Under the FAC goes Out of the FAC!
Life is best in threes. Three intrepid museum professionals. Three museums visited. Three hours of traffic on the way home. Three out of three stars given to a wonderful day surrounded by wonderfully insightful museum professionals that took massive chunks of time out of their days to meet with us and show us a unique peak into their everyday jobs.
Stop one out of three was the Kirkland Museum of Decorative and Fine Arts. Conveniently all of our stops were so close that not only did we not have to move the car, we didn't even have to leave the block.
This is thanks to the Kirkland museums recent move. The museum only recently (as of March) reopened their doors and we were lucky to be able to experience the museum in this time of transition. The people who made our experience possible were Chris Herron, the deputy curator, and Becca Goodrum, the registrar. We went in before the opening of the museum and were guided through it, bombarding them with questions all the while. Both of them were kind and patient with our verbal attack and answered everything. They also took us downstairs and we were impressed with the amount they were able to get done since the move.
Our second stop on the trip was the Clyfford Still Museum, where we met and had lunch with registrar Emily Kosakowski. During our lunch, generously provided by our boss, we chatted at length about Emily's path into the museum world and specifically about her path to becoming the registrar at the Clyfford Still museum. Unlike most registrars today, Emily did not inherit her position from another. She was selected as registrar before the museum even opened. She had to navigate the complications of working at the Clyfford Still museum without anyone else's previous experience or guidance.
It was interesting learning about the different learning how different the term "registrar" can mean from institution to institution. Here at the Fine Arts Center, our registrars are responsible for in-coming and out-going loans, acquisitions, gifts, etc. They are responsible for both the legal aspect of the loans or acquisitions and for the long term care of the collections.
At the Clyfford Still museum, the registrar is posed with an interesting dilemma. There are no acquisitions. There has only ever been one loan out of the museum. The majority of the usual work for a registrar is suddenly null. The reason for this is not only because it is a single artist museum, but also because of the very extensive contract, which was the condition for the gifting of the collection to the city of Denver.
None of this is to say that Emily has an easy go of the registrar game. She has to face unique challenges housing and caring for 90% of the work by Clyfford Still, who was well-known for working on a massive scale. The museum is currently under going a massive inventory of many works that have not been viewed since around 1950. The works were tightly rolled and stored in the family's basement. The museum now has three full-time conservators that assess and perform treatments on the unrolled works, in hopes of better preserving them for the future.
After walking us through the collection, conservation, and office space (all while answering our rather pestering questions), we bid Emily farewell and used our remaining 30 minutes to quickly walk through the upstairs gallery. The spaces were beautiful and open, and 30 minutes did not do them justice. For the record, both Amber and I highly recommend the crafting space available upstairs. It is maliciously well-stocked and we were both devastated to not play (I mean create) with it ourselves.
Our final stop on our day of threes was the Denver Art Museum (DAM), where we were met by Caitlin Rumery, assistant registrar, who showed us around the absolutely massive backstage of the the museum. Caitlin, the chief registrar Sarah Cucinella-McDaniel, and her associate registrar Isabel Tovar are all dealing with a registrar's worst nightmare. A massive renovation. The seven story North Building designed by Italian Modernist Gio Ponti is coming up on it's 50th anniversary and in celebration the building is being completely internally renovated.
This means a lot of different things to registrars, and in this case, the separate department of collections management. First of all, the North Building is where they primarily stored the majority of their collection. Meaning all of the art stored there and on display when it closed had to either go into their remaining collections storage or to their off-site facility. And while it might be okay for to rip your command strips off the walls, roll up ten of your posters together, tie some rubber bands around them and throw them in a U-haul, it is not so for collections managers. Every piece has to handled by a trained art handler, carefully wrapped, and loaded into a vehicle in such a way that allows the piece to complete it's journey completely unscathed.
The move wasn't only difficult during the process. Finding adequate space in the Hamilton (non-renovated) building meant disrupting the working spaces of the majority of staff. The entire team had to be adaptable and work with what spaces they could now occupy.
When we got there we could tell it was busy. People often think of museums as tranquil environments but this seemed more like the kitchen of a busy restaurant. Caitlin was calm however, and showed us the different areas and told us about some of the challenges they have faced as a museum. We were particularly interested in the story of how they had to move a painting so large that it had to be carried down on top of the freight elevator.
We ended our time at the museums with a long talk with Caitlin and Isabel about how best we should proceed as we graduate and try and enter this field ourselves. They gave helpful piece of advice after helpful piece of advice. We took in what we could and thanked them and said our good byes.
What stuck with me long after our three hour car ride though was not just the information that these museum professionals passed on, but the sincerity with which they passed it. In and everyone of them was interested in our success and I am so grateful to not only have had this learning opportunity, but an opportunity to meet people genuinely interested in my life and personal success.
For more information on these museums, visit their websites here:
http://www.kirklandmuseum.org/
https://clyffordstillmuseum.org/
https://denverartmuseum.org/
Alternative titles:
DAM, what a trip.
