"Since the creation of the gallery," says Sobol, "the Cantors — and now Mrs. Cantor alone — have been enormously impressed by what has happened there. We are interested in making sure that the gallery continues to prosper. We made the challenge grant to encourage others to contribute — not only to the education of Holy Cross students but to the community in general."
Hankins welcomes the opportunity for "a multi-layered" series of improvements that will address the often-competing demands of the gallery's budget. Increasing the staff is a key priority. The only full-time employee, Hankins is a practicing artist who had had many years of experience in teaching and gallery work at the University of California at Davis prior to coming to Holy Cross in 2001. Since then, he has found that — "between running five-to-six exhibits a year and taking care of a growing collection, I need someone part time on staff to do exhibit design and installation — what a museum preparator does." Currently dependent upon freelance preparators to do this work, Hankins notes that the gallery will now be able to hire a year-round part-time staff member.
"Our museum is not only running a scholarly exhibit program," he says. "We're also a collecting institution, albeit a teaching collection. The focus is on collecting material to integrate into campus in a variety of ways."
As an illustration, Hankins carefully removes several antique Indonesian textiles from an archival storage box — part of a study collection given to Holy Cross by the Summerfields. When professors want to bring classes to the gallery, he sets up tables and lays out the textiles — so that students "can actually touch and look at the real thing," he explains, while, at the same time, unfolding a red cloth interwoven with golden thread.
Over time, the gallery has become a valuable component of the visual arts curriculum — providing another venue for student-faculty research, symposiums, artists' talks and special curator tours.
A recent College grant has made it possible to turn the 98-foot hallway just outside the main doors of the gallery into special program space that can showcase from 20 to 30 pieces from the permanent collection. Last fall, the first show focused on works by Robert Rauschenberg, Leonard Baskin, Tom Zetterstrom, Richard Kidd and Mary Frank, gifts to the collection promised by Charles Tebo '61. Currently, photographs by Joel Meyerowitz, Andreas Feininger, Dorothy Norman and Richard Bushwell, among others, hang in the new space — part of a larger collection donated by James T. Beale Jr. '65 and his wife, Judith L. Beale. Notes gallery administrative assistant Paula Rosenblum, the area is "now a place where people stop and look at the artwork as they are going about their daily business, transforming a generic space into one that is visually enriching."
But the gift from the Cantor Foundation will allow Hankins to do even more — an imperative shift, he points out — given that "we have been getting very generous contributions of many pieces of art, as many as 60 objects a year.
"The more we grow and the better organization we have, the better attention we can pay to collection practices," Hankins continues. "We have very delicate historical objects — we need to know how best to care for them: that includes conservation, adequate storage procedures and cataloging.
"The grant will allow us to upgrade facilities," he adds, "not through renovation but through better equipment and money for conservation work. Right now I have to choose between shows and the collection."
The new grant will help make it possible to run exhibits year-round as well as to support a dedicated budget for publications — namely, the catalogs produced to accompany major academic shows.
"The second level of development," explains Hankins, "is how to make that material more available to students and have it live beyond the eight weeks of the show and the catalog."
The announcement of the challenge grant "has come as absolutely fantastic news," he concludes. "This affirmation by the Cantor Foundation signifies for me that we are building upon a history of successes with exhibitions that generate intellectual and esthetic interest while serving our academic community. At the same time, we are moving the gallery toward a more expansive and effective program that will meet the needs of our future academic scholars and student body."
In years to come, it is abundantly clear that this jewel at the center of campus will continue to thrive, encouraging quiet reflection, creative expression and the spirit of intellectual exploration that is the very heart of the liberal arts tradition.
Laura Porter is a freelance writer from Worcester.
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