cessna) A-37 Dragonflies. I got to see A-10s and thought it would be neat to see those every day. Then for 22 years, I did see them every day.”

Wagle said coming to Grissom has always been a treat because of his passion for learning and examining military history.

“Military history is always something that I’ve been interested in,” he said. “It’s neat to learn and read about this stuff and I can’t stop talking about it when I’m with my parents.”

From the time it opened as the Bunker Hill Naval Air Station in 1942 until it transitioned through realignment to the Grissom Reserve Air Force Base in 1994, volunteer and 40-year Air Force veteran John Ensign said the base has seen many changes.

“I saw a lot of changes here at the base,” he said. “The biggest change, I think, since I’m now out and looking has been the rebuilt base for the reserves and the changes that have come over there.”

The site reopened as an Air Force base June 22, 1954, as the 4433rd Air Base Squadron and the 323rd Fighter-Bomber Wing called Bunker Hill Air Force Base home.

The base was renamed on May 12, 1968, after Lt. Col. Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, a native of Mitchell, Ind., who was one of the original seven astronauts. Grissom was killed during a fire in his Apollo capsule while still on the launching pad at Cape Kennedy, Fla.

In 1978, a second Air Force Reserve unit joined the scene. At the height of its operations, the base was home to one active duty wing and two Air Force Reserve units. Due to changes in the Air Force mission, two units (one reserve, one active duty) were deactivated in 1994.

Grissom was realigned as an Air Force Reserve facility. Today it is home to the 434th Air Refueling Wing and is one of only four Air Reserve Command Bases in the nation.

That’s a short history of the base, but Price wants the history of the base to come alive through the people.

“We’re not the Smithsonian, so we don’t have tunnels underneath here for storage,” he said. “I think people will be pleased by the fact that you’re going to rotate displays. I think everybody is going to have that opportunity, but you can’t have everybody’s personal stuff in here. But I think you can find ways to incorporate it into here.”

If you have stories, photos or memorabilia you would like to share related to the air base, contact Price at 574-398-1451.

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Information from: Kokomo Tribune, http://www.ktonline.com

Copyright 2014 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-06-23-14 1435GMT

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TOKYO (AP) – An exhibition of Chinese art from Taiwan has opened as planned after the Tokyo National Museum revised promotional materials that had omitted the word “National” from references to Taipei’s National Palace Museum.

Taiwan is sensitive to how other governments portray it, and last week its first lady, Christine Chou, canceled a trip to Tokyo for the exhibition.

But on Monday, the Taiwanese museum’s director accepted an apology from the Tokyo museum’s curator at an opening ceremony for the exhibition, whose centerpiece is a lustrous white and green cabbage carved of jadeite.

“I believe this will suffice to restore the positive sentiment toward Japan among the Taiwan people,” said the Taiwan museum’s director, Feng Ming-chu. She said the past two or three days had been “regrettable,” but added that once the problem with the name was fixed the exhibition could proceed.

“The most important thing is trust, sincerity and mutual respect,” she said.

The National Palace Museum houses many treasures taken to Taiwan when the Nationalists fled there from mainland China during a civil war in 1949. China still claims Taiwan as its own territory.

Japan formally recognizes mainland China but also has close ties with Taiwan, which has full diplomatic relations with only 23 countries, most of them in Latin America, Africa, and the south Pacific.

“The upcoming exhibition in Japan of some of Taiwan’s most treasured collections of antiques would have been a perfect example of cultural exchange if not for a row over the name of the Taipei-based museum that owns the items,” the Taiwan newspaper The China Post said in an editorial.

It noted that the word “national” in the Taipei museum’s name indicates it is a government-run museum.

“We are disappointed at the Tokyo museum,” it said.

Staff at the Tokyo museum would not give a reason for the original incorrect references in the posters for the exhibit.

Masami Zeniya, executive director of the Tokyo museum, acknowledged having “upset” the Taiwanese with the misnaming. “We take this matter very seriously and made the corrections immediately,” he said. “We would like to apologize for causing trouble.”

The exhibition opens to the public on Tuesday. The jadeite cabbage will return to Taiwan in two weeks, as planned, but 200 other items will be on display until the exhibition moves in September to the Kyushu National Museum on the island of Kyushu.

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Associated Press writers Miki Toda and Koji Ueda contributed to this report.

Copyright 2014 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-06-23-14 0935GMT

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DALLAS – “From the Village to Vogue: The Modernist Jewelry of Art Smith,” at the Dallas Museum of Art through Dec. 7, examines the work of jewelry maker Arthur Smith (1917-1982) through a collection acquired by the Brooklyn Museum of Art from the estate of the artist.

