> Visual Art Access suspended operations in December 2003 while based in Tulsa so that I could accept an appointment as Curator of Collections and Exhibitions with the Saginaw Art Museum in Michigan. Then becoming employed in the non-profit art world again meant potential conflicts of interest or self-dealing when accepting private work such as appraisals and the like. Now, with high gratitude to graphic designer Keith Price (keith@pixelassassin.com) of NYC, VAA and ARTHROBS are able to work again through a VAA website (www.visualartaccess.com) and this blog http://arthrobs.blogspot.com/
> Because of the abundance nowadays of art career advice (as compared with 1987) the focus of VAA has shifted away from being primarily an artist's career self-management company, into the areas of:
~ contemporary art appraisals (especially living artists)
~ expert witness testimony
~ estate issues related to well-established/experienced artists.
~ Some career guidance remains available, especially for previous clients of VAA who have successfully completed at least one full year program.
> My tenure with the Saginaw Art Museum ended abruptly and unexpectedly (in a certain sense) at 1230 hrs on this past April 20th, in the offices of the museum's Board President and in the presence of their newish Executive Director. The latter official allowed what turned out to be roughly 30 minutes to clear out my office of personal belongings, turn in my keys and leave the premises. The Director's effort to cut my hours by half in December 2005 resulted in an instantaneous spit storm of protest from the many friends and colleagues Carol and I enjoyed in Saginaw, and an almost unheard of virtually immediate reversal of a personnel decision made by any museum Director in my 35+ years in the art industry. Needless to say, I was not sanguine about our future prospects under his "leadership" thereafter... having done everything possible to alert the trustees and patrons of his atrocious mis-management style once it became clear that it was justifiably of that character in August 2005 (two months after his taking of office.) The messenger was shot, but not killed. At the moment, the question of that museum's longevity and health remains very much undecided... sitreps from Saginaw through back channels are far from promising... except for a gradual and determined counter-force mustering at very high levels of their community and staff. Carol decamped for Tulsa in mid-January. I did similarly in late May packing only what would fit in our Tercel, having shipped her domestic materiel along, and then went to visit my brother George in Louisville... to be among the thoroughbreds.
> Saginaw's art museum was founded in early 1947, originally housed (until late 2003) in a Charles Adams Platt Georgian-revival mansion given to the city by the owner's two daughters. The Board and Director, Sheila Redman, successfully raised more than $7m for a new education wing and one for changing exhibitions and collection storage/preparatorial. My tenure began with the first show there, organized by the prior Director... Rodin sculpture. They'd been without a curator for about 4 months at the time and the department was a shambles for various reasons. Within four months of taking office, we had moved the entire collection from the 3rd floor down into state-of-the-art storage with nary a dent or a chip lost, and I installed seven galleries in the mansion with their permanent collection for the first time in the museum's history. They have a wonderful large collection of E.I. Couse, several quite substantial 17th-19th century paintings and sculpture (e.g. Inness, Blakelock, Cropsey, Huntington, Van Loo, Corot, Lawrence, Minor, Sully etc.), a fine large grouping of vintage japanese prints, a good start on photography, numerous quality 20th century prints by the big names, and a modest amalgam of asian/etruscan decorative arts. Most promising, for me, was their virtually unknown material representing regional Great Lakes and Michigan art.
Right away I got permission to set up an Archives of Michigan Art which, unbelievably, had not existed as such beforehand. When I left in April, we had collected more than 250 new artist files, and organized the Couse and Roecker holdings well enough to use for research. In addition, an exhibition schedule had been contracted through mid-2009, at the rate of four shows per annum. The museum was fully accredited by the American Association of Museums in the Autumn of 2004.
> While in office we created exhibitions including a Betsy Weis painting survey, Beadwork of Woodland Indian Tribes (21 tribes!), Mexico: Art and Civilization, Vaclav Vaca: Visionary Surrealist retrospective, Arnold Kolb's Art of the Infinite, a small tribute to Henry and Julia Roecker, a commemoration for Saginaw's Japanese Tea House and set a precedent of the annual regional contemporary art show becoming an invitational rather than a competition. Future plans called for a presentation of Michael Rossman's immense collection of Political Posters of the Counter Culture, the beautiful figurative bronzes of Osprey Orielle Lake, a retrospective for Bay-area artist Jessica Dunne, and (naturally) in 2008 a huge exhibition of contemporary American Surrealism had already been pre-selected among others (including a vast Marilyn Monroe extravaganza and the Tibetan sand painting experience.) Hopefully, some or all of those arrangements will be realized.
It was a very positive, albeit exhausting, tenure all in all, and I enjoyed every minute of it as a way to polish off, as it were, a long museum career. I had hoped to retire from that museum in about 2 years, but it was not to be. My time arrived, and I accepted it as graciously as was possible under the circumstances... I learned the meaning of being "put out to pasture." The museum has, with one exception, a talented dedicated staff and coterie of patrons doing incredible amounts with very little in a regional economy that is all but broke at present.
At the very end of my stay, it must be mentioned, I was honored to be asked to re-install and catalogue the art collection of the Saginaw Club which began in 1898. For several weeks I was given free-reign in those hallowed halls, and had a magnificent experience with their staff and institution. Feedback thusfar has been positive.
As customary I remain in touch with friends in Michigan, and hope that the contribution Carol (who assisted with moving/re-cataloguing their collection) and I made to their museum will be regarded favorably in perpetuity.
> What now? It is my hope to devote the remainder of my years to playing a role in heightening my hometown's awareness and appreciation for the visual arts. We have a very nice Spiva Art Center here, and quite a number more artists/collectors than one might imagine for a gateway to The Ozarks. I am not interested in being employed by a non-profit institution again if it can possibly be prevented, but working privately one hopes to contribute something of lasting value. We are extremely happy to, at long last, be in our own home climes... able to travel hither and thither for professional and other reasons, but with a comfortable and comforting base so long sought. Joplin, and the region, definitely needs and wants greater rapport with visual arts. This is a prosperous and essentially contented interface of the rural American South, in my opinion, and there is much promise to come. I hope to bring national experiences and resources as might be desired here, and to eventually help acquaint the rest of our nation with the long and excellent art traditions cultivated by Missourians from earliest times to the present. Carol and I will soon be renting habitation, a small house in a town-central neighborhood where we can again have a dog and cat, near friends and my maternal family lineage who settled this area beginning in the mid-1800s. Carol's children all three (plus one girl grandmonkey) reside within an hour of Joplin.
> Business as usual, then. More later, stay tuned.
