WILLIAMSTOWN, MA - The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) spent yesterday promoting its new database for its art collection. The results seem spectacular and they are inviting others to leverage the database for their own research and examination. Personally, I don't remember even visiting the collection while I taught at Williams. I visited the Clark a lot (and eventually found it repetitive and boring) but never bothered with the on-campus museum.
Now, however, it looks like they are doing a lot more at WCMA to make the collection significant in the life of the college. According to a press release they even have a program where you can hang a work from the museum in your own dorm room. I would have loved to look through the collection and find a piece to put over my fireplace on Southworth Street. Here's an overview of some of the WCMA's outreach programs:
WCMA uses its collection in amazing ways. It’s an academic museum, and the collection is meant to be a key part of learning across disciplines. In Object Lab, faculty select works of art that become lenses for classes to explore neuroscience, or botany, or religion. Collection objects are loaned to students through WALLS, encouraging long-term personal connections. The Rose Object Classroom allows artworks to be used in a classroom space. WCMA’s Reading Room encourages timely public conversation around individual works of art.My pro-tip for conservative students is to simply ignore abstract art and modernism. It is, in my view, silly and a waste of time. I'm a member of the California Art Club. I like to think of myself as a contemporary plein air, representational artist. I know from personal experience that it is not easy to learn the skill-based visual arts. In the famous atelier system, for example, a student may spend years working up the ladder learning to draw in charcoal, paint in black and white, and eventually use a broader pallet. The more you know about representational art, the more fascinating it becomes.
