Tales from the Exhibition Script

By Emma Porter, Curatorial Intern

There is a first time for everything, and I have loved every “first” during my time here at Fenimore Art Museum. As I conclude my internship at the Fenimore, I reflect on all that I have learned and what I will now "do" with my newly gained experience. I am fortunate enough to have been given this opportunity and to have worked with such outstanding professionals who greatly improve our society everyday. My mentor, Michelle Murdock works with profound intention and articulation. She inspired me to do the same with my projects and collaborations.

Bye Bye House! (I mean the Fenimore Art Museum) I will miss you!

For my concluding project I am working on the exhibition script for a 2012 exhibition featuring Kevin Gray's modern tintypes. Corresponding with Gray and sharing materials and ideas is exciting, and a true treasure, to say the least.

Kevin Gray, Devils Den (2)

Studying Gray’s work, what he has to say about it, and reading his graduate school thesis has been the ground work for constructing the exhibition script. Researching and writing about themes that correlate with Gray's artwork will deepen the viewers’ experience of the work. The sub-themes, if you will, surrounding Gray’s modern tintypes are: Civil War photography/photographers, the place of Gettysburg, the history of the panorama, and contemporary artists who use and reinterpret antiquated photographic techniques. I have learned how to organize and edit ideas into a coherent message that is both informative and appealing. As the Fenimore aims to produce more and more shows based on contemporary art, it becomes an even more dynamic institution and important contributor to our culture.

I will be returning as much as possible to the Fenimore to see the exhibitions and to catch up with the people I have met and learned from. I cannot thank Michelle enough for letting an undergraduate art history student intern at such a prestigious institution. She took much of her time and energy to teach and mentor; I am eternally grateful. A big thank you to Christine Rossi, Stephen Loughman, Eva Fognell, and Caitlin Miosek and others! Parting is such sweet sorrow. But it is comforting to know that there are people like these who make the world more beautiful each day.

Rules of Attraction (and Organization) or, Interning @ Fenimore Art Museum, Part 4

By Emma Porter, Curatorial Intern

I have been introduced to the realm of illustrated checklists and I am never looking back. Art museum professionals, not surprisingly, are visual learners, and these documents greatly help orient the museum professional to the works involved, the artist(s), and contexts. I was shown how to create an illustrated checklist, first in an Excel spreadsheet format, then in a Word document format. Here is a sample from the checklist for Fenimore Art Museum's William Matthew Prior Revealed: Artist and Visionary, for the 2012 season.

Mary Cary and Susan Elizabeth Johnson, 1848

William Matthew Prior

Terra Foundation

This image is under the section titled The Painting Garret – 36 Trenton Street, East Boston. Jackie Oak, of the Shelburne Museum in Vermont has organized this exhibit according to Prior’s personal life stages and periods of certain inspiration. For example, one section is about Abolitionism and another about Spiritualism.

I am currently completing an illustrated checklist for Michelle to use during her upcoming visit to the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut. Her visit is to inform the Fenimore Art Museum’s upcoming American Impressionism exhibition. If you love American Impressionism I would encourage you to visit or just check out their online database.

Dogwood Blossoms, 1906

Williard Leroy Metcalf

Florence Griswold Museum

My illustrated checklist for American Impressionism is essentially a long series of images in order of the artist. Each artist entry begins with their personal information and details. Once these checklists are completed they serve as the founding reference document for the show.

I love organizing and greatly appreciate a good organizational system when I see one. Museum registrars and curators are champions of organizations to put it modestly. Every single work must go through the registrar. Christine Olsen is the FAM Registrar. She records every work that comes into or leaves the Museum, whether it's coming or going temporarily or permanently. Without the registrar the museum could barely operate and would be almost impossible to navigate. I sincerely enjoy compiling these lists. I get to familiarize myself with the artist and their work while letting my organizational flag fly!

Interning @ Fenimore Art Museum, Part 3

By Emma Porter, Curatorial Intern

How do art exhibitions happen? It’s kind of like asking how Disney World makes the magic happen. Art museum exhibitions are a cultural happening that the majority of society takes for granted. Unless you get an inside look into how a curatorial team conceives organizes, and produces an exhibition. Then this invisible world becomes very real. Curators make magic happen everyday across the world; these professionals are storytellers. They tell their stories with artworks, artists biographies, historical contexts, and other facets of culture and aesthetics, from the past and present. Curators must be excellent editors and stay focused on conveying a specific story, without dismissing its place within broader cultural themes.

The first day I started interning, the Director of Exhibitions, Michelle Murdock, generously loaned me a set of books to give me an introduction into museum work. The “Bible” for museum workers is Introduction to Museum Work by G. Ellis Burcaw. It literally defines museum work with a set of definitions, including what a “museum object” is, how objects are registered and catalogued, how objects are accessioned (“the acquiring of one or more objects at one time from one source, or the objects so acquired”), and collecting theories for different types of museums.

One of the most valuable and eye-opening experiences for me at the Fenimore Art Museum is observing Eva Fognell, Curator of the Thaw Collection, and Chris Rossi, Associate Curator of Exhibitions, put together the Thaw Homecoming exhibition for the 2012 season. This involves them filling in the floor plan with the sections that best suit the space and the story they were telling. They conversed as they edited how the pieces would be displayed and situated. Some pieces can stand by themselves and make a grand statement. Others need to be grouped together in order to communicate their purpose and context. Not all of the pieces currently travelling will be shown in the exhibition - some will be put back into the permanent collection. A cool fact is that returning pieces need to “rest,” or acclimatize, for twenty-four hours in order to adjust to the environment and thus prevent damage. Much care is put into these object’s “health.” So on many levels, museum work is a labor of love!

