Projects dedicated to organizational learning and growth like Leading with Objects take a special amalgam of group vision, openness to possibility, collaboration and mutual adjustment, good will, care, and humor. Recognizing accomplishments and knowing when to stay the course must go hand-in-hand with the fortitude to learn and change when mistakes are made. I’d like to express deep gratitude to the many individuals and organizations whose support, dedication, and contributions have been pivotal to the success of the Leading with Objects project, its exhibition, Making Room: Familiar Art, New Stories, and this publication. First and foremost, I wish to thank our artists—those with us and no longer—and our campus and local communities. Without you, a museum is like any other building. Over the course of this project (January 2022–March 2024), XX,XXX people visited the museum and thousands shared valuable feedback, insight, critique, music, dance, song, verse, and so much more. On behalf of all of us at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, thank you.
To our partners and catalogue essayists, your collaboration and insights have profoundly enriched our understanding and inspired new perspectives in museum practice and cultural discourse: The Studio Museum of Harlem in New York and especially Connie H. Choi, curator; Aruna D’Souza, art critic, editor, writer, and curator; Margaret Conrads, independent curator; and Paul Baker, executive director, Contemporary Art Museum, Raleigh, and professor, Department of History and Political Science, North Carolina A & T State University. A special additional thank-you to The Studio Museum of Harlem, whose generous partnership enabled the conservation of Tom Lloyd’s sculpture in light, Clavero (1968), so that it could be exhibited in Making Room. We eagerly anticipate the reopening of that museum in Harlem, where Clavero first shone bright.
We extend enormous thanks to Culture Mill, the performing arts laboratory in Saxapahaw, North Carolina, and Murielle Elizéon and Shana Tucker for using our spaces to fuel their creativity during their ten-day residency at the Weatherspoon to develop the new work When We were Queens… Their generous collaboration has brought us lasting insight into the value of art museums in our community not only as presenters of artwork but also as a platform for fueling new creative pursuits across forms and media.
Our gratitude also extends to colleagues who helped formulate the ideas for Leading with Objects in its earliest stages. For sharing their time and thoughts, we thank former chief creative economy officer Ryan Deal of the City of Greensboro; Jennifer Rickards, former deputy director of the Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich, Vermont; Rachel Ginsberg, founding director of the interaction lab at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; Carol Hart, executive director of the Greensboro History Museum; Emily Janke, director, and Sonalini Sapra, former associate director, of the Institute of Community and Economic Engagement at UNCG; John Swaine, chief executive officer, and Will Harris, principal scholar, of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, Greensboro; and Leila Villaverde, professor of educational leadership and cultural foundations at UNCG.
As ever, I am immensely grateful to the dedicated Weatherspoon team, with whom it is a joy to think and work every day. Special thanks to Elaine D. Gustafson, curator of collections and head of facilities, and Emily Stamey, Elizabeth McIver Weatherspoon curator of academic programming and head of exhibitions, for partnering with me to develop the framework, checklist, programming, and interpretation strategies for Making Room, and to Haley N. Blake-Lee, visitor engagement fellow, for facilitating our You Choose curatorial card game, visitor and staff interviews, and inquiry hub engagement. Mei Méndez, assistant director for strategic engagement, programmed and taught in Making Room throughout the year and used it as a springboard for new campus and community partnerships. All four of them contributed significantly to this publication as well.
Staff members and interns who, in addition to lending their professional expertise, wrote one or more wall labels for the exhibition were Yesenia Cruz Delasancha, UNCG ’24 BA human development and family studies, administrative student assistant; Sarah Hanlon, UNCG ’24 BA arts administration, visitor engagement intern; Angelica Henry, UNCG ’23 BA art history, visitor engagement intern; Bobby Holt, former visitor services and security associate; Valerie McConnell, business coordinator; Susan Taaffe, lead preparator; Loring Mortensen, head of communications; and Julia Ridley Smith, writer, creative writing professor, and former Weatherspoon docent. Smith also consulted with the project team and developed a guide for writing a compelling narrative with 200 words. Her insights, which will impact our work far beyond this project, loosened our brains and pencils to produce object labels that were more direct and relatable.
