Q: What Did Sara Sturdevant Do on Her Summer Vacation?
A: Took a Cross-Country Tour of Art in America
While visiting Carnegie Museum of Art last year, Sara Sturdevant was inspired—not to create, but rather to drive. “Wouldn’t it be great to travel across the U.S. and visit art museums to explore the relationship between art and regional cultures?” the Head of Ellis’ Visual Arts Department asked herself.
While visiting Carnegie Museum of Art last year, Sara Sturdevant was inspired—not to create, but rather to drive. “Wouldn’t it be great to travel across the U.S. and visit art museums to explore the relationship between art and regional cultures?” the Head of Ellis’ Visual Arts Department asked herself.
The answer was a resounding, “Yes!” But it was the next question, the one about money, that almost stopped her before she could take her Honda in for a much-needed oil change.
Enter the Janet Jacobs Enrichment Program (JEP) Travel Grant.
For nearly 40 years, JEP funds have enabled Ellis faculty with 10 years or more of service to hit the road in search of fulfillment and renewal.
“In applying, you are encouraged to follow some personal idea and see where it takes you,” Sara explained. “I’ve always been interested in museums. To me, they are a playground and a spot for contemplation, a meeting place and a refuge; but always they suggest opportunity. I find that a museum visit is a very personal experience in what is usually a very public space. But why are museums so often seen as destinations and not as places to visit frequently? Is this as true in Texas as it is in Pennsylvania?”
As the 2013-2014 JEP Award recipient, Sara was going to find out. On July 21, 2014, she started her journey, a journey that would take her across the country to museums large and small, urban and rural, contemporary and classical. Along the way, she and her son, H.B. (who joined her for part of the trip), would seek out Ellis alumnae who have made art a part of their living.
Her first destination: Detroit, MI. “The grandeur of the Detroit Institute of Arts has
not faded even though the city around it is crumbling,” Sara observed. “What a jaw-
dropping collection it is.”
From there, it was on to Wisconsin’s Milwaukee Art Museum and Chelsea KELLY ’05. As the person in charge of that museum’s digital learning programs, Chelsea shares her passion for teaching teens to connect to art on their own terms. “Chelsea is a force for museum education and a great lunch companion,” Sara said. “We talked about the unsung merits of Gabrielle Munter as well as the effects of an Ellis education.”
Another day; another city. “Hyped-up crowds flocked to The Art Institute in Chicago, IL, where Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938 was the hot ticket,” she recalled. “I found myself cheek to jowl with patrons all talking at once. It was the loudest experience of the trip, but made delightful by the guidance of Jennifer VERNON ’10, who me me there after work. For her, visiting that museum is always a reward.”
From Chicago, Sara’s travels took her to Dubuque, IA; Minneapolis, MN; Brookings, SD;
and then to Denver, CO, where she met Laura PAULICK Moody ’92.
“As the registrar at the Denver Art Museum, Laura’s insights about how students might find meaning and rewarding work in the museum world inspired my thinking,” Sara said.
Later that same day, Sara and Lindsay “Bean” MURDOCH ’09 got together at RedLine, a Denver-based community art space. “We saw the installation of a show by abstractionist Harmony Hammond and talked about the many ways RedLine seeks to make contemporary art available and accessible to people who might feel alienated by the art world.
“These conversations with Ellis alumnae reinforced my conviction that an arts education is absolutely crucial, whether you work for a museum or are simply interested in
living in a cultured and connected world.”
But she wasn’t finished—not yet. Her tour de museum included stops at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum (Santa Fe, NM), the Judd Foundation (Marfa, TX), The Contemporary Austin (Austin, TX), Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, TX), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Bentonville, AR), and the Cincinnati Museum of Art (Cincinnati, OH).
The most valuable contribution to her teaching wasn’t specific museums or particular works of art “but the experience of observing so many people looking at and interacting with art. Museums vary a great deal in how they manage visitors. Denver is a delight for the viewer who wants to sit and look. The Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art in Roswell, NM, is so stuffed with work that every turn of your head draws in competing images. Crystal Bridges, a relatively new museum, is still finding its way in the relationship between viewer, curator, and object," Sara said.
