Student Magazine Collection No. 6 (December 2023)

Table of Contents Table of contents

Letter from the Editors ..........................................1 Making Museum Memories .........................................2 Wellin in the World ...................................................4 Visual Mixtape ..............................................................6 Work in process ...........................................................8 “Museums” Across Campus .......................................12 Behind the Scenes .....................................................14 from the collection .................................................16 Personal Interpretation ....................................18 call for art ................................................................22 Color BY number .......................................................24 A look back further .............................................25 interview With bill Salzillo .................................26 Semester IN review ....................................................28 CAptions ........................................................................29

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Letter from the Editors We are so excited to bring to you our sixth edition of Collection Magazine. The past few months, we’ve been working extremely hard to plan, research, write and design a monochrome-inspired publication, focusing on the process of making. Our hope is that through this edition, you can get a glimpse of what it’s like to work, study, and explore the Wellin Museum.

Art is, fundamentally, a tactile process. The mind forms ideas, then sends those ideas to the hands to create. Art, from beginning to end, is the process of making—making those ideas tangible, making those ideas tactile, making those ideas come to life. For this edition, we focused on the idea of making art. We spoke to senior art majors to discuss their artistic process and inspiration in Work in Process. We learned about how exhibitions come to life by talking with Chris Harrison, the Wellin’s Building Manager and Museum Preparator, and Brian Baker, a Museum Preparator. We remembered the history of making museum spaces at Hamilton in discussion with Bill Salzillo, Chair of the Art Department and founding director of the Emerson Gallery. In our conversation with Marjorie Hurley, Museum Educator and Docent Program Supervisor at Wellin Museum of Art, we gained an understanding of the process of developing museum programming and making lifelong museum memories for the Wellin’s youngest visitors.

We met with both students and professors to discuss how they make connections with art, either in their own spaces or within the museum. Lastly, we made a call for community art, which was greeted enthusiastically by students and faculty alike, who contributed to create a feature highlighting the artistic skill and dedication of Hamilton’s campus.

letter from the editors

As always, while developing the magazine we focus intently on engaging Hamilton students with the Museum. This edition feels particularly collaborative, much in the same way the process of making truly is. We are thankful for all who contributed to Collection this semester. Thank you to Chris Harrison, Brian Baker, Bill Salzillo, Jeremy Katz, and all those who contributed to this semester’s articles. We’d especially like to thank Marjorie Hurley, for her insight, adaptability and endless support.

We’ve had such a wonderful time working together to make this latest edition of Collection and hope you all enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed making it.

We can’t wait to see what happens next, Celia, Hannah, Sydney, Holly, Sae, and Miriam

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There is something special about a school field trip. A cold

fall day, a bus packed full of classmates bundled up in winter coats and hats, clutching lunchboxes and pencils and eagerly heading to an exciting and new destination. The Wellin Museum, since its opening in 2012, has been committed to its mission as a teaching museum—for students both on and off the Hill. This year has been the first since COVID when local student visitors are invited to the Wellin without any restrictions. A recent conversation with Marjorie Hurley, Museum Educator and Docent Program Supervisor at the Wellin Museum of Art, illuminated the scale and scope that programming offers for a young audience. Her position at the Wellin involves conceptualizing and executing events, as well as directing student docents, to attract the widest range of audiences and visitors. Since the opening of Rhona Bitner: Resound in early September, the Wellin has hosted over 200 children and parents as part of Wellin Kids events and over 400 local students as part of K-12 programming. These two programs, though different in concept and execution, are united by the common goal of fostering access for local children to the Wellin Museum and the arts in general, while also allowing student docents the opportunity to gain direct experience teaching and working with kids. This enables student docents to get involved in the process from beginning to end, from developing to implementing child-based programming.

Fostering a Sense of Belonging Wellin Kids was one of the first public programs instituted by the Wellin when it opened in 2012, and offers a short, dropin, family focused activity whose goal is to foster a feeling of belonging and participation in the museum. These events are intended to suit a range of ages and interests, combining art making with art engagement. The program encourages families time to spend together browsing the collections through informal but curated tours and gallery visits. These are catered to the age and interest of the visitors, utilizing visual inquiry methods, a tool centered around questions that invite the visitor to participate and share their perspectives on the art, facilitated by a docent. Questions range in sophistication from “what do you see” and “what does this make you think of’’ to “what is your favorite color in this artwork” and “what shapes do you see?” These questions are intended to cover a broad range of topics, and elicit from the visitors their feelings and observations about what they see. Objects for gallery tours and themes for programming are chosen in advance by the Museum Educator and Education Assistants, Wellin docents who work throughout the academic year or summer developing educational programming for the school year. Education Assistants work hands-on with the material, selecting artworks that would appeal to young minds and experimenting with art projects to ensure they would be feasible for a range of abilities. Art projects are designed to allow for the exploration of materials and to provide a creative space for families to bond and feel a sense of inclusion within the museum. Wellin Kids programming is always free and open to the public, a central feature to making the museum accessible to all. There has been a noted increase in attendance in recent years, aided by active marketing and outreach efforts to local families and schools.

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School Visits School Visits, similar to Wellin Kids, have the goal of encouraging and fostering a sense of belonging for children in the museum. School visits are designed in coordination with local school curriculum and designed to encourage continual interest and access to museums.

Programming is created in collaboration with docents and tailored to the age group and developmental level of each grade, differentiated by theme and activity. Each program is adapted to what is needed by the teacher, and is iterative, developing on past successes and failures to create the most successful programming possible.

