Alumni
Art history graduate students select works for palmer museum exhibition
By Flora Marynak
Like many art museums, the Palmer Museum of Art does not have sufficient gallery space to display all its holdings. Selecting works for special exhibitions is usually a job for the curators, but last fall, art history graduate students in a seminar taught by Charles V. Hallman Curator Patrick McGrady had the opportunity to select works on paper from the museum’s permanent collection for an exhibition this spring. New Perspectives: An Academic Selection of Works on Paper is on display in Special Exhibitions Gallery I through May 28.
Nearly a quarter of the Palmer Museum’s permanent collection is composed of works on paper, which include prints, drawings, watercolors and photographs. Because of the vulnerability of works on paper to light, these pieces have to be rotated as special exhibitions in one of the museum’s galleries or be viewed in the print study room by appointment only. Therefore, between the size of the collection and the limited exhibition time, many works rarely make it on display.
Honoré Daumier, French, 1808–1879Eh! bien en regardant ce tableau de près on finit par y découvrir des qualités, on voit que la couleur est bonne.
(Well, if you look very closely, you might end up finding some quality! The color seems to be good.) No. 8 from series Croquis pris au salon published in Le Charivari, June 16, 1865; lithograph; gift of the Walton J. Lord Estate, 86.730
Seven graduate students participated in the seminar, titledProblems in Connoisseurship: Prints and Drawings at the Palmer Museum of Art. The course was designed to introduce the students to connoisseurship as it is practiced in museums today through an intimate examination of the works on paper in the Palmer Museum’s collection. “We wanted the students to begin to understand what kind of looking it takes to develop their eye from a museum perspective,” explains McGrady, also an affiliate assistant professor of art history.
While discussing the major print processes and drawing techniques, the students were asked to individually identify a group of works to research as a focus for their semester papers. A selection from the prints and posters they chose makes up the exhibition. The seminar participants and their topics of interest were as follows: Leanne Rinne, Honoré Daumier and the Salon of 1865; Kimberly Musial, images of women in 19th-century French posters; Christine Swisher, Edward Penfield’s cover illustrations for Harper’s; Rachel Gratiy, Stalin-era propaganda posters from the Soviet Union; Sarah Holloran, Precisionist prints of the 1920s and 1930s; Barbara Kutis, Atelier 17 and its influence in America; and Katie Poulin, Paul Wunderlich’s Song of Songs portfolio.
The students’ research has been published in the form of essays and entries in an exhibition catalogue, funded in part by generous grants from the George Dewey and Mary J. Krumrine Endowment, the Institute for the Arts and Humanities and the Office of Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Arts and Architecture.
rockin' and researchin'
By Amy Milgrub Marshall
When the five members of Williamsport-based rock band My Book Your Sandwich (MBYS) embarked on their first cross-country tour in summer 2005, they didn’t know what to expect from their 40-day, 23-state journey. What they got, according to drummer and Penn State music education student Nate Reed, was “one of the craziest, coolest and most memorable summers ever.”
For Reed, the tour was more than a fun way to spend a summer—it was the beginning of a research project. He used the touring experience, interviews with his band mates and personal observations to complete a research paper addressing the musical, social and personal implications of touring in a rock band. His goal was to make a case for why popular music should be incorporated into formal music education. He presented the results of his research in a poster session at the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association state convention in March.
MBYS was formed in 2000 and now includes two College of Arts and Architecture alumni, Karl Fisher (’05 B.A. Music) and Spencer Sweeting; Reed; Penn State senior science major Jon Smock; and Houghton College (New York) graduate Christopher Jones. “Our name really started as a joke, but through a few crazy events and concerts, we were eventually able to relate the name to the purpose of our group,” Reed notes.
Despite the “rock star” stereotype, Reed has shown there is more to touring with a rock band than guitar riffs and screaming fans. In his paper, he discusses the band members’ musicality and how their musicianship improved over the course of the tour, in addition to addressing relationships (with band mates, family members, other professionals and audiences) and issues related to personal health, achievement and self-actualization.While rock bands aren’t just about screaming fans, the members of MBYS did get a taste of the celebrity life while on tour. “The whole stardom element was sort of fun. We even had people ask for autographs. However, we tried our best not to let things like that go to our heads, and we did really enjoy hanging out with and meeting new
people all across the country,” Nate notes. He says his favorite tour stop was Aspen, Colo. Another highpoint was their stop in his hometown of Wenatchee, Wash. “It was great that my old high school friends and family were able to see me perform.”
Nate, who plans to graduate in May 2007, says he would love to perform for a living, but he and his bandmates are taking it day by day. They released their first full-length CD, Something for the Ride Home, in April 2005. “I have always dreamed of being in a rock band, so this has been an amazing experience,” says Reed, who joined MBYS in 2003. “It has allowed me to perform with groups I loved listening to while growing up, like Jars of Clay. It has also allowed me to have an impact on many different people’s lives through our music.”
In addition to MBYS’s fans across the country, the band has a strong fan base in central Pennsylvania. One of Nate’s personal fans is Dr. Ann Clements, assistant professor of music education and the advisor for his research project. “He just had a question—he wondered why popular music was not incorporated into formal music education. And he took that question and ran with it,” she notes. “I’m so impressed by him.”
Clements does ethnographic research of local rock bands, so she was thrilled to be able to advise a student on similar research. “This has been a fascinating process for me. Nate did exactly what we want all our students to do, and that is to ask questions and then seek creative ways to find answers.”
Reed and Clements hope to get his research paper published in a professional music education journal. MBYS plans to continue performing throughout Pennsylvania and beyond. For more information on the band, visit www.myspace.com/mbys or www.mbys.net.
