New Curator of Education Named at Georgia Museum of Art

Callan Steinmann

In 2011, there were many changes ongoing at the Georgia Museum of Art, some more obvious than others. You may remember the architectural facelift that transformed the exterior and interior of the building that year. The renovation added a sleek design and 30,000 square feet of additional gallery space. These changes increased the educational potential of the museum for years to come. In 2009 and 2012, bookending the renovation, the museum made another, quieter change, hiring a person who would one day expand the museum’s creative and educational potential beyond increased square footage.

When Callan Steinmann interned at the museum, with both the education department and the director’s office, she had no idea that one day she would have the opportunity to bring these new gallery spaces to life with exciting and inviting educational programs as curator of education (a job for which she was hired in March). Previously she had worked at the museum as associate curator of education, managing the K–12 and community programming. Steinmann’s journey to the museum was both unique and fortuitous. Each of her experiences equipped her for her new role.

As an undergraduate student at the University of Georgia, she was able to “see how classes connected to the museum.” Her interdisciplinary bachelor’s degree included coursework in studio art, art education, educational psychology and psychology, with a focus on therapeutic arts and expression. She now teaches a course at the Lamar Dodd School of Art on art criticism and aesthetic understanding. As a teacher, she guides students through the galleries with new eyes. She encourages students to seek and discover how their own history and their experiences in the museum influence their interpretation of art.

Steinmann has also been influential in adding programs that allow people to experience art in new ways. Recent additions include Morning Mindfulness, Yoga in the Galleries and Studio Workshops. The Studio Workshop program, which received an award from the Georgia Association of Museums and Galleries, gives participants the opportunity to learn a new skill over the course of a few weeks. It also allows the museum to support local artists, who teach the workshops, and it was the focus of Steinmann’s dissertation.

Experiences far from Athens developed her passion for museum work.

She pursued a master’s degree at the University of Texas, studying the 5th-grade programming at the Georgia Museum of Art. While in Austin, she assisted with the public programs at the Blanton Museum of Art. Then, she studied abroad in Choisy-le-Roi, France, and visited world-renowned museums. While abroad, she decided to pursue a career in the museum field. She explained, “It just clicked.” Each of her experiences up to this point contributed to her desire to work in a museum. Steinmann decided that museum education “married my interests in visual arts and education in an informal learning environment.” Today she is working on a Museum Studies certificate program with faculty in History and Historic Preservation, scheduled to launch in 2019. This certificate will help inform and equip students for opportunities in the museum field.

Her return to the Georgia Museum of Art “felt like family.” Athens is much more than a college town — it is a city that embraces growth. Recurring museum programs like Family Day and Museum Mix produce spaces for all generations to appreciate art. From creating a mandala to learning about Buddhist art, each new experience contributes to the education of thousands of individuals. Now Steinmann has the opportunity to create programs for artistic understanding and personal development. While external structural changes are important, Steinmann creates programs for the museum that inspire people from the inside out.

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McKenzie Peterson

Intern, Department of Communication

Curator Chronicles and Upcoming Tours at Two

The latest research and scholarship by our museum’s curators has attracted audiences beyond the walls of the Georgia Museum of Art. Sarah Kate Gillespie, curator of American art, recently completed a book, "The Early American Daguerreotype: Cross-currents in Art and Technology," published by the MIT Press, and delivered a talk and hosted a book signing at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. At the lecture, Gillespie traced the activities of a unique mix of artists, scientists and mechanical tinkerers who took the daguerreotype and turned it, in the words of the MIT Press, into "something wholly and remarkably new: a product of science and innovative technology that resulted in a visual object." Gillespie also participated as a panelist at “New Eyes on Alice Austen,” a roundtable discussion held earlier this year at the Whitney Museum of American Art in honor of Women’s History Month and Austen’s 150th birthday.

Book signing with Sarah Kate Gillepie, curator of American art

In June, Lynn Boland, Pierre Daura Curator of European Art, presented a paper at Stockholm University titled "The Politics of Technology in the New York Collection [for Stockholm], 1973," for the European Society for Literature, Science and the Arts. The collection was donated to the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1973 at the height of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Although many of the artists — and even the works of art themselves — were decidedly antiwar, the donation of the collection ignited fierce debate within the Swedish artistic community.

Also this summer, Dale Couch, curator of decorative arts, served as a juror for the critique of the Instant Gallery for the American Association of Woodturners, which exhibits the work of hundreds of intermediate and advanced wood artists during the annual Wood Art Symposium. Couch also sat on a panel at the Collectors of Wood Art Forum to discuss how artists can learn and benefit from critiques.

For local audiences who wish to tap into the talent and inside knowledge of our resident experts, join us for our upcoming Tours at Two. On Wednesday, August 17 at 2 p.m., Boland will lead a tour of the exhibition "Paper in Profile: Mixografia and Taller de Gráfica Mexicana," and Gillespie will lead a tour of the newly reinstalled permanent collection galleries on Wednesday, August 31 at 2 p.m. At this week's Tour at Two, "Visitors' Choice," Boland will speak on "Folded Squares," a neon light sculpture by Nils Folke Anderson. For a full list of our programs, including lectures, tours and family activities, visit our monthly calendar.

Stella Tran
Editor, Department of Communications