After editing, the floor plan was finalized and the works were listed. I am currently learning how to write section labels, and how to incorporate images into these labels in order to deepen the viewer’s understanding of the object. When I look for label images, in the case of a basket, for example, I would look for a photograph of a man or woman making a similar style basket, or the materials from which the basket is made from.

Learning how an exhibition happens is like going behind the scenes of a fantasy world, where I had previously only seen the pristine and yes, magical, end product. I get butterflies thinking about these sneak peaks into a once invisible world. I am lucky enough to get an up close and personal experience with the makers and the makings of this magic.

Interning @ Fenimore Art Museum, Part 2

By Emma Porter, Curatorial Intern

Yesterday I spent time exploring the traveling exhibition organized by the Fenimore Art Museum called Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection. I read over the beautifully compiled and designed exhibition book with the same title.

The Fenimore has lent pieces from its outstanding Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art (which it received in 1995 from the Sante Fe based couple). Mr. Eugene Thaw was an art connoisseur, dealer, and collector who amassed a collection of more than 850 objects! The exhibition has so far been exhibited by the Cleveland Art Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and is now on view at the Dallas Museum of Art. On December 4th, 2011 it will open at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

A great quote from Eugene Thaw that Eva Fognell includes in her Introduction to the book is: “I want to stress that I look at Indian material culture as art. To me, it is co-equal to any of my own highest experiences in pursuing the art of many nations both as dealer and collector. It stands rightfully with ancient art, with masterpieces of Asia and Europe, as their equivalent, and I wish it would be looked at this way”.

I am learning how the art museum loan process works and the many details it entails; such as the correspondence between the organizer (The Fenimore Art Museum) and the exhibitor (Dallas Art Museum, for example) and the types of paperwork and agreements it involves. As I looked at the exhibition photos taken by Cleveland and Minneapolis, I realized how differently curators interpret a collection, from the script to the lighting and wall colors. These two museums had different emphases, and in turn communicated these in a variety of aesthetic ways. I am so excited to gain further understanding of the art museum loan process and how travelling exhibitions work from an organizer’s view and an exhibitor’s view. I am particularly thrilled by how curators have different interpretations and presentations of collections, and all tell different stories to the public.

As I dive further into the Thaw Collection, from understanding the objects within their own contexts to how they are important for the art world and society as a whole, I expect to gain a wider and deeper view of the cultural history of American art.

Interning @ Fenimore Art Museum

By Emma Porter, Curatorial Intern

Hi! My name is Emma Porter and I am a volunteer curatorial intern at the Fenimore Art Museum this summer. In December, I will graduate from S.U.N.Y Geneseo as an art history major. I am very excited to share my experience as an intern and hope it creates a space for learning, discussion and exploration.

All of the staff here at Fenimore are so helpful and they all work together as a team. Communication is critical to everyone here, and that is what makes this museum so prolific and run so effectively. For example, I was given my internship projects at a table with the Director of Exhibitions, Michelle Murdock, Associate Curator of Exhibitions, Chris Rossi and Preparator, Stephen Loughman. Each project was explained to me thoroughly and there was active dialogue amongst all of us. I love the communication; it does make the world go around! Something Michelle told me my first day was that I should look at museums and, all of my surroundings for that matter, as a curator. This is a different way of seeing and I am confident that by the end of my internship here, I will be able to “see” like a curator.  There is a lot to look forward to this summer at the Fenimore, and I cannot wait to visit in the fall and in 2012 to see the final products of our research and planning.

Also notable is the close tie between the Fenimore and The Farmers’ Museum, a rural life museum that gives an up close and personal view of life in the 19th century in New York. I love the stoneware collection in the Herkimer Kitchen and the wallpaper in the Jonas More House. When you visit, be sure to take time to pet the baby sheep in the Smith Morey Barn.

Currently at the Feimore, there is the A Window into Edward Hopper exhibition in the Scriven Gallery on the second floor. It tells the story of what Hopper chose to focus on in the places he temporarily or permanently resided in New England, such as Gloucester, MA and Rockland, ME. His wife Jo was his main model for his well-known works depicting lonely people in Manhattan cityscapes and desolate interiors. The Glimmerglass Festival, just down the road from Fenimore, is adopting the opera called Later The Same Evening which is based on five on Hopper’s paintings from is Manhattan period. The exhibition at Fenimore was developed in conjunction with the Festival's production.



Projects:

I am currently looking at the work of Tasha Tudor, an icon for the “home-grown,” and “back to the old way” lifestyle. Tudor lived in Vermont and aimed to mimic a life from the rural 1830s. The Fenimore is planning an exhibition of her paintings, drawings, and holiday cards, along with other artifacts from her life. It is obvious how Tudor’s work and lifestyle are relevant to both the Fenimore Art Museum and The Farmers’ Museum. I am looking through her images that the Fenimore is borrowing from the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA, and figuring out how to tie in images from the Farmers’ Museum with the labels that will be in Fenimore. For example, the label for Tudor’s In April the Birds Return (below) could feature a photograph of two of The Farmers’ Museum’s own oxen yolked and plowing the farm field.

Children and gardens are prevalent in Tudor's work. Gardens can be seen as a metaphor for the intellectual and physical growth of children. Tudor published a Caldecott Honor children’s book that counts to ten using flowers. The Farmers’ Museum has a children’s garden near the Dimmick House. To provide an connection between the Fenimore and the Farmers’ Museum, I think a children’s gardening workshop that incorporates Tudor’s work, especially her children’s books illustrations, would be a lot of fun.

I'll keep you posted as my internship progresses!