Different age ranges have different characteristics of visits – elementary schools, for example, tend to have the ability to handle more literal questions and activities, whereas high schoolers can tackle more advanced concepts. Elementary schoolers engage in slow looking and observational inquiry, guided through the gallery using open-ended questions. In the current iteration of WellinWorks, students engage in imaginative and theatrical activities and build their own musical instruments to illustrate the concepts underlying the exhibition. Like Wellin Kids, these programs have the goal of encouraging engagement with art. High school visits to the Rhona Bitner exhibition have focused on the connections between identity and performance. These programs have been successful, and the goal is to develop relationships with local schools to ensure ongoing connections for years to come.

Outreach The Wellin Museum’s commitment as a teaching museum extends beyond the museum walls and into the community. The Wellin participates in local events, including the annual Clinton Arts and Music Festival hosted each fall on the Village Green, and in professional development events with local schools and teachers. Within the museum, The Wellin hosts our own educational engagement space, WellinWorks. Designed alongside the exhibiting artist, WellinWorks is a selfsustaining space that offers flexibility for exploration and art making. This semester, alongside Rhona Bitner: Resound, WellinWorks offers a stage and costumes, a listening booth including songs chosen by the artist, free drawing and magnetic poetry, an interactive map, and a postcard making station. The space operates as a site of multi-modal learning, supporting the understanding of the exhibition and offering visitors more means of connection with the museum. Next spring’s exhibition René Treviño: Stab of Guilt, will be supported by an original WellinWorks space inspired by the artist’s dual interests in Mesoamerican history and astronomy.

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Photos Courtesy of James Cohan, Zoma Museum

By Sae Gleba In Collection No. 5, we focused on three Wellin artists, Derrick Adams, Wendy Red Star, and vanessa german who were invited to participate in the collaborative outdoor exhibition Beyond Granite, Pulling Together: New Perspectives on the National Mall, in Washington, D.C. In this edition, we wanted to highlight three more Wellin artists doing new and innovative projects across the world, mediums and media. Introducing Wellin in the World, part two—an exploration of the recent endeavors of Wellin exhibiting artists and artists in the Wellin’s collection.

Elias Sime Elias Sime is an Ethiopian mixed media artist working with found objects, most often discarded computer parts and other e-waste collected from the open-air markets in Addis Ababa. He transforms these found objects into complex woven tableaus, incorporating computer keyboards, motherboards, and electrical wires into cohesive artworks. His work has been on display internationally, most recently on exhibit at the 2022 Venice Biennale. In 2019 Sime actualized his dream of opening an environmentally conscious contemporary art museum and school in Addis Ababa for the local community and focused on learning ancient techniques of construction and art making. The Zoma Museum is inspired by the timeless and robust traditional Ethiopian building techniques, and is constructed of mud, straw, stone, wood, and cement in a contemporary, artistic manner, drawing attention to the museum as a space where the old and new unite.

At the Wellin: Tightrope: Familiar Yet Complex 2, 2016

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Alison Saar Alison Saar is an LA-based American multimedia artist whose work has been on exhibit across the country throughout her nearly 40 year career. Her work focuses on the African diaspora and black female identity. She is influenced heavily by African, Caribbean, and Latin American folk art and spirituality, often incorporating found objects into her sculpture. Most recently, she has worked with Los Angeles County Museum of Art for their collaboration with Snapchat producing a new augmented reality project, Monument Perspectives. This project is intended to bring art outside of the museum walls and into the hands of viewers, allowing smartphone users across the globe to visualize her art in their own space.

At the Wellin: Breach, 2017 Stanch, 2017 Congolene Resistance (On View)

LACMAxSnap Augmented Reality project, Rise

Jeffrey Gibson Jeffrey Gibson is an American Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee painter and sculptor based in Brooklyn, New York. This year, he was selected to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale, an international culture and arts exhibition hosted every other year in Venice since 1895. Venice is the oldest contemporary global art exhibition, and yearly draws in artists from over 75 countries. Gibson will be the first Indigenous artist to represent the United States, a coveted position he was offered due to his artistic expression in mixed media installations focusing on American, Indigenous, and Queer histories, influenced by music and pop culture. Gibson is the first solo Indigenous artist to exhibit at the American Pavilion.

At the Wellin: A VERY EASY DEATH, 2015 (On View) Untitled, 2017 I Was Here, 2018 IF I RULED THE WORLD, 2019 I WANNA GIVE YOU DEVOTION, 2019 Photo by Heather Ainsworth

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By Hannah Dillon and Miriam Lerner

At Hamilton, being a Studio Art major can mean many

different things. Students from all over the world, studying a myriad of subjects and making a multitude of kinds of art can all be art majors. Culminating the four-year curriculum, each studio major develops a thesis project in which they choose a medium, develop a unique artistic practice and work toward an exhibition in the Wellin Museum. We interviewed three students, Anna Arzeno ‘24, Tate Suratt ‘24, and Dani Bernstein ‘24, who are currently in the process of developing and completing their thesis.

One of the most enticing and unique parts of being a student at Hamilton is studying in an open curriculum. As a Studio Art and Neuroscience double major, Anna Arzeno takes full advantage of this opportunity. Anna welcomed us into her studio space, which was illuminated by the art building’s floor to ceiling windows and by her vibrant sprawling canvases that covered the walls. Paintings in all stages of development surrounded us, with reference photos scattered across the wall and palette paper filled with a rainbow of oil paints. Anna explained that her work, a mix of painting and collage, are snapshots of Dominican life. As an international student from the Dominican Republic, Anna shared with us her experience of culture shock when arriving at Hamilton three years ago, but also the culture shock of returning to the DR after being in the US. Her work is a mixture of these experiences and the process of remembering and connecting with the Dominican diaspora. She sources her reference photos from the internet after a long process of research,

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which admittedly is the hardest and most time-consuming part of her artistic process. She takes care to only source photos from Dominicans and to understand why and where these photos were taken, so that they match her specific vision for her work. She also draws from her research last semester in which she created a database of Dominican artists.