One of the leading modernist jewelers of the mid-20th century, Smith was inspired by surrealism, biomorphism and primitivism, and a deep awareness of the female form. As a result, his jewelry is dynamic in its size and shape, but remains lightweight and wearable.

The exhibition features 26 pieces including silver and gold jewelry created by the celebrated African American artist, and more than 30 pieces by his contemporaries, including Frank Rebajes, Else Freund, Marion Anderson Noyes and Ed Wiener. Archival material from Smith’s estate—sketches, the original shop sign and period photographs of models wearing the jewelry—enhances the presentation. The jewelry, dating from the late 1940s to the 1970s, includes his most famous pieces: the “Lava” bracelet, or cuff, which extends over the entire lower arm in undulating and overlapping forms; the “Patina” necklace, inspired by the mobiles of Alexander Calder; and a massive ring with three semi-precious stones that stretches over three fingers. Accompanying the exhibition will be a presentation of Smith’s tools in the museum’s Center for Creative Connections on Level 1.

In 1946 Art Smith opened his jewelry studio in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. He soon caught the attention of buyers in Boston, San Francisco and Chicago. In the early 1950s, magazine coverage of his designs in Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue led to his establishing business relationships with boutiques and department stores nationwide. One of those was the Black Tulip in Dallas.

“Art Smith’s boldly wrought jewelry captures the spirit of progressive design in the mid-20th century by transforming precious and common metals into wearable sculpture. Artists, notably Alexander Calder, provided inspiration for a generation of designers, but Smith’s creations reflect an especially rich and perceptive approach to the iconography of modernism, the handmade object and the human form,” said Kevin W. Tucker, senior curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the Dallas Museum of Art.

While Smith’s early work was executed primarily in copper and brass, for affordability, his growing recognition led to special commissions for custom design, and the production of more work in silver. He received a prestigious commission from the Peekskill, N.Y., chapter of the NAACP to design a brooch for Eleanor Roosevelt, and was commissioned to design a pair of cufflinks for Duke Ellington, whose music he often listened to while working. Smith was an active supporter of black and gay civil rights, an avid jazz enthusiast, and a patron of black modern dance groups. It was his keen interest in the latter that influenced his mature work and is reflected in its grander scale.

“From the Village to Vogue: The Modernist Jewelry of Art Smith” is organized by the Brooklyn Museum.

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MADRID (AFP) – Madrid’s top art museum the Prado unveiled a major show Monday about the master painter El Greco, exploring his influenceon modern greats such as Francis Bacon and Jackson Pollock.

“El Greco and Modern Painting” is part of a year-long series of big exhibitions to mark the 400th anniversary of the Greek-born master’s death.

El Greco’s works languished in obscurity until the late 19th century, but once collectors noticed them he became one of the most important figures in the history of art, influencing Picasso at the start of the Cubist movement.

The Prado exhibition shows just how far he marked modern art, juxtaposing his works with those of artists he influenced.

“The influence of El Greco is very wide. He influenced hundreds of modern artists,” said the show’s curator, Javier Baron.

He cited artists who shaped modern painting, such as Paul Cezanne, Picasso, British painters such as Bacon and US ones such as Pollock.

Cezanne’s “Lady in a Fur Wrap, After El Greco,” a portrait of a stern-faced woman, hangs in the show alongside El Greco’s 16th-century work, to which it is a tribute.

Born Domenikos Theotokopoulos in Crete in 1541, El Greco moved to Spain, settling eventually in the city of Toledo at the age of 36 after being rejected by the court of King Philip II. He was forced to accept all kinds of commissions to pay off his debts, producing numerous portraits and religious images in his workshop in Toledo.

The Prado show reveals his startling influence on works such as Picasso’s “Demoiselles d’Avignon” — though that painting does not form part of the show.

In that 1907 painting, the nude prostitutes depicted in Cubist style by Picasso were inspired by the heavenly figures painted by El Greco in his altarpiece “The Vision of Saint John.”

“That painting fascinated Picasso and influenced him decisively when he was launching the key avant-garde movement known as Cubism,” said Baron.

The show groups 26 works by El Greco plus 57 paintings and 23 sketches and etchings by 19th and 20th century artists.

“El Greco and Modern Painting” runs at the Prado Museum, Madrid (www.museodelprado.es) from June 24 to October 5.

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