FA L L 2 0 0 9
CALENDER
UNIVERSITY of IOWA MUSEUM of ART EXHIBITIONS Through December 31
A Legacy for Iowa: Pollock’s Mural and Modern Masterworks from the University of Iowa Museum of Art Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second St., Davenport, IA
Ongoing from September 8 PUBLIC EVENTS August 22 7:00 p.m.
UIMA@IMU Iowa Memorial Union, at Jefferson & Madison St., Iowa City
UIMA@IMU: Welcome Week Student Preview Hubbard Park and Richey Ballroom Iowa Memorial Union, at Jefferson & Madison St., Iowa City
September 3
*5:00–9:00 p.m. Thursdays at the Figge: Dale Fisher on Ad Reinhardt Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second St., Davenport, IA September 10
*5:00–9:00 p.m. Thursdays at the Figge: Nathan Popp on Marsden Hartley Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second St., Davenport, IA September 17
8:00 p.m. 5:00 p.m. September 23
Jeanne and Richard Levitt Lectureship: American Crafts in Context Guest Lecturer Kurt Weiser W151 John Pappajohn Business Building Elliott Society Lecture, You Want Me To Build What…Where??? University Athletic Club, 1360 Melrose Avenue, Iowa City
September 24
UIMA Word Painters Reading: Cheyenne Nimes, Ryan Van Meter Senate Chamber, Old Capitol Museum
7:30 p.m.
September 24
*5:00–9:00 p.m. Thursdays at the Figge: Kathleen Edwards on Sam Gilliam Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second St., Davenport, IA October 24
THE MUSEUM PARTY! (a ticketed event) 8:00 p.m. Coralville Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, 300 East Ninth St. October 29 *5:00–9:00 p.m. Thursdays at the Figge: Kathleen Edwards presents “American Workshop Prints (Part II) from the 1950s into the 21st Century” in conjunction with Paper Trails: A Decade of Acquisitions from the Walker Art Center Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second St., Davenport, IA
October 30
6:30 p.m.
Family “View and DO” at Creepy Campus Crawl Pentacrest Museums and UIMA@IMU
November 5
7:30 p.m.
UIMA Word Painters Reading: Janet Hendrickson, Robin Hemley Senate Chamber, Old Capitol Museum
November 12
Public Talk: Ginger Ertz, Tang Teaching Museum, Skidmore College University Athletic Club, 1360 Melrose Avenue, Iowa City
7:30 p.m.
DONOR/VOLUNTEER EVENTS August 15 5:00 p.m. Director’s Circle Event: UIMA@IMU
Iowa Memorial Union, at Jefferson & Madison St., Iowa City
August 28
5:00 p.m.
40th Anniversary All-Donor Party University Athletic Club, 1360 Melrose Avenue, Iowa City
August 31
All Volunteer Coffee UIMA Offices, Studio Arts Building
10:00 a.m.
September 30
5:00 p.m.
Elliott Society Lecture, Around the World in the Richey Ballroom: A Global Perspective University Athletic Club, 1360 Melrose Avenue, Iowa City
October 14
Elliott Society Lecture, The Collection in Action! University Athletic Club, 1360 Melrose Avenue, Iowa City
5:00 p.m.
*Thursdays at the Figge include cash bar 5–9 p.m., music 6–8 p.m., gallery talk 7 p.m. 2
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F R O M T H E D I R E C TO R Fall 2009 brings a new reality to the UIMA. We are changed—we all know and feel the loss of our Museum building. We look forward to the day we will have a new museum in Iowa City. We don’t know yet where it will be or what it will look like, but we do know that our collection will return to campus. The UIMA Envisioning Committee, ably chaired by Carroll Reasoner, UI interim vice president of legal affairs and general counsel, will lead us in this mission. We are grateful to the individuals who have agreed to serve on this committee appointed by President Mason, which will gather ideas and provide inspiration. We all have a role to play in that process. The staff and I will share our professional expertise with the committee, and we hope you will share your vision for the new Museum. Even as we begin planning for our future, we continue to make great strides in the present. In July, we completed the inventory of our collection at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, where UIMA@Figge opened to great acclaim last April. Figge Executive Director Sean O’Harrow estimates the museum’s attendance has increased by 20 percent beyond their usual 65,000 visitors. Admission to the Figge is free to UI students, faculty, and staff and, of course, to our donors. We hope that you will afford yourself the opportunity to see our breathtaking collection. I know I feel renewed every time I visit it in the wonderful temporary home the Figge provides. Personally, this experience is poignant when I reflect on our loss, but positive when I remember that we are a Museum for all of Iowa. We open the UIMA@IMU in the former Richey Ballroom at the Iowa Memorial Union with the beginning of the school semester. Arranged as a “visual classroom,” this beautiful space features work from Africa to the Americas and beyond, from painting to ceramics and more. It’s clear that our students and faculty have missed the Museum and its treasures. Already classes are filling our schedule with visits. And, we will have public hours to share these rare and wonderful objects with all who wish to see. Visit us in our new space; we are proud of it and know you will be, too. We continue to plan for exciting new exhibitions to be offered both on campus and at the Figge. We have programs, including the popular Elliott Society talks, scheduled. And, we are celebrating the Museum’s 40th Anniversary with an inspiring publication due out in time for our fall Museum PARTY! Plan to attend that wonderful event on Oct. 24 to help us celebrate our successes and move toward a new tomorrow. The UIMA has always had a dedicated and loyal public, and we count on you now more than ever. We don’t have all the answers as yet, but they will become clear as we work together to envision and create a better future. To borrow a metaphor, we are the Phoenix and we are rising again. Sincerely,
Pamela White Interim Director
The UIMA Magazine is sponsored by Hands Jewelers: William Nusser and Elizabeth Boyd
Written and edited by Maggie Anderson Designed by Guldeniz Danisman Martinek
Front image: A view from inside the glass-walled classroom at the UIMA’s new on-campus art venue at the Iowa Memorial Union. Turn the page to read more!
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U I M A @I M U
IMU Original works of art are portals to new worlds. Your journey begins here.
Those familiar with the Iowa Memorial Union’s third-floor Richey Ballroom as an event space and periodic Iowa Board of Regents meeting room may not recognize it now. The carpet has been removed to reveal the original maple ballroom floor, which has been sanded and polished to a gleam; the ceiling has been lowered from as high as 18 feet to nearly 12 feet and the windows closed off to allow for light and climate control; and the walls, painted vivid white, divide the 4,000-square-foot room into discrete sections, including a glass-walled study room designated for a close look at art and available for use by appointment. This is the UIMA’s new space, UIMA@IMU, which will serve as a temporary on-campus art venue while the Museum is displaced because of the June 2008 flood. “With the UIMA@IMU, we can continue to offer the invaluable experience of art until a new permanent home is available on campus,” said UIMA Interim Director Pamela White. “The space will serve as a visual classroom for the arts, and we hope both students and members of the public will join us in it often.”
