The Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan, Alabama, celebrated its sixth Slow Art Day on April 11, 2026, though this doesn’t tell the whole story. Dana Marie Lemmer, the Executive Director of the museum, played a key role as (volunteer) Director of Global Operators in the Slow Art Day movement from 2012 to 2014.
This year, Dana’s colleague, Janin Wise, Art Educator and School Programs & Volunteer Coordinator, hosted the Slow Art Day event using both facilitated discussion and drawing exercises.
Wise invited guests to sit with her for guided slow looking in chairs around a bench in the Marie Saliba Gallery. She started the process by asking “What first caught your eye?”, then by scanning for color and composition, and discussing the artist’s hand.
The featured artworks included:
- “Lilly, 2022” by Sam Gilliam, an acrylic with sawdust, encaustic, and polypropylene on canvas with beveled-edge stretcher
- “Magnitude of Regions, 1962” by Alice Trumbull Mason, an oil on canvas
- “Prelude on Gray, 1982” by Richard Crist, an acrylic on canvas
- “Untitled, 1960” by Angelo Granata, an ink on paper
- “High Beams, 2020” by Derek Cracco, an acrylic on panel
One family with a 17-year-old daughter was drawn to the texture and color of Gilliam’s “Lilly.” When discussing Alice Trumbull Mason’s “Magnitude of Regions,” the mother expressed both empathy, seeing “sunlight through dark curtains”, and hope, after learning the artist made the work after her son’s death.
At the same time, a Korean American family, participated with an older brother translating for his mother and nonverbal younger brother. That family also appreciated the color and texture, and the geometry of Mason’s piece. Everyone who participated were astonished to learn they could literally see the artist’s hand in Gilliam’s work.
For Derek Cracco’s “High Beams,” a drawing exercise was introduced that led to laughter and discussions about childhood art classes and local art opportunities. Participants folded paper into quarters and completed four different drawing tasks:
- a 10-second quick sketch
- drawing with their non-dominant hand
- drawing without looking at the paper
- a continuous line drawing where they imagined changes in time or space
Janin Wise noted that participants were surprised by how relaxing it was to spend so much time with a few pieces of art. Visitors were delighted by the calm, guided slow looking relaxing and by their newfound ability to notice new details and use their imaginations to step into the artwork.
Most did not typically consider themselves “abstract art kind of people” and yet, by slowing down, they thoroughly enjoyed the art.
Yes! That is exactly the kind of discovery Slow Art Day we hope people make.
It turns out that by simply slowing down, participants can find a new relationship to art, including art they may think they don’t like, or don’t understand.
We at Slow Art Day HQ are grateful to Janin Wise and the Wiregrass Museum of Art for their continued dedication to our slow looking movement. We look forward to seeing what they create for Slow Art Day 2027.
— Ashley, Johanna, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
P.S. View them on Instagram and their website.