INCREASING OUR ACCESSIBILITY
Making Connections through the Collection
The heart of the Columbia Museum of
Art is the collection. The soul of the CMA
is listening to and engaging with the
community, our members, and visitors
to create inspirational experiences. The
CMA has put engaging the public with the
collection at the core of what we do every
day.
“When I reflect on the last 10 years of
accomplishments here at the CMA, I am
most proud of our program growth,” says
Deputy Director and Director of External
Affairs Joelle Ryan-Cook. “This growth
is defined in part by the quantity offered,
but more importantly, by the quality,
diversity, and innovation in our program
development.”
Ryan-Cook began her career at the CMA
18 years ago and has been primarily
focused on audience development and
engagement. “Our programming the first
few years on Main Street was always high
quality, but it was pretty traditional in
its scope,” says Ryan-Cook. “We offered
lectures by curators or art historians,
docent tours, a chamber music series,
and school field trips. These are programs
we still offer because they are important,
but we do so much more now for many
different audiences.”
CMA staff have spent the last 10 years
strategically focused on identifying ways to
reach all the audiences the Museum should
be serving. “Essentially, we need to always
be open to listening to what our members
and visitors want to experience in a CMA
program,” says Director of Adult Programs
and Partnerships Leslie Pierce. “The main
thing we have learned is that you have to
meet the audience where they are. What is
the hook that is going to get someone to
come and experience our collection in a
meaningful way?”
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The “Artist Salon” series began with a
ceramics show. Four artists spoke in the
gallery about their processes, and the
popularity was immediate. People want to
understand why artists do what they do
and how they do it. From the first salon,
the question and answer period has been as
important as the talk itself, and the interest
and connection between the audience and
the artistic inspiration became obvious.
“The collection is a very accessible tool
for building programming,” says Pierce.
“We have something no one else in
town has that we can bring people in to
connect with. Even when not hosted in the
galleries, programs speak to certain pieces
people can visit afterward.”
The “Frisson” project was an early example
of collaboration between the viewer
and the viewed. Local poets were asked
to respond in verse to a piece from the
collection and give readings in the galleries.
What began with 10 attendees soon grew
to an audience of over 100, and as the
popularity of this event grew so did the
Museum’s calendar of programs. When
a poet added a musician to accompany
the words inspired by a collection piece,
the connection between music and the
visual arts was made within the CMA.
Though this program has ended, the
interdisciplinary connection continues to
the present.
The Baker and Baker Foundation, which
sponsors a wide variety of educational
programs across South Carolina,
established a chamber concert series at
the CMA in the 1970s. At first, these
concerts were intended as a showcase for
regional musicians, but over the years
some performances have received national
attention: A recording of a work written
for the CMA by composer Michael Pisaro,
for example, was enthusiastically reviewed
by the New York Times (15 January 2014).
Based on the success of the fresh
interdisciplinary approach to experiencing
the collection, Ryan-Cook and Pierce
re-envisioned the “Baker and Baker” series
in 2008 and it was dubbed “Baker and
Baker presents: Art of Music.” This new
focus, organized by the CMA’s then-newly
appointed Adjunct Curator for Music Peter
Hoyt, emphasizes the interconnections
between the visual and musical arts. Dr.
Hoyt, a musicologist specializing in the
music of the 18th century, had done