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Above: The IMU’s Richey Ballroom before an event in June 2008. Opposite page, top: Just over a year later, the room has been transformed into a new art space for the UIMA. Bottom row: The Ballroom under construction in summer 2009.
Selected from the more than 12,000 objects in the UIMA collection, the UIMA@IMU installation features over 250 art works from a wide range of locales and periods—Africa, China, Japan, Tibet, and the Ancient Americas among them—as well as twentieth-century European and American ceramics, conceptual art, and a changing selection of figurative art. The opening of the UIMA@IMU marks the first time these works have been accessible on campus since they were evacuated from the Museum more than a year ago. In addition, the more than 250 prints, drawings, and photographs that had been available since October in the University of Iowa Libraries’ Special Collections will move to the UIMA@IMU, for a total of more than 500 available works. “UIMA curatorial staff carefully chose the works with potential teaching use in mind,” said UIMA Chief Curator Kathleen Edwards. “We already have classes booked to use the space the first week of classes,” Edwards said. “It’s clear students and faculty have missed the experience original works of art can provide.” The UIMA and IMU began planning to make the Richey Ballroom suitable for art display just
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U I M A @I M U Staff members Kathy Edwards and Jeff Martin carefully unpack and inventory art.
five months ago. The renovation cost roughly $1 million, 90 percent of which was funded through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Of $110,000 remaining, the UIMA received $30,000 from a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant with the University funding the balance of the match. To schedule a class visit to the UIMA@IMU, teachers should visit the UIMA Web site or call (319) 3353232. Objects from the UIMA collection will also be exhibited in the Levitt Center for University Advancement’s Stanley Gallery, which will house African Art available for viewing by appointment, and the IMU’s Black Box Theater, which will be used periodically for UIMA exhibitions. The rest of the UIMA collection is on display or stored at the Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second St., Davenport, IA, until a new permanent home in Iowa City becomes available. Admission to the Figge is free for UI students, faculty, and staff who present their UI ID cards, UIMA donors who present their donor courtesy card, and Figge Art Museum members. The general public is also welcome for regular Figge admission prices: $7 for adults, $6 for seniors and students, $4 for children ages 3-12.
Dale Fisher and Nathan Popp assist with unpacking and relocating art to its new home.
Temporary UI Museum of Art offices are located in the Studio Arts Building, 1840 SA, Iowa City, Iowa, 52242. For up-to-date Museum information visit www.uiowa.edu/uima or the UIMA blog “Art Matters” at uima.blogspot.com, or call 319-335-1725.
NEH has awarded $1 million in Emergency Flood Assistance Grants for museums, libraries, archives, universities, and other cultural and historical institutions in federally designated disaster areas affected by the floods in the Midwest. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of NEH.
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@IMU HOURS Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday: 12-5 p.m. Open for classes by appointment beginning Aug. 24, and the general public beginning Sept. 8 Parking for the UIMA@IMU is available in the IMU Parking Ramp on North Madison Street, across the street from the IMU’s east side and at the meters in the small parking lot on the IMU’s south side. Additional parking is available in the North Campus Parking Ramp, located at the north end of Madison Street by North Hall.
Above: The journey from crates to installation.
UIMA@Weeks of Welcome The UIMA opened the new UIMA@IMU to students for a sneak preview during the UI’s Welcome Week carnival on Aug. 22. Many incoming and returning UI students stopped by the UIMA’s table in Hubbard Park to learn more about the UIMA@IMU, and more than 65 visited the space that night. Those who made the trip up to the third floor were entered to win $100 worth of prizes from the UIMA, including a gift certificate to Atlas World Grill. Drum roll please...the UIMA congratulates Andy Thompson (left), our lucky winner!
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U I M A@ F I G G E
Ho me Away Fro m H o me By Melissa Hueting For m er UI MA A ssist ant to t he Dire c tor for Special Program s and Curator ial A ss i st a nt
2:00 a.m. Friday, July 13, 2008 Classical music fights a static storm to radiate from an old boom box in a narrow, white hallway at the University of Iowa Museum of Art (UIMA) building on Riverside Drive. UIMA Manager of Exhibitions and Collections Jeff Martin and I are pushing through the night to pack as many objects as possible before the water pours over the barricade of sandbags between the Iowa River and the UIMA and we’re forced to evacuate the Museum. Martin is carefully moving ceramic vessels to higher ground using a rolling-cart lined with padding. I wonder how this will all turn out. How much of the art will survive what is to come? But there is no time to ponder the future—right now we need to stay focused on the collection. I sigh and begin packing another piece of African ivory.
Déjà Vu I recently unpacked that same African ivory at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport. More than a year after the flood, these works were returning to Iowa, to the Figge, their temporary home until a facility becomes available in Iowa City. The UIMA staff worked with conservators and art movers from Chicago to unpack and move the UIMA collection to Figge storage this summer. Like most objects in the collection, the ivory came through its travel from the UIMA to storage in Chicago and then to the Figge unscathed. “We are finding fewer problems than I had anticipated, based on the haste with which we were forced to evacuate the collection,” says Martin. Even the objects that were damaged in transit can be conserved, he adds. They will return to Chicago, joining pieces that are already slated to undergo treatment. “Since we don’t have a permanent home, now is a good time to conserve works that were determined
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The UIMA Legacy for Iowa exhibition is featured on a bus wrap in Davenport.
[pre-flood] to be in need of treatment,” Martin says. “For example, we have a number of artworks from our African collection that were included in a conservation proposal made in December of 2007 that are now in a good position to undergo treatment.”
The Beginning The UIMA-Figge partnership started as all things do: as an idea. In late December of 2008, just before the holiday season, Sean O’Harrow, the Figge’s executive director, invited the UIMA staff to tour the Figge. This was a special kind of tour: a tour of the facility in its totality—every square foot of storage, every inch of gallery space—with all parties hoping that the UIMA’s collection could be housed at the Figge until the UIMA’s permanent presence is reestablished in Iowa City. Like UIMA Interim Director Pamela White, Sean is an “idea” person. In order to make sure that this idea was viable, however, he needed to consult with his staff, this time in particular with Figge Facilities Manager Bob DeBlaey. “Sean and I brainstormed potential storage spaces in order to make sure that what we wanted to offer the UIMA was in fact a feasible offer,” DeBlaey said. “There were so many things to take into consideration: space constraints, previously scheduled events, security. Eventually we were able to draft a plan that could work for both museums.” UIMA staff unpack at the Figge.
