Docents are museum volunteers whose enthusiasm and knowledge help visitors make meaning of the Maier Museum’s collections. Docents work in pairs leading school groups of 12-16 students for 50 minute tours. Docents may also be asked to conduct adult-level tours as needed.

Interested? Read on! Or perhaps you know of an art lover who may be interested? If so, please send this information along to them. Our docent training begins on Monday, September 21.

Reasons to volunteer as a docent:

• You will learn a great deal about American art in general and about the incredible art housed in the Museum’s collection in particular.
• You will have the opportunity to participate in day trips to other museums in Virginia and surrounding areas.
• You will be advocating support for arts education in your community.

What is the time requirement? Our heaviest tour months are November and March. In November we host all fifth graders in the Lynchburg City Schools, and in March all second graders. Docents lead or assist no more than six tours in November and six tours in March.

What is the training requirement? Required training for new docents takes place in September and October at the Museum on Mondays from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m.  An optional introduction to American art is offered through the video series American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America with Robert Hughes. This series is screened at the Museum in June, July, and August.

Are there any other opportunities to volunteer at the Museum? Yes! We also need volunteer Receptionists to greet visitors and handle gift shop sales. Receptionists commit to two regular monthly times (1-3 p.m. or 3-5 p.m. weekdays, or 2-4 p.m. Saturday or Sunday).

If you are interested in becoming a docent or receptionist at the Maier Museum of Art, please contact Martha Johnson at 434-947-8136 or mjohnson@randolphcollege.edu.

This event is sponsored by Maier Museum of Art members, and R-MWC alumnae, Howard Perkinson Lawrence ’40 and Nancy Forsyth Walker ’98.

FREE and open to the public. Reception will follow.

Heart with Bricks by Elizabeth Murray

Siegel’s presentation is part of programming in conjunction with the Maier Museum’s current special exhibition, Women and the Maier: Creating Herstory curated by Emily Hanson ’09 which highlights some of America’s most important women artists represented in the permanent collection.

Many art historians consider the Hudson River School to be the first cohesive American art movement. Active in the second half of the nineteenth century, Hudson River School landscape painters are well represented in the College’s permanent collection with masterful works by significant men of the movement: Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, and Thomas Kensett. Siegel’s Remember the Ladies: Women of the Hudson River School is the first known exhibition in the United States to focus solely on the female artists associated with the group. The title of Siegel’s exhibition and presentation is taken from a request by Abigail Adams to John Adams in 1776: “I desire you would Remember the Ladies…if particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion.” Siegel notes, “It is important to recast 19^th century American women landscape painters no longer as the exception…but rather as exceptional.”

This event is sponsored by Maier Museum of Art members, and R-MWC alumnae, Howard Perkinson Lawrence ’40 and Nancy Forsyth Walker ’98.

FREE and open to the public. Reception will follow.

On and Off the Wall is a series of brief reflections on or about works in the collection, including those that may not often make an appearance on the gallery wall due to shortage of display space. Deborah Spanich is the museum registrar. She compiled the digital database and fell in love with many of the works in the collection.

Barclay Sheaks, who started the art department at Virginia Wesleyan College, passed away this year. One of the works in the College’s collection is a hinged diptych by Sheaks. It is a nice example of a subject he visited in several of his paintings: various depictions of “watchers,” figures who gaze either at a specified focus, or who appear to stare ambiguously out at the viewer.

In Watchers, two women direct their attention not toward each other, but at unidentified targets. The young woman on the left holds a glass to her lips and looks beyond the edge of the canvas. On the right, an older woman sits in front of a window, eyes obscured by large dark glasses.

Far from being a portrait, this painting is a study of two people sharing the same space without an obvious connection between them. Sheaks uses lighting and other elements in this work to set up a tension apart from that presented by the undefined focus of the women’s watchful attention.

The face of woman on the left looms within the borders of frame. The break between the two panels effectively bisects her resting arm from her torso at the shoulder, leaving it at the margin of the right-hand painting. This panel is the domain of the other woman, centered in the space, yet not as prominent. In contrast to the first woman who is sleeveless, she is clad in a jacket. The table is devoid of food and her hands are not shown, leaving her without purpose. This composition suggests the women are together but not dining companions.

The light that accents the younger woman’s face and the liquid in her raised glass seems to lead the viewer’s eye toward the second figure. Further, the folded napkin on the table appears to point upward to the shadowed face. However, the shadow and sunglasses make her features enigmatic. It is as though Sheaks deliberately made her expression unreadable. Adding to the tension is the fact that it is not clear where she is looking. Her gaze may follow that of the woman on the left, it may rest on the back of her turned head, or even – unnervingly – on us.

Monday, July 26, from 1 to 2 p.m. we will screen Art21: Transformation featuring Yinka Shonibar MBE, Cindy Sherman, and Paul McCarthy.

ALL are welcome to attend this free event: volunteers, potential volunteers, friends, and anyone interested in art. Learn about some of today’s most intriguing and thought-provoking art in air-conditioned comfort.

Call 947-8136 for more information or just stop in to enjoy the screening with fellow art lovers.

Regular hours will resume on Wednesday, July 7.

The galleries are open to the public Wednesday through Sunday, 1-4 p.m.

Beat the heat and enjoy the two special exhibitions currently on view.

Women and the Maier: Creating Herstory
and
Modern and Contemporary Selections from the Permanent Collection

Come hear Alice Heard Williams read excerpts from her new novel Tracking the Carpaccio, which completes a trilogy of suspense novels featuring Emma Darling, an American art historian working in England. A book signing will follow.

Alice Williams is the author of Seeking the High Yellow Note, Remembering Piero, and Pensione Anastasia, as well as three books of poetry. An art historian who has lectured in America and in England, her novels embrace a common theme—the power and profound nature of great art.

Women and the Maier: Creating Herstory

Curated by Emily Hanson ’09, this exhibition highlights some of America’s most important women artists represented in the Maier’s permanent collection, including Louise Bourgeois, Elizabeth Murray, and Nancy Spero. Women and the Maier: Creating Herstory will be on view in Gallery 5 through December 10, 2010.

Also opening June 4 and on view through December 10: Modern and Contemporary Selections from the Permanent Collection.

Explore the exhibitions. Enjoy hors d’oeuvres. Bring your friends!

Landscapes don’t always come in the two-dimensional form of paintings. One landscape in our collection is Landscape Bowl by Wayne Higby. This small wheel-thrown raku-fired piece captures the attention with a lightning bolt of color that zigzags down its sides. What isn’t easy to see in a photograph is that this appears on the inside of the bowl as well. Higby is a noted instructor and artist, and recently curated the Scripps Ceramic Annual. He favors the forms of bowls and covered boxes, which he augments with landscape imagery that evokes the scenery of his childhood home state of Colorado. In this piece, it seems that Higby wants to make us aware that memory and locale combine and permeate the ordinariness of the everyday.

Landscape Bowl by Wayne Higby