Anna’s work is by, for and about Domincans and DominicanAmericans. She hopes to reach a Dominican audience at Hamilton and to become the visibility that she craves. Anna speaks to the Dominican community at Hamilton, from students to staff, and the impact of representation in her art. When asked about what she hopes people will take away from her work she explains that “it’s not as important to teach other people but to have people who are Dominican look at my work and say wow I know this image.” Anna recently brought one of her paintings home to her family in the DR and was met with so much love, especially from her little 5-year-old cousin who was overjoyed to recognize the scene and characters in Anna’s painting. This feeling of familiarity, connection and extended community from the DR to Hamilton and back again is what her work explores.

Our conversation returned to Hamilton’s campus and Anna’s plans after graduation. As a neuroscience major she plans to go into research. While she would love to continue painting and making art, she explains that painting is not a super feasible hobby in her near future, given the financial barriers of supplies and the proper facilities she needs to store materials and provide ventilation for oil paints and turpentine. Reflecting on her artistic growth over her time at Hamilton, she explains how her work has quite literally grown in size. This is evident from the massive canvases that surround her studio space. She also explains her growth in the use of color. “Realistically the resources here are insane—I have 7 shades of green and I can really push my art in that way. I can explode with color because of the access to paint.”

Funding for art majors allows her to experiment and explore color in a way not previously possible. Anna explains that “I decided to do the art major because I could, it’s a liberal arts college and I’ve always loved painting.”

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Dani Bernstein similarly explored the bounds of his medium, and even further, of art itself. Dani Bernstein graciously welcomed us into his vibrant and eclectic studio to speak with us about his artistic process as he develops his Studio Art thesis. His studio space, found at the very end of a long row of sculpture, painting, and photography studios, is covered in art: both his own and others’. Large, non-traditional canvases made up of found objects and shards of mirror shards cover one side of his walls, a representation of Dani’s experimentation around the notion of art itself. His other two walls are filled with inspiration from other artists, including indigenous art about interactions with nature and art about body image and discomfort.

We began the studio visit asking Dani to tell us about his current project, his thesis.

Dani began, “I’ve been making work on my transition for quite a while now. It’s been a pretty big subject in my work, and it’s been really cool to have those inspire the other and use art as a way to process my emotions and my discomfort with my body and my environment.” Dani explained that art has played a crucial role within his transition and has allowed and encouraged him to process his emotions and his discomfort with his body and environment. In his senior year, Dani wanted to think about his transition through a slightly different lens. “A lot of my work this year is continuing to be about queerness, but about intersections of queerness and nature and queerness and natural elements.” Dani particularly wanted to consider how queer perspectives could influence people’s relationships and interactions with each other and with larger notions of self and nature. “I’m really thinking about the idea of queer perspective, bringing a fluidity and almost a new way of thinking to all sorts of things, including our relationships with the earth, and our relationships with institutions.”

Dani explained that many of these ideas arose from the relationships and community he found at Hamilton as part of the mindfulness community and the chapel. He described the way in which mindfulness has become a part of his practice, “my way of working through both life and art being spiritual practices have really lent a lot to each other.” Dani explained that some of these practices, including meditation and spending time outdoors, profoundly impacted his own development of self and his larger approach to the world.

These different elements of mindfulness allowed Dani to find

acceptance in the idea that his process was a product of the intersections between creativity and conscious living. He told us that “my process goes far beyond the studio into my everyday interactions and the ways that I approach things and the different mindfulness practices I engage in along with creativity.” Throughout this project, and the time he has spent building creative and spiritual practices, Dani has blended mindfulness into his artwork, while also molding his artistic and creative process into something that existed beyond the studio and within his everyday experience.

Much of Dani’s thesis is focused on answering larger questions about the institutions of art and of artmaking.

Through his work, Dani is attempting to understand the limits of what art and painting are, while still working within the structures set by preconceived boundaries of art.

Dani explains, “we had to choose an advisor and a medium we were working in. And so I had to say, okay, yes, I’m working in painting. And now what I’m kind of struggling through at this stage is, how can painting mean something more than painting?” Dani has been working toward reconstructing the idea of good and valuable art, while experimenting more materially with the idea of the canvas, what it is and what it can be. Dani hopes to extend the idea of a painting beyond just an artwork inside a studio or gallery space. Instead, he hopes to develop painting as a “cyclical and spiritual lifestyle.” Rather than painting as a medium, Dani aspires to incorporate emotion as a medium, thinking consciously about making work that will make a difference, and using the medium as “a bridge to communicate those ideas with the audience.”

More concretely, Dani hopes to provide his viewers an opportunity for reflection. He hopes that they will contemplate “what it means to be present, and how healing their relationship with their self, their gender, their bodies, and their binaries can contribute to other areas of their life.” He hopes that through his work he will bring visibility and recognition to transness and queerness, and hopes that his representations bring a sense of acceptance to trans and queer viewers. Dani’s cyclical and mindful practices will continue throughout the development of his thesis and as he moves forward in this yearlong process.

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We met with Tate in a Diner booth over breakfast on a snowy Wednesday morning.

Coincidentally, meeting outside of the art studio ended up being representative of Tate’s exploratory artistic process as a photographer. Tate Suratt admittedly doesn’t spend as much time in the physical studio space compared to his fellow art majors because much of his work takes place outdoors, both on and off campus grounds. Tate’s thesis project is a series of projected photographs onto campus buildings that he documents through photography. In the fewest words possible Tate explains that he “takes a photo, edits that photo, projects that photo, takes another photo of the projection, and prints that final photo.” This final photo acts as documentation of his projection and will be displayed in the Wellin Museum at the Senior Art Thesis Show at the end of the year.