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U I M A@ F I G G E UIMA Preparator Steve Erickson (left) and Manager of Exhibitions and Collections Jeff Martin examine African art at the Figge. One of the museum’s fourth floor galleries served as a home base for the UIMA during this inventory process.
Safety First Greg Leedle, director of security for the Figge, wasn’t always involved in law enforcement. With a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and a few years as a professional artist under his belt, he understands very well the importance of securing his current wards. “From a security standpoint, we have increased concern because we have increased objects under our care,” he said. The first two days of the move were the most difficult. “The first shipment that arrived from Chicago included the Pollock, the Motherwell, and the Gilliam,” he says, citing three of the largest works in the UIMA collection, which were moved midMarch. “There were at least forty people helping with the move, people from Terry Dowd, O’Connell International Arts, Oppenheimer Conservation, and the UIMA. We secured the area during the move, but it was a heightened challenge.”
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Since then, Leedle said the security team has established a routine. And looking after the UIMA’s collection is worth it. “Creating and viewing art is still an integral part of my life, so I always enjoy new exhibitions,” he says. “I’ve never been a fan of Picasso, but because of the UIMA’s presence at the Figge I have come to love spending time in front of Flower Vase on Table.”
Space Concerns By far, the greatest challenge for both museum staffs is space, now that two collections are sharing one museum. “We’ve come up with some non-traditional solutions, such as re-fitting a catering space as a storage room, and it looks like everything will fit,” says Figge Registrar Andrew Wallace. Wallace has collaborated with Steve Erickson, the UIMA’s preparator, to coordinate details such as the purchase of shelving units and painting racks for the
more than 12,000 works in the UIMA collection. They have succeeded in utilizing every space available. “At the old UIMA, our paintings hung on 34 2-sided 20-by-16-foot racks, which took up about the same square footage in that building that we have for total storage space at the Figge,” Erickson says. “Probably the most creative solution we’ve discovered is the creation of rolling carts for the paintings. These provide an inexpensive, safe, and compact means for painting storage.”
Making Progress The elevator dings, indicating a new arrival to the space at the Figge where we spend eight hours a day unpacking and checking in the UIMA’s collection as it returns, truckload by truckload, from storage in Chicago. O’Harrow steps off the elevator, and his gasp of surprise at what he sees echoes throughout the room. “You’ve unpacked so much since I was last up here!” I put down the Bolivian textile I’m holding and pause our background music (today: Albert White, “Soul of the Blues”). As O’Harrow walks over to our check-in station for an update, his questions and comments demonstrate the same level of care and concern for our collection that is shown by his entire staff regularly. When the UIMA staff began moving artworks into the Figge months ago, we were instructed to think of the Figge as our home away from home. We hear this time and again, but it’s the kind actions offered by the Figge staff daily that reinforces these welcoming words. With this stage of the Figge-UIMA relationship complete, both staffs can begin to plan collaborative projects for the future.
Nearly 100 of these metal trays filled with Chinese jade and Pre-Columbian terracotta figures were examined and moved to new temporary storage at the Figge. Staff finished the inventory in mid-July.
UIMA@Figge Events UIMA staff members will be presenting several “Thursdays at the Figge” gallery talks this fall, so make why not make it an evening out in Davenport with the UIMA’s art? Remember, UIMA donors receive free admission to the Figge with their Donor Courtesy Card, as do UI faculty, staff, and students with their UI ID card. Talk at 7 p.m., Figge bar open from 5-9 p.m., music from 6-8 p.m. first and third Thursdays. • Sept. 3: UIMA Director of Education Dale Fisher on Ad Reinhardt, whose work Abstract Painting is on display in the UIMA’s current exhibition at the Figge. • Sept. 10: UIMA Graduate Curatorial Assistant Nathan Popp on Marsden Hartley, whose painting E is on display in the UIMA’s current exhibition at the Figge. • Sept. 24: UIMA Chief Curator Kathleen Edwards on Sam Gilliam, whose painting Red April is on display in the UIMA’s current exhibition at the Figge. • Oct. 29: Edwards presents “American Workshop Prints (Part II) from the 1950s into the 21st Century,” a lecture in conjunction with the Figge exhibition Paper Trail: A Decade of Acquisitions from the Walker Art Center, on display through Jan. 3, 2010.
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UIMA EDUCATION
Art
Education Museums connected to institutions of higher education face tough competition for student audiences. Free pizza and a movie over here, a concert over there, all those bars! And what was that? You say there’s an art museum on campus? “How to get a really busy, really self-focused audience to consider museums as a resource is a problem all university museums tend to face,” said UIMA Director of Education Dale Fisher. “It’s tough getting them to slow down and think about the possibilities of art.”
Still some museums have managed to engage the student demographic, and Fisher hopes to take advantage of their successful strategies. Beginning this fall, the UIMA will offer periodic free public lectures To help kick off the fall semester, the UIMA hosted an art activity for UI students at the Welcome Week Carnival in Hubbard Park. Student-focused events are a key focused on art education. Ginger Ertz, a museum part of the Tang’s outreach, says Ginger Ertz. educator at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, will present the first talk in this series at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, in the University Athletic Club, 1360 Melrose Ave. Similar in size and audience to the UIMA, the Tang has become known nationwide as a model for academic art museums. “They have a lively, energetic, engaged audience, which is contrary to the reputation of art museums as stuffy at best and tomb-like at worst,” Fisher said. Getting to that point is not easy. “It was definitely a learning process,” Ertz said. One key element of the Tang’s success is its exhibitions and programming that appeal to many different academic areas. Ertz cited Molecules That Matter, an exhibition showcasing ten organic molecules that profoundly altered the world in the twentieth century, as a prime example. For this show, the museum juxtaposed large-scale models of the ten molecules against contemporary art works by nationally recognized artists and a range of historical objects and documents. “It’s easier to get teachers interested in exhibitions like Molecules That Matter because they see the curriculum connection,” she said. “But once we get them here, they’re hooked forever.” Another key component for attracting students to the museum is getting them involved. Ertz noted the Tang engages students through work study or credit-based internships, woos student art organizations with perks like dinner with an artist, and ups the “cool factor” of the museum with late-night programming coordinated by a student advisory group. Fisher added that he hopes a wide cross-section of educators, museum professionals, students, the general public, and UIMA patrons will attend the event to learn about these and other educational strategies. “We have the chance to benefit from the experience of people at other academic art museums,” he said. “This is part of the brainstorming process for our stakeholders and audiences about our future museum. We have a chance to decide who we’re going to be. Let’s not waste that chance.” 12
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UIMA “Word Painters” Created in the fall of 2006 to foster writing about the visual arts, the UIMA’s annual collaborative writing program invites four University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program (NWP) Master of Fine Arts candidates to think critically about the intersection of art and life. UIMA “Word Painters” receive an honorarium to work on writing projects, including an artbased essay, and they read from their work throughout the academic year alongside well-known writers from the faculty of the UI’s famed writing programs. Fall 2009 programs will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Old Capitol Museum’s Senate Chamber. Cheyenne Nimes and Ryan Van Meter Thursday, September 24
Janet Hendrickson and Robin Hemley Thursday, November 5
This program is sponsored by MIcheal A. and Agnes M. Apicella.
