From Brooklyn to Worcester: A love affair with WAM

We fell in love with the Worcester Art Museum before we realized that it has an outstanding collection of Japanese art, which we collect and love. At first, we became acquainted with the Museum when using our Brooklyn Museum of Art reciprocal membership. Later, we switched our membership to WAM, because we enjoyed it so much. One day we were fortunate enough to tour the galleries with Director Matthias Waschek. It was magical—and began our love affair with the Museum. He introduced us to the Asian art curator, who introduced us to the Bancroft collection of Japanese prints, which is absolutely world-class. We have collected Japanese woodblock prints since we got married 46 years ago, and seeing the Bancroft collection was an amazing gift for us. The quality of the art and the depth and breadth of the collection are remarkable. We also love the rotating case exhibitions in the Japanese Gallery, including the current one of Meiji metalwork. It is not to be missed!

Who could have predicted that the Museum we would fall in love with is a four-hour drive from our home in Brooklyn? We make the drive regularly, because the exhibitions—both permanent and rotating—are wonderful. We have loved so many of them, from Jewels of the Nile to The Kimono in Print to What the Nazis Stole from Richard Neumann We are incredibly grateful for all WAM has done for us.

Yellow school busses parked on Lancaster Street. Groups closely listening to their docent guides in the galleries. Students deeply engaged in a studio art activity. These are common sights at WAM during the school year. In fact, providing art education for children has been part of the Worcester Art Museum’s mission since 1911, when the first classes were offered for youth, and later when the Museum became one of the earliest to combine a gallery visit with art making. Integral to this success is a long history of collaboration with area schools and educators. Some of these collaborations—the Worcester Child Development Head Start partnership, Worcester Public School’s Advanced Placement Art History and 4th-grade Culture LEAP programs, and the annual Youth Art Month exhibit—have been featured in previous issues of access magazine and are known to WAM Members and supporters. These programs are just a sampling of the many ways the Museum works with schools.

“WAM’s collection is an incredible teaching and learning resource. The opportunity for students of all ages to engage with the history and practice of art in a nearby museum with a wide-ranging collection is something I find truly inspiring,” says Marnie Weir, Director of Education and Experience. “The lessons learned about the human experience while in the pres¬ence of art remain with us for our whole lives. Helping to foster those experiences for the youth of our city is one of the Museum’s highest priorities.” Thus, when the Massachusetts Art Educators Association (MAEA) chose to hold its annual conference at WAM last November, it was an ideal opportunity to bring museum educators and art teachers together for in-depth discussions and idea sharing. Over 130 educators from all corners of the state attended the full-day event, the first in-person MAEA conference since 2019. In addition to hearing keynote speaker Wanda B. Knight, Ph.D., Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Professor of Art Education, African American Studies, and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at Penn State University, attendees participated in sessions covering a wide range of art education topics. They also enjoyed docent-led tours of the WAM collection, sketching in the galleries, and hands-on art workshops. As might be expected with an engaged group of educators, the conference was fertile ground for all types of exploration—from hands-on activities to theoretical concepts. One example of this was “Drawing as Embodiment,” a session presented by Dani

MAEA conference at WAM engaged educators

Schechner, Director of Education at Learners at the Center in Boston. Participants practiced innovative teaching methods, including interactive modeling, art-making, and reflection. “Through these embodiment-based exercises, we explored multisensory and kinesthetic engagement, differentiation to create equity through our practices, as well as deeper sustained understandings of mindfulness, socio-emotional learning, and anti-bias to ensure success for all learners,” she says.

Lydia Gruner, a teacher at the Devereux Therapeutic Day School and the MAEA Conference Committee Chair, led a hands-on workshop on making stained-glass pendants. “Artists feed off each other's energy, and the feedback we get from sharing our work with others is essential to professional growth. WAM’s studio spaces were ideal for this,” she says.

Transmediation, or the process of translating one symbol system to another, was explored in an interactive session led by Rebecca Duffy, a visual art teacher at Algonquin Regional High School in Northborough and a faculty member at WAM. Using tempera paints and oil pastels, educators experimented with this teaching tool for enhancing literacy and cross-cultural learning in their classrooms. Duffy says she especially welcomed the in-person conversations and information sharing with other teachers. In addition, after experiencing firsthand what the Museum offers, she brought back to her classroom “new ideas for field trips and suggestions for her students to visit.”

For WAM staff, having 130 teachers from across the state in the building was an invaluable opportunity to hear directly how the Museum can support art education in and out of the classroom, according to Elizabeth Buck, Manager of Studio Class Programs and an MAEA board member. “One of the best ways to reach budding artists is through schools,” she says. “Teachers play a crucial role in exposing students to art and making a way for them to explore their creativity.”

Even for an institution that has offered art education for 125 years, there is always room for growth, says Weir. “Our educational focus has remained strong because, over the decades, the Museum has adapted to meet evolving needs of schools, teachers, and students. Through our collaborations with organizations like MAEA and our local schools, we will continue to leverage this amazing art collection for the use and enrichment of future generations.”

Painting by Egyptian artist enhances global contemporary collection

The new acquisition of a painting by Egyptian artist Souad Abdelrassoul enhances the Worcester Art Museum’s growing collection of global contemporary art. Blending pan-African artistic influences and a modernist painting style, Abdelrassoul creates surreal images inspired by her experiences as a Middle Eastern woman. The artist’s compositions combine humans, animals, and nature to imply an interdependence of all living things. In Forced Relationship, the wounds of the truncated trees are highlighted by an orange hue echoed in the distortions of the woman’s face, while the anthropomorphized owl intensifies the unsettling surrealism of the scene. Held, or held back by the ominous owl/man, the woman is clothed in a transparent garment symbolizing the vulnerable feeling of being exposed even when covered—a common experience of many women.

WAM is one of the first U.S. museums to acquire Abdelrassoul’s work. This painting joins a strong group of contemporary figural artworks focused on women, including work by Alice Neel, Rona Pondick, and Kiki Smith, while expanding the Museum’s representation of contemporary African art.