Maier Museum of Art Volunteer Training Schedule

Summer and Autumn 2007

• Always check the most recent Volunteer Newsletter to confirm training schedule.
  
  
• Please contact Martha Kjeseth Johnson with any questions: 434-947-8136, extension 3.

This summer we will again present Robert Hughes’ American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America. It is an excellent survey of American art, engaging as both an introduction for our new volunteers and a refresher course for everyone else.

What’s required vs. optional training?

• New volunteers training to be docents: Tours of the Month and all sessions during September and October are required. Attendance for the summertime video series, American Visions, is highly encouraged.
• Experienced docents: Two training sessions in preparation for Art & SOL tours are required (October 22 and October 29 from 1 to 2:30 p.m.) plus five hours of continuing education during academic year 2007-2008. These could include any regularly scheduled training session, Tours of the Month, or any public lecture at the Maier, including Outten Visiting Artist lectures, or the annual Berlind Symposium.
• All volunteer receptionists (new and experienced): The annual receptionist training session on Tuesday, August 23, 1 – 2:30 and is required for all receptionists.
• All Maier Museum volunteers are welcome to attend any session that interests them.

Sunday, February 4
2 p.m. Tour of the Month: The 96th Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Art: Humor’s Lines
Presented by Martha Kjeseth Johnson

Sunday, June 3
2 p.m. Tour of the Month Celebrating a Century of Art: William Merritt Chase’s Portrait of William Waugh Smith
Presented by Karol Lawson, Ph.D., Director of the Maier Museum of Art
At Randolph-Macon Woman’s College graduation on June 4, 1907, the Class of 1907 presented a portrait of the school’s president to their alma mater as the class gift. This painting, by the famous teacher and portraitist, William Merritt Chase, would form the cornerstone of what is now widely regarded as one of the finest collections of American art at any private college in the country.

Sunday, July 1
2 p.m. Tour of the Month Celebrating a Century of Art: Edward Hopper’s Mrs. Scott’s House
Presented by Rebecca Grawl, Docent
Come hear about a painting that Edward Hopper himself considered one of his best, acquired in 1936 through the legacy of Louise Jordan Smith, the visionary professor who started the art program at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.

Monday, July 9
1-2 p.m. American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America The Republic of Virtue
Some of the first images made in America resemble ancient ones. Jefferson and others feel that classicism lends the young nation power and authority. From heroic statues of George Washington to the architecture of Washington, D.C., the new republic adopts and transforms the classical style to serve a new, democratic ideal.

Monday, July 16
1-2 p.m. American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America The Promised Land
Before there is an America, disparate bands of settlers strive to carve out an identity in a new land. In Virginia, an exiled aristocracy recreates its ideal of England. Early portraits of these settlers ask us to consider the emergence of this new person, this American.

Monday, July 23
1-2 p.m. American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America The Wilderness & The West
From the majestic primal America, there arises the idea of landscape as God’s fingerprint. Landscape painting holds deep religious and patriotic connotations; soon, the belief in Manifest Destiny is embodied in art.

Monday, July 30
1-2 p.m. American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America The Gilded Age
Newly prosperous Americans during the rise of the Industrial Age rediscover their European roots in art, influencing by their wealthy patronage such artists as Whistler and Cassatt, even as others--Eakins, Homer--strike out in a more uniquely American direction.

Sunday, August 5
2 p.m. Tour of the Month Celebrating a Century of Art: Queena Stovall’s Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Presented by Mary Sweeney Ellett, Ph.D., Docent
Queena Stovall was a local painter who became an important American folk artist later in life with her depictions of rituals and traditions in rural Virginia.

Monday, August 6
1-2 p.m. American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America A Wave from the Atlantic
Waves of immigrants in the early 20th century bring both their old culture and a thirst for the new. Then, after the historic 1913 Armory show, artist forge a modernism that is uniquely American.

Monday, August 13
1-2 p.m. American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America Streamlines and Breadlines
The mythic images of the 1920s and 30s are as urban as the skyscrapers rising up in New York and as rural as the heartland idealized by regionalists like Thomas Hart Benton. Artists celebrate the worker as hero.

Monday, August 20
1-3 p.m. American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America The Empire of Signs
In the post-war era, America’s power is unrivaled, and its artists make an explosive break with the past. Hughes traces the development of abstract expressionism and the different ways artists reacted to the new consumer culture.

Immediately followed by...

American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America The Age of Anxiety
The last part of this series explores how American art has reflected the upheavals of the last 25 years. Hughes examines the evolution of abstract art and minimalism and ends the series by profiling a wide range of contemporary artists.

Tuesday, August 21
1-2:30 Annual Receptionist Training Session
REQUIRED TRAINING FOR ALL RECEPTIONISTS: NEW AND EXPERIENCED

Monday, September 10
1-1:30 What is a Museum?,
Presented by Dr. Karol Lawson, Museum Director
1:30-2:30 An Educational Vision: Introduction to volunteering at the Maier Museum
Presented by Martha Kjeseth Johnson, Curator of Education

Monday, September 17
1 – 2:30 p.m. Philadelphia Stories: A Collection of Pivotal Museum Experiences
This video by the American Association of Museum features the personal stories of two dozen museum professionals relating their own pivotal learning experiences in museums. At times personal, humorous, and moving, these stories help define what museums mean, and how and why they work as institutions of learning and culture.

Monday, September 24
1 – 2:30 Introduction to the Collection
Presented by Martha Kjeseth Johnson, Curator of Education

Monday, October 1
1 – 2:30 Introduction to Tours
Presented by Martha Kjeseth Johnson, Curator of Education

Monday, October 8
1 – 2:30 Focus on the Permanent Collection: Galleries 2 and 3
Presented by Martha Kjeseth Johnson, Curator of Education

Monday, October 15
Focus on the Permanent Collection: Gallery 4
1-2:30 Alfred Stieglitz: The Eloquent Eye
Known as “the Father of Modern Photography,” Alfred Stieglitz was an influential figure in the development of modern art appreciation in America, as well as the formal establishment of photography as an acceptable medium in the world of fine arts. Stieglitz tirelessly encouraged and promoted “new” and often controversial artists and had an aesthetic sense that was truly ahead of its time, showing artists and styles well before the famous 1913 Armory Show marked the official introduction of these innovations to an American audience.

Monday, October 22
1 – 2:30 p.m. Training for Art & SOL Grade 5 tours
REQUIRED TRAINING FOR ALL DOCENTS: NEW AND EXPERIENCED

Monday, October 29
1 – 2:30 p.m. Training for Art & SOL Grade 5 tours
REQUIRED TRAINING FOR ALL DOCENTS: NEW AND EXPERIENCED

Throughout November – Fifth-grade Art & SOL tours