Tate explained to us his interest in Hamilton’s architecture and the stark contrast that our campus’s physical presence and the “Hamilton bubble” have when compared to the surrounding area. Hamilton contains so much beautiful and historic architecture, from the original stone buildings like Carnegie Residence Hall to Kirkland’s brutalist List Art Center built in 1970. However, these buildings don’t relate to the local environment that exists a mere five minute drive from campus.

Tate hopes that “this contrast speaks for itself” through his work. His goal is to produce a “commentary without [him] having to say anything.”

Beginning his process, Tate ventures off campus and captures photographs of local farm land, architecture, and livestock. He then edits the photographs, preparing them to

be projected at night onto a campus building. The building onto which he chooses to project is dependent on two variables: the location of outdoor outlets and the length of his extension cord. These two obstacles have proven to be formidable opponents. As snow continues to fall outside, Tate gestures to the window and remarks that the snow will also pose an obstacle to his projection equipment as the winter months are now upon us in Clinton, New York. These obstacles, however, are part of the process that Tate enjoys.

He notes that in photography and videography, there is not a lot of physicality or movement involved. The physical process of setting up and adjusting the projector brings a new tactile and physical work of photography that he previously didn’t experience.

One of the many things that makes this work intriguing is its temporality. The photographs displayed as the ‘final project’ are documentation of the artwork. The nature of installation and performance artwork is that it is fleeting and experienced in real time. Tate’s artwork makes us think about how we view and document live artwork and the bounds of photography as a medium.

Studio Art majors at Hamilton explore multiple areas of art, challenging understandings of what art is and what it means to be an artist. Anna, Tate, and Dani each use their individual interests and mediums to make something unique that supports their expression of self. Through their theses, they explore questions of gender, heritage, and human interactions with the environment. In the spring, their work will be exhibited in the Wellin Museum.

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By Sydney Piccoli

Art History

Professor Tillery purchased this postcard from the St. Annen-Museum in Lübeck, Germany. She has had this postcard next to her desk for the last two years. “It's like an old friend now,” exclaimed Tillery.

This is a lithographic reproduction of a Jan van Eyck portrait of his wife. Tillery purchased it while living in Germany.

“Although she's a bit creepy, kind of like the faces with moving eyes in haunted pictures, I still love her,” expressed Tillery.

Studio Art

Professor Kuharic created this watercolor and graphite artwork in 1990s. There are many more in the series, all of which comment on women separationists and second wave feminism.

Studio Art

Professor Knight took this photograph of his fishing at a festival in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The spots to catch fish at the festival filled up, so his son, alongside other fish-catching enthusiast, used a grate as a makeshift fishing hole!

Mathemathics

Professor Kantrowitz was gifted this Professor piece byKantrowitz a student who was gifted majored thisinpiece by a student math and who art. majored The artwork in math displays and art. The artwork a cantor displays function a cantor and itsfunction interesting and its interesting mathematical mathematical properties.. properties.

“It’s like “It’s the like the best best of both of both worlds,” worlds,” joked joked Kantrowitz.

Kantrowitz.

Economics

Professor Alloush received a Green Day CD when he was thirteen. The above piece is the result of unfolding the cover artwork. “It’s a reminder of my younger self and childhood,” remarked Alloush.

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Chris Harrison oversees a team of seven, including Brian Baker, at the Wellin Museum. Baker’s job is to collaborate on the design and building of exhibitions as well as contract work off site. This article is based in part on an interview originally conducted in March 2023 by Daniella Metti ‘23, with additional research

by Sydney Piccoli ‘26, and has been edited for clarity. This article presents two perspectives on building an exhibition from the ground up.

How do the preparators work together as a team?

Chris Harrison: We currently have just seven individuals who work for us part-time. This makes scheduling them somewhat more challenging but it also means that all of our preparators bring other amazing skill sets to bear here at the Wellin. Brian has his own custom furniture-building business. Jason is a well-established folk musician and songwriter. When I hired Jenna, I stole her away from the Framing Department at Michaels Arts and Crafts Store. Mason has served as an adjunct professor in the Art Department across the street. Yulia teaches Painting at Pratt Munson. Jonathan is a sculptor in his own right, who was given a show at the Fenimore last year. Erika is an Historic Paint and Finishes expert that has worked with historic properties such as Washington’s Mount Vernon and Jefferson’s Monticello. This is all just to highlight what an amazingly talented group of people they are, who can quite literally do anything we ask of them!

How does the process of planning for an exhibition begin?

Brian Baker: The curators and Tracy Adler, Johnson-Pote Director of the Wellin Museum, come up with an idea. They have a design meeting that’s just the two of them throwing ideas at each other. It’s a lot of “this would be really cool because it would match the aesthetic of the artist,” “We could do this because it would play off the building’s aesthetic,” “We could do this because we did it before and it worked out really well.” They start planning an exhibition about two years in advance. I’m not involved at this point.

This is very early on.

When do the preparators become involved in the process?

Brian Baker: Chris gets done with his design meeting and almost immediately he and I have a meeting.

We start talking about materials and timing. What is physically possible? How long is it going to take to build something like this? How many mockups do we need? What kind of materials do we need to source that are new? For the Sarah Oppenheimer exhibit [in 2021], we started working on that project three years before it happened. Chris and I were in Zoom meetings with people in Italy, Japan, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles all the time trying to design the exhibit. We spoke with engineers around the world.

