Need some museum time?
The general public is not currently welcome inside the Colby Museum of Art. Since the Waterville community is not rigorously COVID-19-tested, they pose a risk to the safety and well-being of people on campus.
Currently only students and faculty who are regularly tested are allowed to place reservations for entrance to the Museum. Naturally, attendance has declined from pre-pandemic levels, and the Museum’s staff was left with the problem of getting more students into the museum.
That’s when Your Museum Time comes in. It’s a weekly program designed to help students appreciate art in new ways.
Kristen Bergquist, the Museum’s Mirken Curator of Education and Engagement, explained how the program functions.
“Looking at art is not as easy as it sounds. You have to figure out how to help yourself slow down and take time, and really notice the things you’re seeing,” Bergquist said. “Then [you] start to connect those things with things you know, and start to figure out, ‘What does that mean to you?’ ‘What do you think the artist was trying to communicate?’”
Last week’s Your Museum Time focused on Carmen Herrera’s Untitled, a piece in the Museum’s Sally and Michael Gordon Gallery. Herrera’s piece was chosen as a way to celebrate Latinx Heritage Month.
Herrera is a Cuban-American abstract artist, among the most celebrated postwar abstract painters. The guided-looking exercise instructs the student to “begin the looking process by drawing this work of art.” It then asks the observer to make a list of words to describe the piece. Students are urged to think like an artist, and consider different tools that could have been used to make this particular work.
The Carmen Herrera Your Museum Time exercise is linked to a corresponding Art @ Home project, another resource provided as a part of the Museum’s new Colby Museum @ Home initiative. This project provides guidance on how an amateur artist can use stylistic techniques, like Herrera’s, to create their own piece of art at home. Artists are instructed to make use of straight lines and geometric shapes, as well as solid colors. Art @ Home projects are intended to be made using whatever art supplies you have on hand.
“They’re meant to be done with very simple materials that you might have at home,” Bergquist explained. “We’re trying to make sure we’re connecting with people no matter where their circumstances lie.”
Art @ Home is part of the Colby Museum’s new efforts to bring art outside of the Museum, as many people are unable to come and enjoy exhibitions the way they were once able to.
The Museum has been distributing Art Kits to the Waterville community and Colby students, and it has never been simpler for students to get involved in artistic pursuits through the Museum. With the usual stressors of abroad applications and career seminars coupled with the unique stressors of the current pandemic, many students could benefit from an opportunity to change the way they look at the world.
As Bergquist put it, “That’s hard, to be able to figure out how to slow down, because that’s just not the way we operate. We usually look to see the things we need to see.”
Interested students can sign up for the free Your Museum Time program at the welcome desk in the Colby Museum of Art.
~ Milo Lani-Caputo `23