This program is sponsored by Kevin and Pat Hanick.
Cheyenne Nimes is originally from Valley Forge, PA. Her work has appeared in Ninth Letter, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, First Intensity, 580 Split, Green Mountains Review, and several other magazines. She was an Iowa Arts Fellow in the NWP and received her MFA in poetry from San Francisco State University. Her thesis and first book, Passing Through 90 Degrees, won the Michael Rubin Book award, was published by San Francisco State, and garnered a fellowship in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her cross-genre novel The Dead Elvis Ball was a finalist in the Chiasmus Press’ First Novel Contest and a semi-finalist in Starcherone Press’ Experimental Novel Contest. She is currently writing about America’s rivers: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Ryan Van Meter was born in St. Charles, MO. He majored in English at the University of Missouri–Columbia, and lived for ten years in Chicago where he worked as an advertising copywriter and completed an MA in Creative Writing at DePaul University. Last year, he graduated from the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing MFA Program, and he currently holds the 20092010 Provost’s Postgraduate Writing Fellowship in Nonfiction. His work has been published in The Gettysburg Review, Indiana Review, Gulf Coast, Arts & Letters, and Fourth Genre, among others, and selected for anthologies including the forthcoming volume of Best American Essays. His essay collection If You Knew Then What I Know Now will be published by Sarabande Books.
Janet Hendrickson is a third-year student in the Nonfiction Writing Program. Originally from Wisconsin, she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Dallas in 2003. Before coming to the University of Iowa, she worked in a community center for Mexican immigrants on the south side of Chicago and volunteered in Nicaragua for more than two years. She is writing her thesis about failed visions of utopia on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua and has published translations of fiction and essays in Words Without Borders, n+1, and Zoetrope: All-Story. Robin Hemley is the author of eight books of fiction and nonfiction, most recently DO-OVER! (Little, Brown, May, 2009). His awards include a 2008 Fellowship from The Guggenheim Foundation, two Pushcart Prizes, The Nelson Algren Award for Fiction from The Chicago Tribune, and many others. His essay, “Twirl and Run” is the text for New York street photographer Jeff Mermelstein’s new book, also titled TWIRL & RUN (powerHouse Books). Hemley, an Iowa Writers’ Workshop alumnus, currently serves as the director of the University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program.
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U I M A E D U C AT I O N
Otherworldly
art
Weiser works in a markedly different style from past Levitt lecturers. The 59-year-old’s work combines the traditional and the contemporary, challenging conceptions about modern ceramics. “It’s a weird conundrum,” says UIMA Director of Education Dale Fisher, who took classes with Weiser at ASU while studying to get his MFA. “Because of the porcelain clay body and china painting, his work has a really strong tradition. But at the same time, it’s thoroughly contemporary. There’s this incongruity at work in each piece, which I think makes them interesting.”
Photo by Garth Weiser
Kurt Weiser wants his art to take you places. “It’s like a TV set,” he says. “When it’s off, it’s an object. When it’s on, it’s a place. It’s more of a window than a thing.” The artist’s intricately painted ceramics overflow with verdant foliage populated by female protagonists, serpents, birds, and other animals. The otherworldly landscapes recall far-off or long-lost places—the Garden of Eden, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, El Dorado. Weiser, a ceramics professor at Arizona State University (ASU), will present the UIMA’s annual Jeanne and Richard Levitt Lectureship: American Crafts in Context at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 17, in W151 John Pappajohn Business Building on the University of Iowa campus. The artist is the latest in a line of luminaries the series has brought to the UIMA since it began in 2002 “It’s like a TV set. When it’s off, it’s an after being object. When it’s on, it’s a place. endowed It’s more of a window than a thing.” by Madelyn Levitt of Des Moines in honor of her brother and sisterin-law. Other lectures have featured such noted figures as David Revere McFadden, chief curator at the American Craft Museum in New York (now the Museum of Arts and Design), art dealer and ceramic arts expert Garth Clark, and ceramist and University of Minnesota professor emeritus Warren MacKenzie in conversation with his former student Randy Johnston, a professor at the University of Wisconsin in River Falls.
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The UIMA has two early works by Weiser in its collection. Spare and earth-toned, they give little hint of the work to come. Weiser says he originally wanted to be a painter (“I wanted to be Salvador Dali,” he says), but he became fascinated by ceramics after taking a required class and began working in the Abstract Expressionist style popular at that time. Still, he missed painting and continued to draw and paint. When he came to Arizona to teach in 1989, Weiser saw it as an opportunity to combine painting with his successful ceramics practice. “I enjoyed creating the illusion. I liked form, so I just put the two together,” he says. Painting on porcelain is an involved, technical process. Once he has the completed ceramic piece, Weiser says it can take him up to two weeks to paint the scene. Using colored pigment mixed with oil, he begins with an idea and builds upon it, frequently revising his composition. “A lot of times the models were faces out of magazines,” he says. “Big, glossy faces. I could tear those faces out of the magazines and adjust them— take the face and cut it into strips and stretch it out.
Kurt Weiser (American, born 1950), Untitled, 1983. Cast porcelain. Gift of Paul and Anastasia Polydoran, 2005.31.
I have a file of noses and a file of eyes and a file of mouths, and I’d make up my own model that way. Now I do it in Photoshop.” Finally, he sets the picture with up to five or six firings. “It’s a slow process,” Weiser says, “but it gives you time to think.” While Weiser says he doesn’t intend his paintings to convey any specific message, he doesn’t resist the human tendency to create a narrative. “The pieces usually end up with a story,” he says. “It just kind of happens when you’ve got imagery there. I try not to be too clear about it because it gets boring, like a sermon. You look at the information that’s there and make up a story, and everybody makes up something a little bit different.” To Fisher, Weiser’s paintings often invoke ecological or biological themes. “You see a figure in a landscape that implies a narrative, like a story you are walking in on,” he says. “The nature in the painting is seductive, but there’s also something unsettling about it. There’s a Surrealist edge to it.”