Three little museums
RegistRAWR
All in a Blocks Walk
Jailbreak! Intern edition
Written by Suzy Lewis
 |
| Taken at the Kirkland Museum |
Stop one out of three was the Kirkland Museum of Decorative and Fine Arts. Conveniently all of our stops were so close that not only did we not have to move the car, we didn't even have to leave the block.
 |
| Taken at the Kirkland Museum. Registrar Becca Goodrum on left |
This is thanks to the Kirkland museums recent move. The museum only recently (as of March) reopened their doors and we were lucky to be able to experience the museum in this time of transition. The people who made our experience possible were Chris Herron, the deputy curator, and Becca Goodrum, the registrar. We went in before the opening of the museum and were guided through it, bombarding them with questions all the while. Both of them were kind and patient with our verbal attack and answered everything. They also took us downstairs and we were impressed with the amount they were able to get done since the move.
Our second stop on the trip was the Clyfford Still Museum, where we met and had lunch with registrar Emily Kosakowski. During our lunch, generously provided by our boss, we chatted at length about Emily's path into the museum world and specifically about her path to becoming the registrar at the Clyfford Still museum. Unlike most registrars today, Emily did not inherit her position from another. She was selected as registrar before the museum even opened. She had to navigate the complications of working at the Clyfford Still museum without anyone else's previous experience or guidance.
 |
| Taken at the Clyfford Still Museum |
It was interesting learning about the different learning how different the term "registrar" can mean from institution to institution. Here at the Fine Arts Center, our registrars are responsible for in-coming and out-going loans, acquisitions, gifts, etc. They are responsible for both the legal aspect of the loans or acquisitions and for the long term care of the collections.
At the Clyfford Still museum, the registrar is posed with an interesting dilemma. There are no acquisitions. There has only ever been one loan out of the museum. The majority of the usual work for a registrar is suddenly null. The reason for this is not only because it is a single artist museum, but also because of the very extensive contract, which was the condition for the gifting of the collection to the city of Denver.
None of this is to say that Emily has an easy go of the registrar game. She has to face unique challenges housing and caring for 90% of the work by Clyfford Still, who was well-known for working on a massive scale. The museum is currently under going a massive inventory of many works that have not been viewed since around 1950. The works were tightly rolled and stored in the family's basement. The museum now has three full-time conservators that assess and perform treatments on the unrolled works, in hopes of better preserving them for the future.
 |
| Taken at the Clyfford Still Museum |
After walking us through the collection, conservation, and office space (all while answering our rather pestering questions), we bid Emily farewell and used our remaining 30 minutes to quickly walk through the upstairs gallery. The spaces were beautiful and open, and 30 minutes did not do them justice. For the record, both Amber and I highly recommend the crafting space available upstairs. It is maliciously well-stocked and we were both devastated to not play (I mean create) with it ourselves.
 |
| Taken at the Clyfford Still Museum |
Our final stop on our day of threes was the Denver Art Museum (DAM), where we were met by Caitlin Rumery, assistant registrar, who showed us around the absolutely massive backstage of the the museum. Caitlin, the chief registrar Sarah Cucinella-McDaniel, and her associate registrar Isabel Tovar are all dealing with a registrar's worst nightmare. A massive renovation. The seven story North Building designed by Italian Modernist Gio Ponti is coming up on it's 50th anniversary and in celebration the building is being completely internally renovated.
This means a lot of different things to registrars, and in this case, the separate department of collections management. First of all, the North Building is where they primarily stored the majority of their collection. Meaning all of the art stored there and on display when it closed had to either go into their remaining collections storage or to their off-site facility. And while it might be okay for to rip your command strips off the walls, roll up ten of your posters together, tie some rubber bands around them and throw them in a U-haul, it is not so for collections managers. Every piece has to handled by a trained art handler, carefully wrapped, and loaded into a vehicle in such a way that allows the piece to complete it's journey completely unscathed.
The move wasn't only difficult during the process. Finding adequate space in the Hamilton (non-renovated) building meant disrupting the working spaces of the majority of staff. The entire team had to be adaptable and work with what spaces they could now occupy.
When we got there we could tell it was busy. People often think of museums as tranquil environments but this seemed more like the kitchen of a busy restaurant. Caitlin was calm however, and showed us the different areas and told us about some of the challenges they have faced as a museum. We were particularly interested in the story of how they had to move a painting so large that it had to be carried down on top of the freight elevator.
We ended our time at the museums with a long talk with Caitlin and Isabel about how best we should proceed as we graduate and try and enter this field ourselves. They gave helpful piece of advice after helpful piece of advice. We took in what we could and thanked them and said our good byes.
What stuck with me long after our three hour car ride though was not just the information that these museum professionals passed on, but the sincerity with which they passed it. In and everyone of them was interested in our success and I am so grateful to not only have had this learning opportunity, but an opportunity to meet people genuinely interested in my life and personal success.
For more information on these museums, visit their websites here:
http://www.kirklandmuseum.org/
https://clyffordstillmuseum.org/
https://denverartmuseum.org/
Alternative titles:
DAM, what a trip.
Three little museums
RegistRAWR
All in a Blocks Walk
Jailbreak! Intern edition
Written by Suzy Lewis
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