“As an art history teacher at Ellis,” she continued, “I constantly ponder ways to get my students to consider, relate to, contend with, and love art works from a variety of times and places. The act of standing in a museum watching others look was enormously instructive. I saw joy, fear, and curiosity mix with the desire to touch and the desire to provide understanding and control. I learned to love looking all over again.”
Sara's final stop was back home—at Ellis’s Arbuthnot House where the portrait of Sara Frazer Ellis, painted by Lawrence A. Powers in 1941, remains a touchstone.
Back
Enter the Janet Jacobs Enrichment Program (JEP) Travel Grant.
For nearly 40 years, JEP funds have enabled Ellis faculty with 10 years or more of service to hit the road in search of fulfillment and renewal.
“In applying, you are encouraged to follow some personal idea and see where it takes you,” Sara explained. “I’ve always been interested in museums. To me, they are a playground and a spot for contemplation, a meeting place and a refuge; but always they suggest opportunity. I find that a museum visit is a very personal experience in what is usually a very public space. But why are museums so often seen as destinations and not as places to visit frequently? Is this as true in Texas as it is in Pennsylvania?”
As the 2013-2014 JEP Award recipient, Sara was going to find out. On July 21, 2014, she started her journey, a journey that would take her across the country to museums large and small, urban and rural, contemporary and classical. Along the way, she and her son, H.B. (who joined her for part of the trip), would seek out Ellis alumnae who have made art a part of their living.
Her first destination: Detroit, MI. “The grandeur of the Detroit Institute of Arts has
not faded even though the city around it is crumbling,” Sara observed. “What a jaw-
dropping collection it is.”
From there, it was on to Wisconsin’s Milwaukee Art Museum and Chelsea KELLY ’05. As the person in charge of that museum’s digital learning programs, Chelsea shares her passion for teaching teens to connect to art on their own terms. “Chelsea is a force for museum education and a great lunch companion,” Sara said. “We talked about the unsung merits of Gabrielle Munter as well as the effects of an Ellis education.”
Another day; another city. “Hyped-up crowds flocked to The Art Institute in Chicago, IL, where Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938 was the hot ticket,” she recalled. “I found myself cheek to jowl with patrons all talking at once. It was the loudest experience of the trip, but made delightful by the guidance of Jennifer VERNON ’10, who me me there after work. For her, visiting that museum is always a reward.”
From Chicago, Sara’s travels took her to Dubuque, IA; Minneapolis, MN; Brookings, SD;
and then to Denver, CO, where she met Laura PAULICK Moody ’92.
“As the registrar at the Denver Art Museum, Laura’s insights about how students might find meaning and rewarding work in the museum world inspired my thinking,” Sara said.
Later that same day, Sara and Lindsay “Bean” MURDOCH ’09 got together at RedLine, a Denver-based community art space. “We saw the installation of a show by abstractionist Harmony Hammond and talked about the many ways RedLine seeks to make contemporary art available and accessible to people who might feel alienated by the art world.
“These conversations with Ellis alumnae reinforced my conviction that an arts education is absolutely crucial, whether you work for a museum or are simply interested in
living in a cultured and connected world.”
But she wasn’t finished—not yet. Her tour de museum included stops at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum (Santa Fe, NM), the Judd Foundation (Marfa, TX), The Contemporary Austin (Austin, TX), Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, TX), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Bentonville, AR), and the Cincinnati Museum of Art (Cincinnati, OH).
The most valuable contribution to her teaching wasn’t specific museums or particular works of art “but the experience of observing so many people looking at and interacting with art. Museums vary a great deal in how they manage visitors. Denver is a delight for the viewer who wants to sit and look. The Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art in Roswell, NM, is so stuffed with work that every turn of your head draws in competing images. Crystal Bridges, a relatively new museum, is still finding its way in the relationship between viewer, curator, and object," Sara said.
“As an art history teacher at Ellis,” she continued, “I constantly ponder ways to get my students to consider, relate to, contend with, and love art works from a variety of times and places. The act of standing in a museum watching others look was enormously instructive. I saw joy, fear, and curiosity mix with the desire to touch and the desire to provide understanding and control. I learned to love looking all over again.”
Sara's final stop was back home—at Ellis’s Arbuthnot House where the portrait of Sara Frazer Ellis, painted by Lawrence A. Powers in 1941, remains a touchstone.
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