Kurt Weiser (American, born 1950), Orbit, 2009. Porcelain and bronze. Image courtesy of the artist.
Weiser, who has spent time in Japan and Thailand, says he has been fascinated by the jungle since he was a child. He cited botanical illustrations from the early nineteenth century, such as those of John James Audubon, as inspiration. “There are more secrets in that kind of an environment,” he says. “It’s fascinating to paint all that kind of variation.” The characters in Weiser’s paintings are almost always women, a decision he describes with a sense of inevitability. “They are more interesting than men,” he says. “I do put men in the pictures sometimes. Or sometimes I can’t tell if they’re male or female...the women look like men, the men look like women, even I get confused. A lot of times they’re just people. Somebody has to be there. There has to be a witness to what’s going on.” The UIMA will have a representative sample of its ceramics collection, including many pieces frequently used by classes, at its new gallery in the IMU’s former Richey Ballroom. UIMA@IMU opens Sept. 8. Go online to www.uiowa.edu/uima for hours and more information!
Kurt Weiser (American, born 1950), Blue Midnight, 2009. Porcelain and bronze. Image courtesy of the artist.
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UIMA NEWS
Envisioning UI Museum of Art Envisioning Committee Carroll J. Reasoner, Chair
When floodwaters hit the UI Museum of Art in June 2008, the Museum staff had to prioritize. First, rescue the art. Then, make art accessible through alternative locations. Now, says UIMA Interim Director Pamela White, it’s time to look toward the future. “We are all of course saddened by the loss of the former Museum of Art building on Riverside Drive,” White says. “But it’s time to turn the page and begin thinking about the future of the Museum, how we can make it even better than before.” To begin this forward-moving process, UI President Sally Mason has appointed an Envisioning Committee for the UIMA. Comprised of community members, faculty, and students, the group’s charge from the president is to “assess best practices among art museums joined to institutions of higher learning and the aspirations of Iowans for the UI Museum of Art.” The Committee will meet throughout the next six months and make recommendations to the UI administration at the end of that time. Carroll Reasoner, who serves as UI interim vice president of legal affairs and general counsel, has been appointed chair of the UIMA Envisioning Committee. Reasoner says the Committee will consult UIMA staff, museum experts, and other UI talents as resources in order to develop the most comprehensive and informed recommendations. “The University of Iowa Museum of Art is an integral part of the academic mission of the University of Iowa,” Reasoner says. “We aim to develop an overall creative vision that can be accomplished by the Museum of Art in a new setting and to put best ideas into practical contexts.” The UIMA Envisioning Committee can be contacted by e-mail at envisionuima@uiowa.edu. 16
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Community Members David Bright Debbie Galbraith Jim Hayes Sharman Hunter Linda Paul Nancy Quellhorst Joyce Summerwill Craig Willis Faculty Members Ruth Ann Bentler Barbara Eckstein Bob Fellows H. Dee Hoover Alan MacVey Christopher D. Roy John Beldon Scott Susan White Student Members Benjamin Lipnick Nathan Popp Advisory Resources Kathleen Edwards chief curator, UIMA Rod Lehnertz director of design and construction, UI Facilities Management Jeff Liebermann UI Foundation Jeff Martin manager of exhibitions and collections, UIMA Pamela White interim director, UIMA
a new Museum of Art Carroll Reasoner, the head of the new UIMA Envisioning Committee, sat down with the UIMA for a quick Q&A. UIMA: Why do you think you were chosen to head this committee? CR: I have many years of experience in working with volunteer groups in strategic planning and visioning. I have chaired numerous organizations and committees and enjoy working with people to form a consensus for a common vision. UIMA: What is your goal for this committee?
Owen and Leone Elliott in front of a cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, on May 20, 1959. The Elliotts loved to travel and collected many important works of art for their home in Cedar Rapids. Their challenge gift to the University of Iowa resulted in the construction of the UI Museum of Art to house that impressive art collection.
CR: The job for our committee is to work with the Museum Staff, consultants, and other talents within the University and community to make recommendations regarding what our idea for an art museum with a significant permanent collection should be, and how it should be integrated into the mission of education and research at this University.
UIMA: Tell us about your history of community and arts involvement. CR: I have a personal commitment to give back to my community, my university, and my profession. This culture was also embraced by my law firm in Cedar Rapids, Shuttleworth and Ingersoll, where I practiced for 32 years. I have been an active volunteer to numerous professional, civic, and community organizations. My involvement in arts organizations started with work on the Cedar Rapids Marion Arts Council, two stints on the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art Board, including its building committee, working with the Cedar Rapids Downtown District on public art in the downtown area, and co-chairing the Cinderella Project for Hancher and the Joffrey Ballet. UIMA: And there’s a special connection between your former law firm and the UIMA, correct? CR: My firm used to have the name of Elliott, Shuttleworth, and Ingersoll. Owen Elliott—the same Elliott who, with his wife Leone, made the challenge gift of art that prompted the construction of the UIMA in the late ’60s—was a senior partner. Although I did not know the Elliotts, one of my mentors, Robert O. Daniel, used to tell me stories of his experiences as a young lawyer in the firm. His duties included summer travel in Europe with the Elliotts, going with them through galleries selecting the art and assisting them in getting the art back home. I have always enjoyed and felt a special affinity to the Elliott works in our collection. 17
UIMA NEWS
4 0 Y ears A G O …
...the UIMA opened its doors to the public for the first time.
we can and must find in their resourcefulness and passion inspiration for our new future.”
For Iowa City and the University of Iowa students, the Museum meant the inspiration of creativity across disciplines through exposure to original works of art. For art professor Virginia Myers, it meant new teaching opportunities and scholarly research. For art donors and former faculty members Hope and Gerry Solomons, it meant the whole town could enjoy their Pre-Columbian collection. For law professor emeritus Charlie Davidson, the Museum started with a faculty fund-raising drive that a Big Ten colleague advised him to abandon. “We couldn’t raise $100,000 from our university to witness the second coming,” the colleague quipped.
Abigail Foerstner, author of James Van Allen: The First Eight Billion Miles, a biography of the celebrated space pioneer and UI professor (University of Iowa Press, 2007), and Picturing Utopia, a rare look at a 19th century religious utopia as seen through the eyes of photographers living in the Amana Colonies (University of Iowa Press, 2005), will write the essay for the volume, which will feature images of 40 works of art from the UIMA collection that represent important occurrences in the Museum’s history.
