{"id":1373,"date":"2016-09-01T15:09:01","date_gmt":"2016-09-01T19:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/colbysites.org\/lantern\/?p=234"},"modified":"2016-10-20T13:40:19","modified_gmt":"2016-10-20T17:40:19","slug":"handle-with-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/2016\/09\/01\/handle-with-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Handle With Care"},"content":{"rendered":"

To many of our visitors, Greg Williams, Director of Museum Operations, and Stew Henderson, Senior Preparator, are familiar faces. Yet despite their presence, their work as the Museum\u2019s operations team might\u00a0remain a mystery to many. Anna Fan \u201915, Assistant for Special Projects, spoke with Greg\u00a0and Stew to learn more about their crucial roles here at the Museum and the men that fill them.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Greg
Greg and Stew installing Marsden Hartley’s Brilliant Autumn Landscape #28, c. 1930 in the Sam L. Cohen Gallery<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ANNA FAN (AF): What are your official titles and the roles and responsibilities involved in your positions?<\/p>\n

GREG WILLIAMS (GW): I am the Director of Museum Operations, and my job is to oversee the museum facility and to manage the exhibitions. I work with the curators in designing the positioning of the works and the walls to ensure that we are adhering to best practices, then I work with contractors and my crew to get walls painted, adjust the lighting, and install display cases, labels, accompanying wall text\u2014and hopefully we get all that done before the show opens!<\/p>\n

STEW HENDERSON (SH): And I am the Senior Preparator. My job involves the exhibition installation. I work closely with Greg in installing the shows and with our registrars in art movement and art handling.<\/p>\n

AF: What, exactly, is a preparator?<\/p>\n

SH: It\u2019s kind of in the title \u2014 we prepare; we patch and paint the walls and get them ready for the next show and prepare the artwork for exhibition. A big part of the job is matting and framing artwork for its display. Anything that needs to get done before the art gets into the gallery, I\u2019m responsible for it.<\/p>\n

AF: One of the rules in any art museum is \u201cdon\u2019t touch the artwork.\u201d Since it is your job to do so, how do you go about handling it?<\/p>\n

SH: I think the number-one thing is that every work of art that you handle is irreplaceable. That\u2019s really important to keep in mind, because you can\u2019t bring any biases or prejudices like, \u201cOh, I don\u2019t like that painting, I\u2019ll just grab it and go.\u201d We have specific training on how to carry paintings, how to handle works on paper, etc.<\/p>\n

AF: Greg, you\u2019ve curated a few shows here. Tell us about those exhibitions, and how the different facets of your work here influence each other.<\/p>\n

GW: My mentor, Hugh Gourley, taught me how to arrange work in an exhibition to make things… make sense. After a while, I was the person who did the arranging, did the installing, lighting, and labels. It all came kind of naturally. Eventually, I did curate an exhibition called Maine Contemporary Furniture<\/em>, and then another exhibition, which was quite popular, that featured guitars from collectors, builders, and performers from all around the state of Maine.<\/p>\n

\"Greg
Greg with Hugh Gourley outside the Paul J. Schupf Wing for the Work of Alex Katz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SH: That show was called A Player\u2019s Art<\/em>. Through his work, Greg has an institutional knowledge of the space and the collection, which the curators here really rely on.<\/p>\n

\"Greg
Greg featured in the Waterville Daily Sentinel in conjunction with A Player\u2019s Art. Photograph by David DeTurk.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

AF: Stew, does your background as an artist influence your work?<\/p>\n

SH: I think you\u2019ll find a lot of artists in this position. There\u2019s no formal school for preparators, so many people get into it by moving a friend\u2019s art to a show, then the next thing you know you\u2019re working for that gallery or museum, and it evolves from there. My position definitely allows me to see artwork a lot differently than most artists would, by virtue of being able to handle it, see the back of it, take it apart, frame it\u2014there is a real tangible knowledge I gain from that experience.<\/p>\n

\"Stew
Stew at work in his studio in Belfast, Maine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

AF: How do you balance the tremendous force that is often needed to move and install an object with the delicate precision that is required to handle all artworks?<\/p>\n

GW: We always have to assess what we need to do, talk about it, create a plan. If it\u2019s a delicate piece, a fragile ceramic, we\u2019re ready for it. We tell each other, \u201cOK, we\u2019re going to carefully proceed this way or that way.\u201d If it\u2019s a very heavy piece, we figure out how we can get that installed without hurting the work, ourselves, or anyone else.<\/p>\n

SH: There\u2019s different equipment for different jobs. We have a lift-table that can lift about a ton. You have to go slow, and know exactly how it gets from A to B before you actually do it.<\/p>\n

AF: Measure twice, cut once, right?<\/p>\n

GW: Right. One of the biggest parts of our jobs is solving problems, because we\u2019re doing things, in many instances, where no one has ever done it before. If someone\u2019s done it before, we want to know how they did it, of course. A good example is the current exhibition with the weather vanes and the way they\u2019re arranged. We came up with a general plan, and during the installation we worked with the curators as we positioned them.<\/p>\n

SH: We learn from others, too. We visit other museums and talk with other people that do what we do. We\u2019ve been to conferences for preparators, and learned about new materials, new processes. This fall we\u2019re going to have a really great meeting with the people who work at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, so that will be a great experience for us.<\/p>\n

AF: You mentioned the weather vanes that are currently on view; what did you enjoy most about installing that show?<\/p>\n

GW: Well, after we drafted a sketch we then faced the task of having to get these things on the wall. We started with the sailboat, which we wanted to be the pinnacle. Well, where exactly does it sit, considering all these other pieces? A lot of it\u2019s instinctual\u2014figuring out how different forms work together, and how to fill the different spaces\u2014but it\u2019s very precise. We\u2019d position a piece, then look at it and go, \u201cpull that up three inches, move that over two.\u201d So we\u2019d take it down, mark it, and then put together the pieces of the puzzle. When that came together, that made me feel great.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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