Exhibit Planning - The Work Continues -

Hopefully, if you have read Lee's blog post, you know that we are working with Nancy Schön who is perhaps most famous for her work Make Way for Ducklings. The exhibit we are working on is very different from anything else Nancy has done before because we are going to use pieces that have never been seen before by the general public.

This week we are working on gathering information on the different pieces that we intend to use in our exhibit.  We have divided the 35 pieces that we plan on using into groups so that we can start working on individual labels. During our last visit with Nancy (with her permission) we recorded the stories she told about various pieces; we are now digging through that audio to figure out what we will be using from her stories, and what else we need to know. Nancy is a great storyteller, but it is a good thing we were able to record our second visit!

We have been to visit Nancy twice now. The first time we visited she showed us around her house and pointed out all the pieces we could use.  After this visit we discussed which pieces we wanted for the show and then we went back for our second visit. Go back the second time we had a much clearer idea of what we wanted to ask.  It was really cool having her show us pieces that she made when she was younger than us and how accomplished those pieces are. The one problem we are encountering is that of human memory; Nancy has created so many pieces that sometimes she cannot be precise about the particular year in which she created a work, especially for those pieces she has not exhibited. Our labels will need to reflect that in some way.

We are planning a get together sometime in early November for the Regis community to introduce you to the exhibit and get the public interested in both the theme of our exhibit which is metamorphosis but also to let people know about the artist. At the event there will be activities for both children and later in the day adults/students. Please pay attention for more information on the event.  Also please spread the word about both the in November event and the exhibit which opens in the spring semester. 

-Amanda-Elyse Cutter

New Semester - New Exhibit Planning - Working with Nancy Schön

This year students from Regis College have the honor of working with artist Nancy Schön to design a unique exhibit. Students from the Museum Studies Practicum course are working hard to create a memorable experience for visitors to the Carney Gallery. My class’s involvement in the process began in early September, on our first day of the course. All of us were familiar with Nancy Schön’s most famous sculptures, but we took the time to familiarize ourselves more with her work. Our class also began to look into the history and process of wax casting, which is not something any of us had prior experience with.

After looking into Schön’s work, our class began to look at our exhibit space and attempt to come up with an early sketch of what we wanted the exhibit to look like. Since no pieces had been selected yet this was a difficult process, and our early plans have mostly been discarded. This exercise did however serve to familiarize us with our exhibit space.

Shortly after this we made our first visit to see Nancy Schön’s work in person. It was a fascinating experience. We got the opportunity to see sculptures from throughout her career, and were able to see pieces still in the development stages. We left her home filled with new ideas for how we could approach this exhibit.

Our theme for the exhibit is "metamorphosis", which is the Department of Humanities theme for this year. Our current plan of approach is to design an exhibit that shows Nancy Schön’s work throughout her life, and which gives the audience a look at how art like Schön’s is created. It really is a fascinating process, and we truly hope that our audience will be as excited about it as we are.

New sketches for our exhibit have been created, and we are nearly decided on which sculptures we intend to display in the gallery. We have become more familiar with the resources we have available to us, and with the layout we want to create.

Next, its back to visit Nancy Schön and her amazing work! In the meanwhile, here is a link to her website: http://www.schon.com/ 

-Lee Campbell