But the University of Iowa faculty contributed $200,000, citizens of Iowa City matched it, and donors from across the state and the country gave the rest of the $1.2 million needed in the Foundation’s first major campaign. Farmers, businessmen, and even children who dropped nickels and dimes of their allowances in canisters at school helped build the Museum—their Museum. The UIMA celebrates its 40th anniversary this fall with the publication of a commemorative book, which will debut at the Museum’s Oct. 24th fundraiser, “THE MUSEUM PARTY!” “As we face another academic year without our Museum, in many ways we can identify with the needs of those dedicated people who built the UIMA nearly half a century ago,” said Pamela White, UIMA interim director. “Looking to our impressive past
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Foerstner, a journalism professor at Northwestern University, has spent the summer interviewing key figures in the UIMA’s history, among them UI President Emeritus Willard “Sandy” Boyd. Boyd recalled a memorable conversation he had with UIMA Founding Director Ulfert Wilke before the Museum opened in May of 1969. “He said we were about to go into the Museum for the first time, and it would be the only time we would do it for the first time, so you get a sense of the Museum as a first time visitor would,” Boyd remembered, noting that he carried Wilke’s philosophy with him to the Field Museum in Chicago, where he served as president from 1981 to 1995. “I look forward to entering a new museum or a new era of this museum for the first time.” Top left: Frank Seiberling, head of the UI School of Art and Art History, University of Iowa Foundation board member W. W. Summerwill, UI President Howard R. Bowen, and Philip D. Adler, chair of the UIMA fundraising campaign, break ground for the Museum building on Oct. 17, 1966. Top right: The Elliott Gallery in the Museum displayed celebrated works from the Cedar Rapids couple’s collection.
40 Years of Art‌40 Years of Friends!
Coralville Marriott Hotel & Conference Center 300 E. 9th St., Coralville Tickets are available by calling 335-1725.
Rob and Paulina Muzzin
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Parking will be available in the lot at the south end of the Hotel. Parking rate is .75 cents per hour. Each ticket purchase or donation of $100 to THE MUSEUM PartY! will automatically enter you in a drawing for a two-night weekend stay for two at the Riverside Casino & Golf Resort, $50 for dining at Ruthie’s Steak & Seafood, and 18 holes of golf for two at the Blue Top Ridge Golf Course. Thank you to Riverside Casino & Golf Resort for donating this terrific weekend getaway!
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UIMA NEWS
U I M A O utreach S tudy C ollection e x pands Area schoolchildren will have the chance to experience more than 30 new art objects in their classrooms this year. UIMA Director of Education Dale Fisher purchased these works to expand the UIMA’s Outreach Study Collection, created last year to take art to the schools for the Museum’s popular K-12 educational programs, “Widen Our World” (“WOW!”) for thirdgraders and “Discover Africa” for seventh-graders, when the flood prevented classes from coming to the Museum. “After one year of presenting these programs as outreach to the schools and seeing the level of active engagement that can be achieved in the classroom, I realized that we needed to have more of a range of works on hand,” said Fisher. He added that his in-class experiences this past year informed his purchases: students were excited by the visual qualities of the works as well as the content the docents presented during the class visits. Benin Leopard, Benin people. Brass. 18”x7”x23”
“Since all of the works have a ‘story’ to tell, we wanted to find works that spoke to the students across cultures and media, as well as through design and craft,” Fisher said.
C ollections update So many people have donated artwork to the UIMA over the years; it’s perfectly understandable that there might be some concern about its status after the flood. We can assure all of our generous donors that the art is safe! Overall, about 200 objects needed some form of treatment by the conservators at the Chicago Conservation Center because of the flood. Nearly all have been cared for and are now in storage at the Figge. “A few works were affected by the humidity,” said UIMA Chief Curator Kathleen Edwards. “Some works on paper ‘cockled,’ meaning the paper became wavy. Here and there paint finish came off a frame.” UIMA works already slated for conservation before the flood—mainly African objects—will remain in Chicago to receive the treatment they require. UIMA Graduate Curatorial Assistant Nathan Popp in the Museum’s print storage area at the Figge Art Museum.
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“We have engaged expert conservators to ensure that the status of all of our objects is no less than perfect,” said Pamela White, UIMA interim director. “We are treating each object with the care and attention an original work of art deserves.”
Museum facilitates major new research on historical papers Art conservators, papermakers, and historians are just some of the people who have gained a new perspective on historical papermaking thanks to a UIMA-supported research project that wrapped up this summer. Timothy Barrett, principal investigator for the project and research scientist at the UI Center for the Book, worked for more than two years with his team to analyze rare manuscripts, books and prints from the UIMA, UI Libraries Special Collections, and the Newberry Library in Chicago using non-destructive, near infra-red light and X-ray fluorescence instrumentation. “We’ve tested over 1,500 papers made in Europe between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries, and we’ve made an interesting discovery,” Barrett said. “Much of the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century paper has significantly more gelatin in it than paper made in subsequent centuries, when paper tended to be poorer in quality and less long-lasting.” Added to paper to prevent ink from bleeding, gelatin also made the paper look and feel more like parchment, Barrett said, which was the competing writing material of the period. Research scientist Tim Barrett tests the leaf of an open book and research assistant Jessica White analyzes a UIMA print in the UI Librarie’s Special Collections.
Barrett’s findings will help inform the work of art conservators, who need to know the historical components of papers in order to restore them during treatment, as well as papermakers, who use such knowledge to refine their paper formulas. The UIMA served as the institutional host for Barrett’s grant proposal to the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Conservation Support Program in 2006, from which he received $180,000 to help fund his efforts. “The whole research project was my career dream,” Barrett said. “The UI Museum of Art was extremely helpful to me in making this work possible.” Barrett plans to publish the full results of the project as an interactive web site in early 2010, so stay tuned!
I n M emory Many knew Johann “Hans” Ehrenhaft as a renowned cardiothoracic surgeon and educator. But he had many passions outside the hospital, not the least of which was art. Ehrenhaft and his wife Jean were enthusiastic collectors—primarily of Old Master prints—and generous UIMA benefactors. The couple gave the UIMA more than 50 intaglio prints by important artists including Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.
This 1588 chiaroscuro woodcut by Hendrick Goltzius after Guilio Romano, titled Hercules Killing Cacus, is one of the many pieces the Ehrenhafts donated to the UIMA.
Hans also served as the first president of the UIMA Print and Drawing Study Club, a group that began in 1973 and ended in 2006. As founding members, Hans and Jean had a great influence over works the Club purchased for the Museum, which total 41.
“Through his knowledge of prints, Hans educated a lot of other people in the Club and encouraged them to build print collections,” said UIMA Chief Curator Kathleen Edwards. Hans Ehrenhaft died in Iowa City on June 17 at the age of 93, preceded in May 2007 by his wife. Their enthusiasm and generosity are greatly missed.
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THE ELLIOTT SOCIETY
The Elliott Society Lecture Series:
A new gallery and visual classroom
IMU
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September 23 You Want Me To Build What…Where??? Steve Erickson, UIMA preparator, speaks about the challenging transformation of the Richey Ballroom into an art space. Event Sponsors: Pamela K. Geyer and John P. Mehegan The program on Wednesday, September 23, will be open to the public.
September 30 Around the World in the Richey Ballroom: A Global Perspective Kathleen Edwards, UIMA chief curator, will talk about the whats, whys, and wheres of the themes and works in the new galleries. Event Sponsors: Mary Lea M. and Richard H. Kruse Construction on the new UIMA space at the Iowa Memorial Union was completed in mid-July.
It’s been quite a journey! After traveling from Iowa City…to Chicago…to Davenport…and back to Iowa City, more than 250 works of art from the UIMA collection are now on view at the Museum’s new space on the Iowa Memorial Union’s third floor (formerly the Richey Ballroom). As a UIMA donor at the Elliott Society level, you have the opportunity to hear the inside story of what it took to place the works in their new, temporary home on campus, from initial planning to the new gallery installation and visual classroom.
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October 14 The Collection in Action! Dale Fisher, UIMA director of education, and Nathan Popp, UIMA graduate curatorial assistant, will share with you a glimpse of why we’re here and how we use the collection as a tool for instruction. Event Sponsors: Robert A. Rasley All talks will take place at the University Athletic Club, 1360 Melrose Avenue, Iowa City. Join us for a brief social at 5:00 p.m. Lectures will begin at 5:30 p.m. Please RSVP to attend these events at 319-335-3676. For information on becoming a donor, contact the Museum at 319-353-2847 or visit our website at www.uiowa.edu/uima.
Photos by Benjamin Roberts.
On August 15, Director’s Circle patrons enjoyed a presentation and sneak preview of the UIMA@IMU. The event was sponsored by Brad and Meg Thompson.
Director’s Circle donors previewing the installed ceramics in the new study room.
Brad and Meg Thompson
UIMA donors and friends kicked off the Museum’s “next 40 years” at a celebration at the University Athletic Club on August 28. Photos by Impact Photo/Joe Photo.
Advisory Board members Bruce Gantz, Bob Fellows, and Linda Paul.
Volunteer Estyl Breazeale and Members Council members David Bright and Anna Moyers Stone welcome guests.
Sharman and Curt Hunter with Pat Hanick, UI Foundation Director of Development for the UIMA.
Volunteer Kathrine Nixon and Teresa Kelly, Members Council member and 40th Anniversary Celebration Committee chair.
Members Council President Kristin Summerwill, Trish Koza, and Interim Director Pam White
Darrell Wyrick, former UI Foundation President who led the fundraising campaign to build the Museum of Art, and wife Shirley.
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UIMA ONLINE
New
at
the
UIMA:
Online
Video
Melissa Hueting, former UIMA assistant to the director for special programs and curatorial assistant, talks about Max Beckmann’s Carnival during a “Thursdays at the Figge” event. Carnival is one of the works featured in the UIMA video series highlighting art from the UIMA’s A Legacy for Iowa exhibition at the Figge.
The UI Museum of Art has joined the online video world. This summer, the Museum launched its first online video series spotlighting works of art from the UIMA exhibition at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, A Legacy for Iowa: Pollock’s Mural and Modern Masterworks from the University of Iowa Museum of Art, on display through Dec. 31. The series, which will continue this fall, features UIMA curators and educators talking about some of their favorite works in the collection— like Jackson Pollock’s Mural, Max Beckmann’s Carnival, and Robert Motherwell’s Elegy to the Spanish Republic, No. 126. The videos offer an overview of each work’s artistic significance, history with the University of Iowa, and place in the UIMA collection. “We always strive to give our constituents every opportunity possible to view and learn about art, and online communications like video are especially important now, since we’re without a permanent home,” said Maggie Anderson, former UIMA marketing and media manager. Online video is increasingly becoming 24
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consumers’ top choice for getting news and information—hundreds of millions of videos are watched each day on YouTube—and art museums are jumping to keep up. The Indianapolis Museum of Art launched the first video site designed for art museums, artbabble.org, in April; they have since reported more than 100,000 unique visitors. The UIMA hopes to see similar success with its videos. “Our most popular video had more than 150 views on YouTube in early August,” Anderson said. “So not only can we reach people in a new way online with this project, but we are able to track each video’s success to measure what topics and themes seem to resonate best with our audience.” Claire Lekwa, a UI journalism student and UIMA marketing and media assistant, said her work with the video project has been some of the most challenging and exciting she has done in her time at the UIMA.
“I had never edited video before, but now I feel like I’ve got a grasp on how to put together a good visual story,” the UI senior said. “There’s still a lot to learn, but it’s a really valuable skill in today’s world, and well worth the effort.”
Shorter UIMA videos can be accessed online through the UIMA’s YouTube channel, youtube.com/uimaartmatters, the UIMA blog, “Art Matters,” at uima.blogspot.com, or the Museum’s Facebook page, “Iowa Art.”
Other UIMA video projects are in the works to celebrate the Museum’s 40th anniversary and offer guided tours of the UIMA’s different locations, UIMA@IMU, UIMA@Figge, UIMA@Levitt Center, and UIMA@Studio Arts.
In addition, many UIMA lectures will be recorded and broadcast on the UIMA’s blip.tv channel, uima.blip.tv, which allows for longer videos. Those videos will also be posted to “Art Matters.”
UIMA ONLINE UIMA Web site: www.uiowa.edu/uima This is the hub. Here you’ll find links to information about the UIMA collection, our educational programming, donor and volunteer opportunities, and more. “Art Matters” blog: uima.blogspot.com At “Art Matters,” which was named one of the 100 best curator and museum blogs by onlineuniversitys.com, we post news and behind-the-scenes information about the UIMA. The blog changes more frequently than our homepage, so check back often for photos, videos, and opportunities to interact. Facebook: www.facebook.com Add “Iowa Art” as a friend on Facebook and show your support of the UIMA. You’ll receive invitations to UIMA events and exhibitions and be able to view our photos and videos. YouTube: uimaartmatters.youtube.com View and comment on short (less than 10 minutes) videos—and then share them with your friends! Blip.TV: uima.blip.tv Watch longer videos (more than 10 minutes) from UIMA lectures and share them with your friends. Flickr: www.flickr.com/iowaart Browse UIMA photo collections by set; create and embed photo slide shows; even download your favorite photos.
GET IN THE KNOW Want to receive notification of new UIMA videos? Sign up for the UIMA e-newsletter by emailing uima@uiowa.edu or clicking on the link on the UIMA Web site, www.uiowa.edu.