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Brian Baker: We do studio visits where we’ll go into an artist’s studio and have more of a conceptual conversation years before the exhibition. If the artist is developing something, we talk to them about size limitations. For example, the wall is only 18 feet tall, so don’t make anything bigger. Other than the practicality of it all, the artists have free reign to do whatever they want to.

How do you decide on the wall colors for the exhibition space?

Brian Baker: After we’ve built all of the walls, but before artwork is delivered, we have big four by four swatches of paint. We put them against the wall and we walk through for a couple of days with those swatches on the walls. We put them where we think we want them to be, then we move them around.

Maybe this corridor wants to be blue – or maybe it wants to be white! If we like one color, then we might pick five other colors that look similar to that one color. Let’s also throw in a couple of curve balls! We just don’t know yet.

What is the next step after the walls are painted?

Brian Baker: We lay out all the artwork in the gallery when we have it. If a sculpture is too big for the doorway, it is shipped in sections. A company that specifically ships artwork makes padded crates for each piece. We build it for the artist in the gallery. We’re all trained, so we all know how to do it without damaging the art or the space. Then, Tracy, Chris, and Alexander Jarman, Assistant Curator of Exhibitions and Academic Outreach, walk through the gallery and curate the space. They’ll say, “we want this to be here” or “we want this type of an arrangement on the wall.” Then I’ll walk through the space with them and then the Collections team. They’ll take notes, and start putting things up where they go.

What informs the Wellin team’s decisions on lighting for the space?

Brian Baker: When we’re going through, we also start talking about lighting. What color temperature of light is going to look best with this type of artwork? What does the space look like? Does it need to feel a little warmer or a little cooler? Do we want it to feel really sterile? We also try to transition into the spaces.

Sometimes the WellinWorks space will be in the North end and we have the exhibition space in the South end. The color temperature might change, perhaps being cooler in the Wellin Works space as we want it to feel more like a workshop and warmer in the exhibition space because the artwork needs it.

What do you take into account while designing and building the exhibition infrastructure that supports the artwork?

Chris Harrison: The goal when designing the exhibitions is to provide the artwork with the best possible environment for display and proper safekeeping. We also want to develop the space and layout in such a way as to allow our primary audience, Hamilton College students and faculty, a space to highlight the College’s educational goals: Aesthetic Discernment, Intellectual Curiosity, Cross-Disciplinary Communication and Expression, and do all that while highlighting Cultural and Artistic Diversity! My role as an Exhibition Design Facilitator whose job is to bring together the many different voices that collaborate on our offerings. We pride ourselves on our commitment to listening to diverse opinions and allowing these ideas to inform and guide our work whenever possible.

What is one of your favorite shows you have worked on?

Chris Harrison: This is not a fair question at all! What I can say instead of answering this question directly is to relay how lucky I am to be doing what I do! I love my work and it makes coming to work a joy rather than a chore. I don’t know many people who can honestly say that and what this means is that at the end of the day, I end up getting paid to do something I would gladly do for free simply because I enjoy it so much!

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In Apricot Workers, Balearic Islands, Spain, 1951 by Todd

Webb, two women handle the fruit, perhaps sifting through to determine which to put on sale, perhaps cleaning them. They have a serious look to them, handling their work with care, a mood enhanced by the black and white composition of the piece.

Webb, an American photographer, is known for his documentation of everyday life and architecture. His work primarily focuses on New York City, Paris, and the American West. This piece, however, comes from a brief interlude in Spain.

Groves of fruit trees are an iconic part of the Spanish landscape, like the Sevillian orange trees whose aromatic blossoms are integral to the city’s identity or the

pomegranate, which lends its name to the city of Granada.

The image of the apricot workers harkens back to Spain’s agricultural history, stretching deep into the past. In 711 CE, the Iberian peninsula was conquered by the Muslim Moors. The territory was known as alAndalus. The Islamic Golden Age, which had started about a century earlier, had brought great advances across a wide range of disciplines, from economics and arts to mathematics and agriculture.

Through their extensive commerce and trade routes, the Muslims came to encounter the apricot.

Originating in China, the apricot traveled along the Silk Road to Persia, from which it further spread across the

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From the Collection

by Holly Mirales

Eurasian steppe via nomadic tribes. Somewhere in Central Asia, Arabic Muslim traders were introduced to the fruit and brought it back home with them. The apricot, tangy and sweet, fit in with the flavor palette of Arabic meals and was used widely. Sometimes it was paired with meats, such as lamb, for a main course and other times with nuts as a dessert. Apricot still plays a key role in Arabic cuisine today, most notably in Qamar al-Din, an immensely popular beverage across the Middle East and North Africa that is traditionally drunk during Ramadan.

When the Moors conquered the Iberian Peninsula, they brought with them agricultural expertise and a host of crops, including the oranges now associated with Seville and the pomegranates of Granada. So too did they introduce the apricot. Orchard crops took hold in Spain and continue to play an important role in the Spanish economy. Spain is the second largest producer

of persimmons and tangerines in the world. They place sixth for apricots, and are amongst the top ten producers for peaches, lemons, and oranges.

The Spanish introduced the apricot to the Americas, with missionaries bringing it to California for their gardens.

The apricot becomes and remains a sweet and joyous, small “golden sun” savored globally.

Webb’s image of the apricot workers, diligent in their work, is a reminder of cultural exchange, of conquest, of histories that have irrevocably shaped the places in which they occurred. Each apricot tree dotting an Iberian orchard is one of the many reminders of a dynasty long gone. The trees have taken on their own life and meaning in Spain, whose culture has embraced and welcomed the fruit. The workers tend not just to the apricots, but to a fragment of Spain’s multicultural past.

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Everyone experiences art differently. To some, what stands out are the colors or patterns, lines or forms. To others, art brings memories or builds stories. At Hamilton, one way for students to experience art is through the Wellin Museum collection. We asked several students to peruse the collection in the Wellin’s online catalog and pick out their favorite artworks, showing both a bit of themselves and a bit of the art around them.

Kate Bacigalupo, a senior sociology major, chose a 1985 lithograph by the artist Raúl Plasencia Montero entitled Arpero.

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Arpero, Raul Plasenca Montero

This lithograph, after an original ink drawing, represents a harpist sitting at his stool and donning a hat. Kate, when describing her favorite element of this artwork, states, “I love how simple it is when you first look at it, but you can hear the harp being played and know there is a larger story there. I always love black and white art because it allows each person to imagine what the color would be like for themselves.” To Kate, this artwork served as a way to imagine, and to leave reality behind. She explained, “It reminds me of playing music in the summer. I would have my violin and there would be fifty or so other musicians playing in groups together and always one harp that would add this fairy-esque sound to anything it touched.” Just as this print transported Kate outward toward the unknown, it also brought her back to the familiar and the nostalgic.

Though this lithograph is not a direct reflection of her own experience, she was still able to find meaning in and connect with Arpero.

19 Senior Kaitlin Reed, a philosophy major, chose Floating Vase 6, a vessel made by ceramic artist Ibrahim Said, which references thousands of years of Egyptian ceramic production.

Floating Vase 6, Ibrahim Said

Kaitlin explains that several elements drew her to this work, from the vivid colors to the form of the sculpture. “The way that the vase is shaped is something I have never seen before—I cannot imagine how difficult this must have been to make and it is such a fascinating and unique design.” For Kaitlin, a part of the fascination with the vessel came from thinking about its production and the material role of the artist in constructing such a work of art. She additionally stated, “Aside from its immediate beauty, I was curious to know more about where this object came from and what its use was.” Apart from the artist himself, and the physicality of the work, the social and cultural context surrounding the vase’s production interested Kaitlin, and influenced her way of looking at Floating Vase 6. Kaitlin’s love of art extends beyond the Wellin Museum’s collection. When asked about her other favorite artists, Kaitlin described, “I was particularly in awe with the Denys Puech sculptures I got to experience at the Musée d’Orsay. In terms of more contemporary art, I love a collection of oil paintings made by Chilean artist Guillermo Lorca, many of which I was able to see in Barcelona. Kate Pincus-Whitney and Ian Andrews are two other painters I have been liking recently, who I have not seen in person.”

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Anika Amann, a first-year student, chose the mixedmedia work When the Ice Melted, by artist Leila Daw. This artwork, representing an elevation map of Hamilton College and Clinton, NY, incorporates layers of writing with elements of the map, combining to consider the passage of time and contemporaneous transformations of the Earth.

Anika chose this artwork for several reasons, including her interest in words and language, and her interest in the interactions between visual and written elements. She stated, “As a languageoriented person, I appreciate the addition of poetry and/or words to artistic pieces. I think the layering of multimedia when words are included transforms the piece to something that much more multifaceted and gives it a more interactive and interpretable feel.” For Anika, this artwork put her own place at Hamilton into perspective. “It reminds me that while Hamilton College seems like its own microcosm, the mountains are visible when crossing the street on Martin’s Way. If you just turn your head a little bit, the outside world seems to materialize.” Rather than transporting her to a past memory, different culture, or historical moment, When the Ice Melted grounded Anika into the present moment: “this piece reminds me of the way it feels to turn my head and see that the outside world is really that close. It makes the idea of ‘being here now’ seem so much more tangible when you can place yourself in the context of a larger geographic region—something that both my lived experience at Hamilton College and my interaction with this piece can do.” When explaining what drew her to this artwork, Anika explained that the sensation of movement, through lines and shapes, caught her eye, and that the nature of the piece and its composition held her attention. Anika explained, “It’s very comforting to see a map displayed in this finite space knowing that all areas are accounted for and clear, and that this chaos (winding, capillary-like roads and almost marbled colors, overlapping words and unlabeled structures) can exist in a way that is still controlled

When the Ice Melted, Leila Daw

21 and existing comfortably within the harmony of the piece.” An extension of her interest in chaos and order, Anika shared some of her perspective on transitioning into life at Hamilton. “Clinton, NY and Hamilton College have been the backdrop of some of the most emotionally turbulent times I have had, and my experience with it thus far has been as a place in which to exist for the first time as an adult—a place that has challenged my definition of ‘home’. To see it represented not only as the concrete lines of where it physically exists but also as a place full of chaos and beauty represents my experience here to a degree where I feel entirely understood by this piece.”

Art exists in so many different ways, and for so many different purposes. Art is perceived differently, and forms diverse meanings, with every viewer that encounters it. Each person brings their own unique backgrounds and understandings to a work of art, shaping and transforming an artwork’s role depending on their own interpretations. An artwork is thus never static, but ever-changing, adjusting to become what the viewer sees and feels, and thus developing with the social context shaping a viewer’s experience.

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1. J.D. Ross, Eastern Sierra Sunset, Photograph, 2015 2. Polina (Lina) Igumnova ‘27, Karo tribe body art, Mixed Media, 2022 3. Mina Stevens ‘26, Waterpark, Summer 2006, Cyanotype and digital collage, 2023 4. Yvonne Schick, Pressed Flowers, Pressed flowers decoupaged onto paper, 2023 5. Taylor Clock, Bluff, Photograph, 2022

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Color by Number

Inspired by Peter Halley’s Exchange (1996), grab your crayons or markers and take a moment to destress and color.

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BY Sae Gleba

Hamilton College has a rich history of art and collections, solidifying the arts as a central facet of

the liberal arts education. A little over fifty years after the college was chartered, in 1869, the college received a large collection from Henry Dwight Williams, Utica native and recipient of an honorary degree. This initial donation formed Hamilton’s first collection, inspired by the Wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities, a European Renaissance era pastime of the wealthy of collecting and displaying valuable, exotic, and rare objects. The Hamilton Literary Monthly, an on-campus publication of the time, wrote “All the World is represented in the Cabinet of Hamilton College.”

Instilled early on in Hamilton’s history was a recognition of the valuable role that object-based learning plays in higher education, a legacy which continues to today.

Fast forward to 1982, when Hamilton converted the front area of the James Library, now Christian Johnson Hall, into the Emerson Gallery space. This space functioned much in the way the Wellin Museum does now—a space to display and celebrate art. We’ve included some images of the Emerson Gallery to give a peak—to look back further—at the legacy and history of gallery spaces on campus. Read on to learn more about the Emerson Gallery and the people who made it happen.

BY Hannah Dillon

To current Hamilton students, the Wellin Museum of Art is

a familiar presence on campus—students take tours of the exhibits or might even have taken a class in the Overlook classroom located on the second floor. The Wellin’s collection continues to grow and benefit our community but we don’t always think about how this all came to be. I sat down with Bill Salzillo, Chair of the Art Department and founding director of the Emerson Gallery, to talk about his pivotal role in preserving and displaying art in the Wellin’s predecessor, the Emerson Gallery.

Bill began teaching at Kirkland College in 1973, just five years after the college’s founding. He arrived at Kirkland right out of graduate school and learned everything about teaching and the museum world here on the Hill. To begin understanding the long history of collecting on Hamilton’s campus, let’s first sort out what and where everything was.

Many of the departments on campus had their own individual collections. There was the Knox Hall cabinet of curiosities in the Science Department and assorted artifacts housed within the Anthropology Department. The art portion of the collection, including paintings and prints, was stored at the Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute in Utica (now Munson).

The museum had an agreement with Hamilton to take care of this collection because of Edward Root’s connection to the Utica institution. Edward Root, son of Elihu Root, graduated from Hamilton in 1905 and returned in 1920 to be a lecturer in art until his retirement in 1940. In 1949, the Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute appointed Root “consultant of art” and later named him “honorary consultant for life.”

The relationship between the two institutions extended beyond art storage; the Munson staff was also responsible for programming what was referred to as the “pocket gallery” that was located at the Edward Root Art Center (formerly the Root Homestead but converted to an Art Center in 1958). As of 1982, the Root Art Center became the Anderson-Connell Alumni Center. In 1973, upon Bill’s arrival to campus, Mrs. Grace Root— the final surviving Root family member—passed away. Around the same time, Munson expressed to Hamilton that it would no longer be able to store and insure Hamilton’s collection. It was becoming clear that more space was needed for Hamilton’s art collection. The College now faced the age old dilemma of storage once again!

In 1982 under Bill’s leadership and petition, Hamilton

agreed to convert the front area of the then James Library, now Christian Johnson Hall, into the Emerson Gallery space.

Formerly a lounge space, the Emerson Gallery required some renovation to become a functioning, modern space for art, “so we had to spend some years educating [Hamilton] about the difference between a lounge and an art gallery.”

Bill, as director from 1982–1993 and again from 1998–1999, worked to establish proper security measures for the space, including locks on the doors.

Bill explained that “in the beginning of the Emerson Gallery nobody really knew what would happen, there was no permanent staff, it was me and one other person.” That other person was Lettie Tourville, Secretary of the Root Art Center. The Emerson Gallery later hired an assistant curator, Ruth Trovato. Bill recalls, “we worked for decades to bring attention to what was needed for a modern, professional museum—staff and facilities.” Bill notes that at the time, “people didn’t understand what was there.” Some of what we know today as the Wellin Museum collection was scattered around campus in different departments and seemed to be going missing or disappearing with time. There was a cannon ball from the revolutionary war, a mummified crocodile, a large collection of Native American artifacts from the 19th century, a Flemish tapestry found hidden in an attic and so much more. These items, numbering around 400 by the time Bill was done consolidating, were cataloged, stored, and preserved. “We did everything, we packed stuff, we hung all the shows, the physical plant would come down and light everything. And the first thing we did was get a grant from the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) to catalog the collection. We were pretty ambitious, last time I was there we got five NEA grants out of five applications.”

The Emerson Gallery had multiple shows each semester to get the Hamilton community excited and involved with the collection. Not only did the shows generate excitement on the Hill, but they also traveled around the country and drew national attention. The Emerson Gallery was recognized at least four times by the New York Times for their shows. Bill recalls some of the more popular shows like Marsden Hartley in Bavaria, a seminal modernist whose painting is in the collection. Bill intentionally created shows to include campus and department interests by using pieces from the collection and building a show around that piece or

27 theme by borrowing from other institutions.

In a precedent to the Wellin Kids programming and the K-12 school visits that the Wellin facilitates today, the Emerson Gallery would host school visits and provide themed crafts for school children. Bill also pointed out how the Emerson Gallery always had Hamilton student involvement. Students at Hamilton were employed as docents to give tours of the shows and help out with the local elementary school visits.

With Bill’s persistence, the administration agreed to have a Committee on the Arts, which was incredibly helpful in assisting the Emerson Gallery in its acquisition efforts.

The committee consisted of around ten to twenty alumni who were collectors and art historians. This group helped to generate donations and outreach to other alumni. Bill recalls that as soon as Hamilton alumni knew there was a space dedicated to art, things started flowing in, “these collectors, they were excited to know there was a place in which they could do something for the college and they were excited about it.” After about twenty years, the collection had grown from around 400 items to 5,201.

