Directors’ Letter 5th & University / June 2021

 
Photo of Robert Saarnio by Kevin Bain/Ole Miss CommunicationsGreetings, everyone, from your University of Mississippi Museum, and William Faulkner’s Rowan Oak.

Programmatically, everyone here remains engaged daily in furthering the development of augmented virtual offerings and digitizing collections for web-posting, while also turning now a full eye to a return to the ‘analog’ exhibitions world. We are beyond excited to be deeply in late-stage logistics planning for our major Fall, 2021 exhibition of Brooklyn-based and nationally acclaimed installation artist Jacob Hashimoto, opening in the middle of August. Please take a look at Jacob’s website here and explore the considerable body of coverage of his exhibitions and body of work available online. In only a matter of weeks now, his very dramatic pieces—some being pendant and suspended from ceiling supports—will grace our largest temporary exhibition galleries.

In the next issue of this newsletter 5th & University we will have news of a late-July outdoors event along the University Avenue-facing ‘front yard’ of the Museum, where those of you who are local will doubtless have noticed the existence now of five (5) major outdoor sculptures, where prior to this Spring there had been two. Also being installed soon are ground-based uplighting fixtures for all 5 works, and a curvilinear concrete pathway aligned between the public art pieces leading down to the Mary Buie Museum front patio. In effect an entire remaking and animation of this street-facing realm of the Museum landscape, that had long lain fallow and essentially unvisited. Watch for news in the next newsletter of this late-July celebration of the new public art and landscape installations.

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My initial museum mentor was my first Director who I served under at the Peabody Essex Museum of Salem, Massachusetts in the mid-1990s. He always condensed what the museum was doing as derived from “People, Place, and Program”, and over the years I’ve come to better appreciate and understand that maxim. It was notable then, as it is for me now, that it always was expressed in that specific order, with “People” first. Indeed, for those of you following our newsletter you’ve seen a considerable focus on our people in the last couple of issues as I’ve celebrated our undergraduate and graduate student workers and interns, and in the preceding May issue we introduced you to our new Assistant Curator at Faulkner’s Rowan Oak (Rachel Hudson), and our academic year 2021-22 School of Education Graduate Assistant (Gracie Mauldin).

In this issue we have the exceptionally joyful opportunity to introduce the newest member of the Museum’s full-time staff, Grace Moorman, who has recently been appointed to the position of Collections Project Manager. This critical and relatively new position functions in all respects as Collections Manager & Curator of Exhibitions Melanie Antonelli’s right-hand assistant. Grace is a 2020 B.A. graduate in Art History from the University of Mississippi, and served as a Collections & Exhibitions intern in the Museum from August 2018 to March 2020, while also serving as an Education Intern from September, 2016 to March 2020. Her four full years as a student worker have been followed since August, 2020 as a Recent Grad Intern / Collections Project Assistant with us. Please follow further word of Grace’s hire and her reactions to her new role elsewhere in this newsletter.

As we celebrate the arrivals, we also process the recent word received of the departure of our Preparator Travis Turner to a return to his home state of Pennsylvania and hometown of Meadville. Travis served us beyond admirably as our light construction, casework fabrication, lighting, and maintenance specialist. His work in our power-tools equipped carpentry woodshop was skillfully executed, and he leaves a legacy of construction and fabrication projects that have advanced our gallery displays notably. We thank Travis very considerably for his hard and skilled work on the Museum’s behalf, and his additional project and landscape support at Rowan Oak.

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As mentioned above, watch our July 5th & University newsletter, plus our website and social media postings, for further word of the July celebration dates for the Outdoor Sculpture and front-of-Museum hardscape and lighting improvements. And by all means please continue to enjoy the new Rowan Oak website.

Sending you very sincere regards from the entire professional staff team and me!

 
Robert Saarnio's signature
Robert Saarnio 
Museum Director