U I M A e -newsletter gets a makeover Look for a revamped UIMA e-newsletter to hit mailboxes this fall. The UIMA e-newsletter will feature a new style that is more in-line with the UIMA look. These changes will make the e-mails a more effective tool for reaching those interested in the UIMA, said former UIMA Marketing and Media Manager Maggie Anderson. The UIMA e-newsletter brings information about UIMA exhibitions, events, and programs directly to your inbox. You can subscribe online by clicking the link on the UIMA website, www.uiowa.edu, or by e-mailing uima@uiowa.edu. Go online to join today! 25
DEVELOPMENT
Giving and saving: Investing in the UI Museum of Art At times like these, we’re all looking for new ways to squeeze the greatest value out of our hard-earned dollars. This applies to our precious philanthropy dollars, too—and a successful tax incentive has been extended through the end of this year to allow you to do just that. Some of you might have already heard about the first incarnation of this attractive tax program, which was initiated in 2006 under the Pension Protection Act (PPA). A provision of the PPA termed “charitable IRA rollover” allowed patrons to donate directly from their Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) without reporting the gift as taxable income. This law was great news for those of you who wanted to offer immediate and generous support to your favorite non-profit organizations. Pat Hanick, Director of Development for the UIMA, the University of Iowa Foundation
The charitable IRA rollover provision of the PPA was so successful that it has been extended for a limited time through a new law, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Individuals aged 70 or older can still take advantage of this opportunity to direct up to $100,000 a year from their IRA to a qualified charity without including the distribution as income and without claiming a deduction. These gifts can now be made through December 31, 2009. This law allows you to see your charitable gift from an IRA in action. In many ways, it extends the benefit that has always existed in using IRA assets to plan the philanthropic portion of your estate. When you leave IRA assets to your heirs they must report it as taxable income—unlike inheritances of income tax-free assets like cash, stocks, and real estate. But when you leave IRA assets to your favorite tax-exempt charitable organization, the full amount of your gift benefits the organization. Skillfully utilizing your IRA through the charitable IRA rollover provision and estate planning can maximize the imapact of your charitable giving. Please consider taking advantage of these opportunities to support the UI Museum of Art. If you are interested in making a charitable IRA rollover gift to the Museum, please contact your IRA custodian to initiate the transfer through the UI Foundation. I would be delighted to assist you. We don’t yet know the details of what lies ahead for the UI Museum of Art, but we can assure you that it will emerge with renewed vision to embrace its future. Your support will enable us to realize this commitment. Thank you for being a friend of the Museum. For additional information about supporting the Museum, please contact Pat Hanick, the UI Foundation’s director of development for the University of Iowa Museum of Art at pat-hanick@uiowa.edu or at 319-335-3305 or 800-648-6973. To learn more about a variety of gift-planning options for the Museum of Art, through The University of Iowa Foundation, visit: www.uiowafoundation.org/giftplanning. To make a gift for the UI Museum of Art online today, please go to: www.givetoiowa.org/uima.
Our apologies The UIMA recognizes our contributors each year by publishing their names in an honor roll. This is one small way we thank our cherished donors, and we make every effort to ensure these lists are accurate. Unfortunately, mistakes were made in our most recent honor roll, published in the Summer 2009 UIMA Magazine, to acknowledge donors for the 2007-2008 academic year. We sincerely apologize for the errors and appreciate the patience and understanding of our highly valued patrons. 26
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TRANSITIONS MOVING ON This past year several of our staff members have moved on. J. J. (Jeffrey) Kohl, who had worked with Education Director Dale Fisher since fall 2004, left in January after graduating. UI student Abby Yoder served as Registrar’s Assistant from August 2006June 2009. Maggie Anderson moved to Washington D.C. in August after serving as our Marketing Director since 2007. Melissa Hueting served as Assistant to the Director for Special Programs from July 2008-August 2009. She is currently working for the Figge Art Museum in education. Lastly, UI student Brian Wleklinski left this summer after managing our web site since February. We miss them all, and wish them the very best! MOVING IN Students Megan Enright was hired as Registrar’s Assistant and Ted Penisten as Education Assistant in June, Claire Lekwa began last fall as public relations assistant, and Michael Serra started work in September as assistant to Buffie Tucker and Betty Breazeale. Chris Esser, Ben Lipnick, Ned McCully, and Ashley Wathen will begin working as student gallery attendants at the UIMA@IMU space when it opens September 8. We are thrilled to have them working with us!
UIMA Advisory Board
Nancy Willis, Chair Ronald Cohen Gerald Eskin Robert Fellows Bruce Gantz Susann Hamdorf James Hayes Myrene Hoover Ann January John Beldon Scott, ex officio Richard Levitt James Lindberg Mary Keough Lyman Lynette Marshall, ex officio Linda Paul Carl Schweser
STAFF LIST Betty Breazeale, Secretary Kathleen Edwards, Chief Curator Megan Enright, Registrar’s Assistant Steve Erickson, Preparator Chris Esser, Student Gallery Attendant Dale Fisher, Director of Education Pat Hanick, Director of Development Claire Lekwa, Public Relations Assistant Ben Lipnick, Student Gallery Attendant Jeff Martin, Manager of Exhibitions and Collections Guldeniz D. Martinek, Graphic Designer Ned McCully, Student Gallery Attendant Ted Penisten, Education Assistant Nathan Popp, Curatorial Assistant Christopher Roy, Research Curator Michael Serra, Members Council Assistant Buffie Tucker, Members Council Coordinator Ashley Wathen, Student Gallery Attendant Pam White, Interim Director
UIMA Members Council
Kristin Summerwill, President Kumi Morris, Vice President Nick Hotek, Past President Kristin Hardy, Chair, Events Committee Polly Lepic, Chair, Volunteer Committee Steve Atkins Jeanette Bauer Ruth Bentler David Bright Catherine Champion Patricia Hobson Teresa Kelly Sugar Mark
Monica Moen Amy Nicknish Carrie Z. Norton Jack Piper Drew Schiller Mark Seabold Anna Moyers Stone Alan Swanson Gail Zlatnik
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact the University of Iowa Museum of Art in advance at (319) 335-1727. The University of Iowa prohibits discrimination in employment, educational programs, and activities on the basis of race, national origin, color, creed, religion, sex, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or associational preference. The University also affirms its commitment to providing equal opportunities and equal access to University facilities. For additional information on nondiscrimination policies, contact the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, (319) 335-0705 (voice) and (319) 335-0697 (text), 202 Jessup Hall, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1316.
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1375 Highway 1 West 1840 Studio Arts Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1789 (319) 335-1727 www.uiowa.edu/uima