Thank you to all members of the Weatherspoon team who contributed to the success of Making Room in every way possible, including Farrah Alkhadra, preparator; Shane Carrico, former preparator; Raechel Cook, associate curator of academic programming; Alice Culclasure, registrar; Ralph Farmer, custodian; Ann Grimaldi, former curator of education; Destiny Hemphill, former visitor engagement coordinator; Angela Matkins, visitor services and security associate; Robert Rose, former assistant curator of campus and public programs; Hannah Southern, assistant curator for collections research and engagement; Michael Watson, senior director of development; Queentasia Wray, visitor services and security associate; and Brad Young, building and security manager. We thank all the Weatherspoon docents for the many tours and classes they led; the Weatherspoon Art Museum Council for their support; and the Weatherspoon’s student-led extracurricular club CoWAM. Finally, we are immensely grateful to Nils Nadeau of Emergent Consulting for Cultural Organizations LLC (ECCO), who participated in crafting this digital publication as managing editor, copyeditor, and designer.
Our thanks also go to our invaluable UNCG faculty partners—together with you, we welcomed nearly 130 groups into Making Room for classes from art and art history to sociology, dance, English, kinesiology, and psychology, along with high school classes, retirement communities, and other community clubs for visitors of all ages. Special thanks to catalogue essayist Nicole Scalissi, assistant professor, Latinx/Afro-Latinx art histories and contemporary art histories, California State University, San Bernardino, and former assistant professor of art history at UNCG; Heather Holian, professor of art history and associate director of the school of art; Noelle Morrissette, director of African American and African diaspora studies and associate professor of English; N. Frank Woods Jr., emeritus UNCG professor of African American and African diaspora studies; and Adam Carlin, former director, and Caitlyn Schrader, current director, of UNCG’s Greensboro Project Space. Thanks as well to Steve Skorski, assistant professor of interior architecture, and the students enrolled in his spring 2021 third-year studio design (IAR 302) class for creating prototype designs for the Leading with Objects inquiry hub and providing valuable feedback about how students could best use the museum space for study, relaxation, and play. To all our program partners, including everyone who contributed to the inquiry hub programs named in Blake-Lee’s essay, your collaboration and expertise have been instrumental in shaping the educational aspects of this project. We look forward to continuing to work together.
We extend heartfelt gratitude to Margaret and Bill Benjamin, whose generous naming of the Benjamin Faculty Fellowship at the Weatherspoon in 2022 has already impacted our scholarly engagement and the museum’s collections; Jeanne Tannenbaum, whose long-time support of the museum most recently enabled the purchase of the magnificent sculpture Receiver (2012) by Huma Bhabha for our courtyard; Tom and Linda Sloan, whose momentous gift to the museum of Houdini (1976) by Helen Frankenthaler made its museum debut in Making Room; and many generous supporters too numerous to name whose contributions ensure that the Weatherspoon’s collections, exhibitions, and programs continue to thrive and enrich the hearts and minds of our community for many years to come.
This project would never have happened if it were not for UNCG Chancellor Franklin Gilliam’s understanding that a museum on a university campus can participate in transformational change and for his support of the Weatherspoon’s vision of a more inclusive future. We are indebted to the Terra Foundation for American Art’s invitation to make room for broader and more inclusive narratives of American art, and to the vision of Terry Carbone at the Henry Luce Foundation and the foundation’s support of enabling organizational change through museum partnerships and a dedication to learning. Thanks to the Luce partnership, the Weatherspoon Art Museum team had the opportunity to learn from and with the Mississippi Museum of Art team, a collaboration that will now extend far into the future. Betsy Bradley, the Mississippi Museum of Art’s Laurie Hearin McRee Director, has served as an organizational partner and guide, and her time and experience supporting us are paralleled only by her mentorship and leading by example. Let’s continue to pay attention and care enough to make a difference.
With sincere appreciation,
Juliette Bianco, Anne and Ben Cone Memorial Endowed Director
Weatherspoon Art Museum, UNC Greensboro