Collecting on Hamilton’s campus has a strong legacy, from the foundational 19th C. donors like William C. Winslow class of 1862 and Edward S. Burgess class of 1879 to the Emerson Gallery to the Wellin. Exhibitions have grown in scale and are more closely tied to teaching and learning on

campus, considering the incredible facilities of the Wellin, with 6,135 square feet of galleries between the Daniel W. Dietrich II ’64 Exhibition Gallery and the Frances and Jack ’75 Levy Object Study Gallery, a collection totalling 7,981 objects, and ten full time employees. The connection from the Emerson to the Wellin is crucial to understanding the history of the Wellin. Bill reflects, “I think of the Wellin as the Emerson, that was always the vision, there was always that continuity in my mind.” Bill’s efforts and the early work of the Emerson Gallery, along with Kirkland College’s legacy of dedication to the arts and the donors in the 19th C. (namely Winslow and Burgess), built and continue to cultivate the foundation for art appreciation on campus. The Wellin Museum might seem like one of the many amenities of Hamilton’s campus but it stands out in its rich history.

Bill concluded our conversation with some appreciation of his own, “one of the fun things about going to a place like Hamilton is whether you like it or not you’re connecting to a long tradition and it gives you a sense of place and connectivity.”

Additional research for this article was provided by the essay “Learning through Experience: A History of the Art Collections and Exhibitions at Hamilton College” by Katherine D. Alcauskas in Innovative Approaches, Honored Traditions, published in conjunction with the exhibition Innovative Approaches, Honored Traditions at the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Clinton NY, 2017.

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Semester In Review

Photo by Janelle Rodriguez

Bustling with visitors, the Wellin opened its doors to sixty Hamilton class visits this

semester, as well as seven K-12 groups and visits from classes at SUNY Polytechnic Institute and Pratt Munson. Additional programming included four Wellin Kids workshops, seven art yoga classes, and art walks with student organizations such as La Vanguardia, the Black & Latinx Student Union, and the International Cultural Association.

The museum, resonant with the theme of its current exhibition, Rhona Bitner: Resound, also hosted performances in its WellinWorks space, creating cross-disciplinary experiences within the visual and performing arts. Students from Dance 307: Choreography danced in the exhibition gallery, student bands and a cappella groups performed at HalloWellin and the WHCL Speakeasy, and the Museum and the Hamilton Voices choir collaborated on a sound recording.

Captions

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Page 6 Graham Sutherland. The Garden, 1931. Etching, 10 1/2 × 8 in. (26.7 × 20.3 cm). Collection of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Purchased with funds donated by Philip W. Abell, Class of 1957. © Estate of Graham Sutherland. Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY.

Page 16 Todd Webb. Apricot Workers, Ibiza, Balearic Islands, Spain, 1951. Gelatin silver print, 8 × 10 in. (20.3 × 25.4 cm). Collection of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Gift of Thomas J. Wilson and Jill M. Garling, P2016. © Todd Webb Archive. Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY.

Walter Iooss. Michael Jordan, Lisle, Illinois, July 1987 (printed c.2014). Inkjet print, 20 in. × 24 1/8 in. (50.8 × 61.3 cm). Collection of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Gift of Mark Callahan, Class of 1994. © Walter Iooss. Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Photo by John Bentham.

Page 18 Raúl Plasencia Montero. Arpero, 1985. Lithograph after original ink drawing, 13 3/4 x 9 3/4 in. (34.9 x 24.8 cm). Collection of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Gift of Drs. Beth and Paul Losiewicz. Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY.

Liat Ebling. Patio, from the series “Interactions,” 2017.

Pigment print in artist’s frame, 20 × 24 3/8 × 2 1/2 in. (50.8 × 61.9 × 6.4 cm). Collection of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Purchase, William G. Roehrick ‘34 Art Acquisition and Preservation Fund. © Liat Ebling. Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY.

Page 19 Ibrahim Said. Floating Vase 6, 2021. White earthenware, 20 3/4 × 10 1/2 × 9 1/2 in. (52.7 × 26.7 × 24.1 cm). Collection of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Purchase, William G. Roehrick ’34 Art Acquisition and Preservation Fund. © Ibrahim Said. Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Photo by John Bentham.

Page 7 Helen Frankenthaler. Tiger’s Eye, 1985 (published 1987).

Aquatint and sugar lift etching, lithograph and screenprint, 19 × 22 1/4 in. (48.3 × 56.5 cm). Collection of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Purchased with funds donated by the Friends of Art. © Helen Frankenthaler Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS). Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Photo

by John Bentham.

Agnes Martin. Praise, from the “Rubber Stamp Portfolio,” 1976 (published 1977). Rubber stamp print, 11 × 10 15/16 in. (27.9 × 27.8 cm). Collection of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Gift of Martina Hamilton, P1995, GP2022. © Estate of Agnes Martin/ Artists Rights Society (ARS). Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Photo by Dave Revette.

Samantha Box. Transplant Family Portrait, 2020. Archival inkjet print, 16 × 13 1/8 in. (40.6 × 33.3 cm). Collection of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Purchase, The Wynant J. Williams ‘35 Art Collection Fund. © Samantha Box. Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY.

Page 20 Leila Daw. When the Ice Melted, 1994. Mixed media on paper, 17 x 22 in. (43.2 x 55.9 cm). Collection of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Commissioned by the Fred L. Emerson Gallery. © Leila Daw. Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Page 24 Peter Halley. Exchange, 1996. Screenprint, 22 1/16 × 30 1/4 in.

(56 × 76.8 cm). Collection of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Gift of Michael Scott, Class of 1981 © Peter Halley.