Art history: Palmer Museum celebrates 25th

Robin Seymour works in a museum.

She walks through high-ceilinged halls daily, past priceless paintings she has helped arrange, through temporary and permanent exhibits that showcase some of the most influential names in modern art.

And she does it all on campus -- for the Palmer Museum of Art.

Fronted by the two green-hued lion's paws that grace the entrance, the museum has quietly been preparing University students for careers in museum work for 25 years. Seymour, an art history graduate student, said she already has much of the experience that she will need to enter the museum field.

"I do research, mainly. I have had the opportunity to curate two shows," she said. "That involves organizing a show, picking a topic, finding the artwork, laying out the display and researching the information about the artwork."

The Palmer museum, though a valuable experience for today's museum hopefuls, came from very humble beginnings, said Jan Muhlert, the museum's director.

"The museum opened in October of 1972. There were only three galleries and there was no permanent collection. Today we have over 4,000 objects," she said. "That's a pretty remarkable success for an institution, considering the age of other museums. Twenty-five years is not very old."

Though the Palmer does not usually display student artwork, it provides an invaluable resource, Muhlert said.

"The way we work with students -- whether art or art history majors -- is that they work with us part time. They'll do things from installations to cataloguing to preparing lectures," she said. "It's a great way to get an introduction to museum work while still continuing their studies."

The anniversary celebration presented a challenge for the staff, Seymour said.

"It was really a team effort here. There were students involved at every level," she said, pointing to a 3-by-5-inch card next to a painting in the All That Is Glorious Around Us: Paintings from the Hudson River School exhibit. "For example, we get these little name tags on a computer diskette. One of the work study students would have printed out this label and hung it up. But we got all the information from the Westmoreland museum."

The Palmer administrators laid the framework for the anniversary more than a year before it arrived, Muhlert said.

"I joined in September of '96," she said, "and the preparations for the 25th anniversary began pretty much the day I arrived."

The focus of the celebration is on the number of benefactors the museum has had. More than 2,000 objects have been donated, she said.

The number of diverse works is a draw for University students, said Karen Cashman (junior-English).

"There's a pretty extensive collection for a college museum," Cashman said. "It's nice because you see a lot of artists here that aren't the big name artists."

The on-campus museum is a resource for students like Cashman, who says she is interested in the experience of browsing through artwork.

"It's the kind of thing where you get the chance to raise your cultural awareness," she said, "so you're not just another dumb college student."

The eight-month celebration kicked off last October with a community day, and featured exhibits are planned through mid-May. Though the exhibits are the main focus of attention, the University has provided a novel angle for publicity.

"The Creamery started making Palmer Mousse-eum with Almonds (ice cream) in October," Muhlert said. "They wanted it to work with the 'PMA' in Palmer Museum of Art. We're hoping they decide to continue it through May."

Besides the ice cream and the special exhibits, Palmer has afforded unique opportunities to community members and University students, Seymour said.

"There were more events this year," she said. "There were community days, dinners and an open house that was really unique. It gave people the chance to see behind the scenes."

After the special events that kicked off the celebration, though, things have settled down, Seymour said.

"In terms of day-to-day basic schedules, at this point, the 25th anniversary is just like any other temporary exhibit," she said.

Seymour's experiences at Palmer may not have been ideal, but they were more than sufficient to introduce her to museum work.

"The two exhibits that I put on were small. They were also in the summer, which is a low-traffic time for us," she said. "But at least I got to do it."

Though far from the display of relics and idols snatched from greedy black-market dealers by whip-waving archeologists, the quiet life of a curator gives a different kind of satisfaction, Seymour said.

"Most people think working in a museum is boring," she said, "but for the right person it can be a lot of fun."