{"object":[{"sourceId":{"label":"Source ID","value":"23461"},"creditline":{"label":"Credit Line","value":"Gift of the artist"},"labelText":{"label":"More Information","value":"Clara Seley\u2014dancer, model, self-taught artist, and spouse of Jason Seley, Class of 1940\u2014lived in Haiti with her husband in the late 1940s. In those years, Jason taught sculpture at Le Centre d\u2019Art in Port-au-Prince\u2014a newly established workshop and gallery for Haitian artists. Jason would later return to Cornell as a professor of art and eventually become dean of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning.All of the Haitian works in the exhibition The Best Way to Prepare Bananas: Fruits of the Soul from the Permanent Collection were given to the Johnson Museum by Clara. The collection grew from her close association with prominent administrators, teachers, and students at the Centre.Some contemporary scholars criticize the interventionist mode of the school, describing its early leaders as \u201cmostly white, American impresarios.\u201d Clara and Jason Seley, however, drew inspiration from the environs, techniques, materials, artists and ideas they encountered there. Regarding her own career, Clara wrote in 1986:Self-taught, my creative career began in 1946 during our three years in Haiti. Here the vital atmosphere of the Centre d\u2019Art in Port-au-Prince became a primary source of inspiration.(\"The Best Way to Prepare Bananas: Fruits of the Soul from the Permanent Collection,\" curated by Matt Conway and presented at the Johnson Museum June 24-August 13, 2017)"},"invno":{"label":"Object number","value":"87.031.007"},"medium":{"label":"Medium","value":"Hand-painted and glazed ceramic tiles, mounted to wooden coffee table"},"onview":{"label":"On View","value":"0"},"media":{"label":"Media","value":["87.031.007.1stview","87.031.007.2ndview"]},"title":{"label":"Title","value":"Tiles with scene of people, sheep, and flora"},"classification":{"label":"Classifications","value":"Decorative Arts"},"people":{"label":"Artist / Maker / Culture","value":"Clara K. Seley"},"primaryMedia":{"value":"https://emuseum.cornell.edu/internal/media/dispatcher/97660/full"},"displayDate":{"label":"Date","value":"1953"},"id":{"label":"Id","value":"180842"},"dimensions":{"label":"Dimensions","value":"Overall: 19 7/8 × 32 3/8 × 22 inches (50.5 × 82.2 × 55.9 cm);Each tile: 6 1/8 × 6 1/8 inches (15.6 × 15.6 cm)"}}]}