For their first Slow Art Day, the Foster Museum in Palo Alto, California, invited participants to engage with works by Tony Foster, a plein air watercolor artist who creates series of paintings he calls “journeys.” Per their website, “Foster’s unique art form is a series of paintings with accompanying notes and symbolic objects or “souvenirs” made with the intention to reveal wild places or explore a specific idea or theme.”

The free Slow Art Day event was advertised in the museum lobby and in their newsletter for a few months before the event on Saturday, April 13. The event started with an introduction by Anne Baxter, co-Director of the Foster museum, and was followed by an hour of mindful slow looking at 5 of Tony’s artworks. The event ended with a closing discussion and light refreshments.

Anne told us that she learned about Slow Art Day through Alan Petersen, Fine Art Curator at the Museum of Northern Arizona, a longtime Slow Art Day museum. Last year when Alan was in California teaching a drawing workshop and researching the whereabouts of Gunnar Widforss’ paintings in the area, Anne asked him for programming ideas that seem like a great fit with The Foster Museum. Alan immediately suggested Slow Art Day. Love that. Word-of-mouth is how we have built this movement.

And we are happy to welcome the Foster Museum to Slow Art Day and look forward to what they come up with for Slow Art Day 2025.

– Jessica Jane, Johanna, Ashley and Phyl

P.S. Slow Art Day 2025 is coming up on April 5. If you have not done so, please register your museum, gallery, church, sculpture park here: https://www.slowartday.com/be-a-host/

P.S.S. You can follow the Foster Museum on Instagram, FB and X.