Author Archives: Douglas Perkins

About 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.

Label Talk: Museum Mosaics—One Object, Many Voices

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...

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 … Continue reading →

New Sculpture Being Installed Near Atwater Commons

On Tuesday, August 19 work began near Coffrin Hall and Le Chateau for the installation of the latest addition to Middlebury’s collection of outdoor public art. The site is being graded and prepared for the arrival of Youbie Obie, a large work in cor-ten steel by alumni artist J. Pindyck Miller ’60. The work will be craned into place this coming Wednesday, August 27, and the project will be completed during the following week with the addition of landscaping and information placards. For more information about the artwork and to follow the installation process as it progresses, please read the latest post on the Museum blog.

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. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →