Director Believes in the Power of Art

STORY BY Laurie Bailey

PHOTOS BY Heidi Lewis

Anne Kraybill, the Richard M. Scaife director/CEO of The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, likes to think big. Members of her staff at the Greensburg facility will tell you she is ambitious, knowledgeable, and excited about projects.

It’s a good thing, too, because at the forefront of Kraybill’s goals for Westmoreland is to provide the public with myriad perspectives on what it means to be an American—and just who is included and who is not when it comes to art.

“That to me is so incredibly powerful and important and something that I think the arts can provide,” she says.

Since coming on board at Westmoreland in 2018, she’s executed a strategic plan centered on diversity, equity, access, and inclusion. Part of that plan is to further pursue works by women and by artists of color for the permanent collection and in the temporary exhibition space.

For instance, a spring 2022 show called “Declaration & Resistance” features artist Stephen Towns’ mixed media story quilts and paintings of African American labor and resilience, one of which celebrates the work of a Black Western Virginia coal miner relegated to the worst working conditions.

And there’s last year’s retrospective called “Simple Pleasures: The Art of Doris Lee” that highlighted paintings and drawings by the 1930s and 40s abstract expressionist. Lee, in her lifetime, sold more reproductions of her painting Thanksgiving than Grant Wood sold of American Gothic, Kraybill says.

“But she is just not known in the canon of American art history in the same way,” she says. “We think part of that is because she was female.”

Kraybill, 44, is tasked with leading her team of 42 in developing strategies for building the museum’s collection and curating and bringing world-class temporary exhibitions to Western Pennsylvania. She works creatively, says chief curator Barbara Jones, to offer compelling programming that serves the community.

“If we do an exhibition on a certain subject, she wants to expand on that in a different way,” Jones says. “She’s thinking broadly about the programming.”

One way Kraybill has done this is by introducing a culinary component to each exhibition, Jones adds. For example, a 2019 exhibition called “Mingled Visions: The Photographs of Edward S. Curtis and Will Wilson” combined Curtis’ early 20th-century Native American photographs with the contemporary works of photographer Will Wilson, a citizen of the Navajo Nation. It was Kraybill’s idea to hold a Native American decolonized dinner at which Sioux chef Sean Sherman taught Native American farming techniques, harvesting, and cooking to at-risk youth, Jones says.

And for a dinner to close the 2021 “Border Cantos/Sonic Border” show that highlighted photographs and sculpture of the American and Mexican border by Richard Misrach and Guillermo Galindo, the museum hosted a chorus comprising voices from Central and South American countries.

“We look at our programs as an invitation,” Kraybill says. “Some people may not think of themselves as museum goers.”

But, she adds, they may consider and feel welcomed by a movie in Westmoreland’s parking lot.

Kraybill also added a café to the museum’s first floor and obtained a liquor license to enhance evening programs “where you come in and have a glass of wine and listen to some music,” Jones says.

A large part of Kraybill’s position is fundraising to support the creative programming at the museum, which has a $2.6 million operating budget and $1 million in grants.

Sparking an annual Winter Lights Illumination Night that began in 2019, Kraybill recruited lighting designers from Pittsburgh’s LUXE Creative and gained sponsorship support from Strassburger McKenna Gutnick and Gefsky Attorneys at Law to create an annual twomonth-long exterior light display. The immersive experience opens with an evening of music and complimentary hot chocolate.

Prior to coming to The Westmoreland, Kraybill attended the renowned Museum Leadership Institute, an intensive professional development program of the Getty Foundation, in Los Angeles. She was selected from a competitive pool of worldwide applicants. Although she applied in her previous role as the director of education at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, Kraybill participated representing The Westmoreland.

“During that two weeks, I charted out a path of how I was going to get to know the staff and community, understand what’s important to them, and understand what investments need to be made,” she says. “And so I created a 90-day onboarding experience for myself.”

It proved valuable for working with a staff that had just bid farewell to their former director of 25 years, Judith O’Toole.

“Judy was incredibly generous in creating a foundation for this museum that attracted me to this position in the first place,” Kraybill says.

One endeavor the staff had been pursuing at the time of Kraybill’s arrival was a plan for reaching out to the community through education.

“Having somebody who was so in tune with education and what is going on in that field was really important,” Jones says.

Kraybill says she values the different perspectives from the museum’s leadership who, in turn, also rely heavily on their own staff ’s decisions to move the organization forward.

“It’s exciting to work at a place where we really get to be creative and experiment with many different opportunities,” says Erica Nuckles, the museum’s director of learning, engagement, and partnerships, who has been at Westmoreland since April 2021. “It’s really great to have a leader who inspires and encourages.”

“I am so impressed with how dedicated this team is and how dedicated they are not only to the museum itself, but to the community,” Kraybill says.

In fact, Kraybill values the museum as a true asset and as a vital part of larger local revitalization projects, especially during the pandemic when people are investing in regional travel instead of cross county or international travel. And in an area that is reinventing itself in term of industry and economy, she wants the museum to have a significant role in attracting new residents.

“She is a big reason why I wanted to work here,” Nuckles says. “She just has this amazing vision to continue growing and expanding.”

