By Arden Berry | Staff Writer
The Martin Museum of Art’s permanent collection features art pieces from around the world and across time, all in one vault. The museum’s new program, “From the Vault,” will allow these pieces to be taken out and put on display for classes.
The pieces currently available include about 40 to 50 works across six collections, all available to middle and high school teachers and college professors.
Elisa Crowder, education coordinator for the Martin Museum, said the museum has had class displays since she began working there. Early on, art professors brought students in to show them prints from around the world that use different techniques.
“We have taken this program and, over the years, it’s just kind of been as people requested,” Crowder said. “But in the last two or three, we’ve started to get a little more consistent in not pulling everything but giving enough of the images to represent each particular area.”
This fall, the museum formalized this concept into “From the Vault” and added the available collections to the Martin Museum website with teacher resources, background information, quizzes and images of the art pieces available.
One collection available is “The Floating World,” which comes from 17th through 19th-century Japan, according to the Martin Museum website. Mike Schuetz is the Martin Museum of Art collections manager and said “The Floating World” is a collection of color woodblock prints.
“During the Edo Period, some of the popular subject matter that was included in the woodblock prints were the theater, specifically Noh theater and Kabuki theater, which is what they would call an action theater performance,” Schuetz said.
When a teacher or professor requests to view from the collection, Schuetz said he removes the requested collection from the vault, adds treatment to conserve the art, makes any necessary repairs and then frames the art to put on the wall.
“I’ll do anything as complex as doing individual repairs — like, if there’s a tear or a loss, I’ll actually do a repair on the artwork itself,” Schuetz said. “Sometimes, there’s a little bit of in-painting that I’ll do to the repair piece, not the actual artwork itself. But anything I do, in terms of repair or treatment, is always done with the idea that it’s reversible.”
When the pieces are not on display, they stay in a vault that contains gliding panels that slide out with the artworks. Schuetz said “From the Vault” will eventually have 10 to 12 collections total; two planned categories will be called “Age of Mechanical Reproduction” and “In Pursuit of Light.”
“In Pursuit of Light” is based off a previous Martin Museum of Art exhibition from spring of 2024.
“That was an exhibition that focused on eight female photographers who explored subjects of identity and empowerment and voices and so forth,” Schuetz said. “We have six pieces in there, but that will be a start.”
Crowder said faculty members can email her to talk about a collection viewing and how it might fit into their class.
“I think it’s a win-win for the museum and for the professors and their students,” Crowder said.
Crowder emphasized that the Martin Museum and its events are free and open to students.
“There are quite a few students and also faculty that don’t realize that we don’t exist in a vacuum,” Schuetz said. “So we’re here as public service, in a way. It’s to share.”
