Regular readers of Real Clear Arts know that I like to shine a light on small museums from time to time. In that vein, today I was struck by an article in the Erie Times-News. Here’s how it began:
Twenty-ten will certainly be best remembered as the year Erie got the art museum building it deserves [at left]….The Erie Art Museum has been the aesthetic equivalent to a lighthouse on the lake for more than a century, a provider of guidance and illumination for the entire region. But for most of that history the museum made do with facilities that were historic and elegant in their own right [below], but not always adequate for the acquisition, presentation and preservation of our local artistic heritage….
In October, the museum unveiled its $9 million expansion and renovation project, one…which has added more than 10,000 square feet of exhibition, administrative and storage space to the existing facility. If you haven’t yet been, you must go, not only to wonder at the very cosmopolitan and dynamic design of the building itself, but also at the variety of exhibits the museum now has the capacity to present.
Etc. The article goes on the praise the museum’s exhibits, including one on folk art made in Pennsylvania.
It made me go to the museum’s website, since I can’t go to the museum itself, to see what prompted such effusive praise.
Even from the website, I think I get it — starting with that reference to folk art. It was’t just the folk art exhibit, which surveyed the work of 30 Pennsylvania artists, that is interesting. The EAM is also “a regional folk art support center,” whose web page links to regional folk artists and has a program called Old Songs, New Opportunities, which takes visual culture and music into day care centers. Aside from its permanent collection galleries, the EAM is currently showing seven temporary exhibitions (some ending tonight, but sure to be replaced soon). One I really love: Hidden in Plain Sight: Art Treasures form Regional Collections. It borrows works by the like of Benjamin West, Angelica Kauffman and Gilbert Stuart from institutions in Cleveland, Buffalo and other parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio and western New York. Maybe a taste will encourage people to visit those other museums.
There’s much more — a kids as curators program, lots of classes, rock and blues concerts, mid-day “art breaks,” etc. And the staff is listed, by name, on the website. A check with Guidestar shows that the Erie Art Museum is operating in the black.
Erie is a pretty small city — just over 100,000 people, and a bit less than another 200,000 in the surrounding area. According to its corporate donor solicitation, attendance is “more than 30,000” annually. That number sounds pretty good. But with all that’s on offer, I’d like to see it go higher.
Photo Credits: Courtesy GoErie.com (top) and Erie Art Museum (bottom)