During a 2019 re-installation of an Early Byzantine floor fragment, Museum staff invited three members of our community—an artist, an ecologist, and an archaeologist—to offer their perspectives on this mosaic. Recognizing that there are many ways to interpret a single work of art, we invite you to add your voice to this dialogue by sharing…
Author: Douglas Perkins
Douglas Perkins '94 is Associate Director for Operations and Finance at the Middlebury College Museum of Art and steward of the museum's digital presence.
Portrait of a Man: Govaert Flinck and the Rembrandt School
The following paper was researched, written, and presented as a public lecture by Carolina McGarity ’17, the museum’s 2014-2015 Robert F. Reiff Curatorial Intern. Introduction In his Portrait of a Man, [fig. 1] Govaert Flinck uses very Rembrandtesque elements and style. One such element is chiaroscuro, or the dramatic use of light and shadow to…
The Persistence of Memories: Art as Portkey
We humans have a habit of storing memories and feelings just about everywhere. The house, the car, the cat, articles of clothing, coffee mugs, lost teeth, and locks of hair. Really, anything will do as a repository for the moments in our lives that we would rather not forget. I have drawers and boxes full…
Steel Yourselves, Here Comes Youbie Obie
It’s been exactly twenty years since the Committee on Art in Public Places (CAPP) accepted Jules Olitski’s King Kong—a beautifully abstract, almost minimalist work in cor-ten steel, gifted to the College by Sophia Healy, daughter of former professor Arthur Healy—and sited it in front of the Johnson Building. This summer, as a serendipitous, unwitting tribute to the acquisition of King Kong, CAPP has accepted another gift in cor-ten steel, a monumental work by Middlebury alumnus J. Pindyck Miller ’60 titled Youbie Obie.
Wonder, Rewarded
Every year we solicit nominations from the local community for students, artists, and art benefactors whose support of the visual arts merits distinction, and we select several to honor at our Annual Dinner. The winners get feted and appreciated for an evening, and each receives a certificate. Articles in the paper, all that sort of thing. We let the world know that this crop of arts heroes has done something special, and we hope that each feels appropriately celebrated for his or her talent. Then we go about another year of wash, rinse, and retweet until the specter of the next Arts Awards season makes us wonder where all the time has gone and what happened to last year’s winners and whether we made a difference in their lives to the extent that it would be worth trying to do it again this year.
Another Summer in the Books
Summer comes and goes very quickly here in Vermont—blink and you’ve missed it, as some would say—and like the season itself, our summer exhibits vanish with a similar haste, like a Fumé Blanc that you wish would have lingered just a bit longer on your tongue. As I watch the works come off the wall and go back into storage or back to their lending institutions, I often find myself wishing that I had spent more time with them, and inevitably I turn to the exhibit’s comment book to absorb others’ insights about the show as a way of allowing it to hang a little longer in my mind’s eye.
Fabergé: The Social and Political Implications of Russian Decorative Arts
The Middlebury College Museum of Art possesses a remarkable collection of Russian artifacts and family keepsakes made by the firm of the famous jeweler, Carl Fabergé. This essay by Adrian Kerester ’15, adapted from her April 2013 lecture and reproduced here with permission, explores Russia’s social history at the turn of the last century through an examination of and conversation surrounding Russian decorative arts and the culture of Russia’s ruling aristocracy.
Rackstraw Downes, Unfinished
“The artist who searches for subject matter is like someone who can’t get out of bed without understanding the meaning of life.” –Fairfield Porter When I think about pencil drawings my mind inevitably wanders to Robert Frost’s Mending Wall. “Something there is that doesn’t love a pencil drawing,” I tell myself. It’s a perplexing association…
Lovely Filth
It’s not often that I get to make direct connections between an exhibition in the galleries and the collection of public art that we have on permanent display around the campus. The opportunity is probably there more often than I’m aware, but during my tenure anyway, the times when the similarities have been palpable have been rare. This spring, with Environment and Object • Recent African Art on view in several of our galleries there’s a theme that’s begging to be explored both inside and out. And it’s totally rubbish.
Life is Like a Bowl of Chocolate
This always happens. We put up a fantastic exhibition; the public enjoys it, raves about it even; and then I wake up months later as the show is about to come down and realize that I have yet to spend any appreciable time with it. It was always there, waiting for another day when there…