A graduate of Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, with a bachelor of fine arts in photography, Kraybill received her master of arts in museum education from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and a master of science in instructional technology from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. She’s held additional leadership roles at the Durham Arts Council in Durham, North Carolina; the Vero Beach Museum of Art in Vero Beach, Florida; and the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida. Kraybill lives in Greensburg with her husband and two sons. She and her team hold a deep pride in their organization. “There are not many small towns like this that can have not only a museum but all the cultural landscape that Greensburg has to offer,” she says.

It doesn’t take long to realize The Westmoreland Museum of American Art is more than its gallery walls and recently renovated space. A masterpiece in its own right, the nationally recognized facility is a true regional resource for art education, cultural enrichment, and community fellowship.

“We are really fortunate because we are one of the few art museums in the area that does not charge admissions,” says Anne Kraybill, the museum’s Richard M. Scaife director/CEO. “We really believe that access to the arts is a right and should be available to everybody.”

The museum, with about 600 works on view at any one time from a collection of more than 4,000 pieces, has been free to the public since 2018 thanks to its generous members, donors, and UPMC Health Plan.

Inside its walls, the museum staff welcomes the community to programs like family-friendly Community Days and Children’s Saturday Studio classes, an opportunity for children to learn and craft their own art. Both kept going virtually throughout the pandemic.

“There were over 40 virtual arts classes for children and adults,” says Erica Nuckles, director of learning, engagement, and partnerships. “We just had a mindful painting class that involved meditation and learning about color, sort of a self-care art class.”

Further reaching out through avenues such as YouTube, The Westmoreland is in the testing phase of a new learning management system that offers pre- and post-visit materials to schools and other groups. Workshops about its exhibitions are also available for local and national educators.

In addition to investing in K–12 initiatives, The Westmoreland is expanding its programming into senior and early education centers and providing programming for teens—future museum-goers—as well, says Kraybill.

Driving toward future goals, Kraybill says the museum will partner with universities, resume peer programs, and create college ambassador programs. She would also like the facility to host “poetry slams” and DJs in the galleries.

“There are all kinds of way to engage students on our campus,” she says.

Outside, crossing Greensburg’s North Main Street bridge toward the museum, pedestrians and motorists can appreciate public art in the form of three-dimensional metal lines of poetry, fastened to the bridge’s concrete walls. Currently, they feature monthly installments of local poet Fred Shaw’s work, “Fulcrum.” And in 2020, the museum expanded into the community when it partnered with the Westmoreland Diversity Coalition on a traveling billboard campaign that engaged 10 regional artists, responding to the Make Our Differences Our Strengths campaign.

“We had 23 billboards around Westmoreland County, all speaking to different issues related to diversity and inclusion,” Kraybill says.

Awe-inspiring yet unintimidating, the LEED-certified facility welcomes the public through a two-story glass entryway into its spacious lobby. Visitors are directed through the Robershaw Gallery for rotating contemporary regional art to a naturally lighted stairwell where a Tim Prentice silver kinetic sculpture (180 by 84 feet) sways with subtle air movement.

Upstairs, past the futuristic cantilevered gallery for temporary exhibits (part of the museum’s $28 million renovation and expansion that was completed in 2015), guests are welcomed by knowledgeable hosts into a maze of galleries, many giving a nod to regional history.

The Mack Gallery is home to the striking copper-foiled and plated glass Tiffany window. Created for Greensburg resident Thomas Lynch, it was built by Tiffany Studios in New York for his home on West Pittsburgh Street around 1905. It’s a visitor favorite, says chief curator Barbara Jones, along with Thomas Hovenden’s 1880s work, Death of Elaine and Mary Stevenson Cassatt’s 1905 oil on canvas, Mother with Two Children.

The high-ceilinged, divided McKenna Gallery is dedicated to large scale works and pays homage to the region’s industry on one side and, on the other, the verdant Southwestern Pennsylvania landscapes by the Scalp Level artists of the 1800s.

“The juxtaposition of those two is really interesting; you had these artists seeking refuge from industrialization and you had other artists celebrating the progress that industrialization brings,” says Kraybill.

It’s a room, she adds, where visitors connect proudly and personally with the regional steel mill and coal mine representations.

As one exits the McKenna Gallery, one comes face to face with the 102-piece bubbling pink Chihuly blown glass sculpture/chandelier from 1995 that hangs in the facility’s glassenclosed back staircase.

Through a 19th-century gallery with works highlighting domesticity, love and loss, and nature and landscape, visitors enter the Friedlander Gallery. Stored in shallow display-case drawers, more than 255 frakturs—handwritten ink, watercolor printed, and hand-colored birth certificates, wedding announcements, and other documents—open a treasure chest of Westmoreland County family history.

“We change out works in the permanent collection … traditionally we had rotated an entire gallery once a year,” Jones says. Even the smallest of adjustments are constantly made during the pandemic, she adds.

A third floor is dedicated to works on paper and includes a classroom and study center.

Finally, visitors can relax in The Westmoreland’s Café Marchand, named for longtime Greensburg resident Mary Marchand, who inspired the original museum that was established in 1959.

The Westmoreland Museum of American Art

221 N. Main St.

Greensburg, PA 15601

www.TheWestmoreland.org

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday Closed Monday & Tuesday Closed New Year’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Advanced online registration recommended; free admission.