OSU Museum of Art celebrates 10 years of campus and community enrichment

OSU Museum of Art celebrates 10 years of campus and community enrichment

Friday, September 6, 2024

Media Contact: Elizabeth Gosney | CAS Marketing and Communications Manager | 405-744-7497 | [email protected]

When the Oklahoma State University Museum of Art opened its doors to the public in 2014, it had a newly renovated building, a growing collection, a handful of staff and a lot of promise.

"Art is often made out to be exclusive, but we wanted to change that," said OSUMA interim director Carla Shelton, who was hired in 2012 to plan and oversee the museum's permanent collection. "Over the past 10 years, we've hosted amazing artists and shows that are accessible to audiences of all levels. It's about exposure and bringing people together so they can have a conversation."

The concept for the museum began in earnest after former OSU president Burns Hargis and his wife, Ann, secured the help of two key alumni: Universal Limited Art Editions owner Bill Goldston and philanthropist Malinda Berry Fischer. Through their art world connections and expertise, the museum started to take shape with an advisory council and donated artworks.

"The motivation was to enhance the reputation of OSU as a comprehensive research university and to educate our students in art appreciation and encourage their creativity," President Hargis said. "As a land-grant university, one of OSU's missions is to share the expertise and discoveries on campus. An art museum would serve the citizens of Stillwater and the state, as well as the OSU community."

A significant step in establishing the museum came in 2010 with OSU's acquisition of the Postal Plaza Building in downtown Stillwater. Built in 1933 as a federal post office, the building had been used as business and church office spaces since the late '70s.

"I will not easily forget the hours spent working with campus facilities to manage the climate systems and the challenges inherent in having a basement in Oklahoma," said Vicky Berry, the museum's first director, who retired this spring. "Revitalizing an old post office provided many challenges ... and yet we were able to marry the building's character with its new purpose."

Once renovations were completed in 2013 - OSU grad and architect Rand Elliot designed and supervised the project - the museum team moved hundreds of artworks into the climate-controlled vault. The OSUMA permanent collection has since grown to more than 5,000 gifted pieces.

"We like to describe our collection as having breadth rather than depth," Shelton said. "When it started, we received things from a lot of different people and a lot of different cultures. ... Now the collection process is more formalized, with a leaning toward modern contemporary.

"It's important to understand that our collection is a teaching collection. The most exposure it gets is through vault visits and faculty bringing students behind the scenes. It changes the way people interact with objects when they're not behind glass - the art is right there in front of them within arm's reach."

The museum and its collection act as a "physical support to the holistic education OSU offers our students," according to OSUMA marketing and communications coordinator Casey Ihde. "You can't have thinkers of the next century without the creative fields," said Ihde, who has been involved with the museum since 2011, first as an intern and then a full-time employee. "Simply being here allows people to engage with art a little bit more, to become interested and accepting of it. Students and the community are hungry for it now."

Although the museum has a permanent collection, it doesn't have a permanent exhibition like many larger museums. This allows its 10 full-time staff to create six to eight distinct shows every year, so there's always something new for visitors to discover. Some shows feature pieces from the museum's collection, while others are traveling exhibitions on loan from artists and galleries nationwide.

"Some of the freedoms of being a young museum is getting to explore and find ourselves," Shelton said. "Some institutions are steeped in tradition and bound by different ties, but we've been allowed to experiment."

Shelton and Ihde noted past exhibitions that included performance artists, immersive projections, blow-up art, extensive community engagement, interactive elements and more. Over the years, the museum's growing collection and widening network paved the way for shows featuring artists like Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist and Kiki Smith. In 2017, the museum showcased works from the George R. Kravis II Collection, which was gifted to OSU the next year. In 2021, OSU faculty worked with the museum to create the first exhibition of work by Doel Reed, a renowned artist and former OSU professor. And in 2023, the museum curated a Leon Polk Smith show exploring the Oklahoma-born artist's abstract style alongside 20th-century design.

"Collectively, we have made experiences for our audiences more like a New York moment," Berry said. "We had to build our facility and staff capacity to handle and present the art at the standard of practice required. ... The success of the museum and the support of the community and campus made way for the arts to flourish at OSU."

While there is a long list of museum highlights over the past 10 years, one accomplishment is especially gratifying for the staff: In July 2021, OSUMA received accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums, which is the highest national recognition given to U.S. museums.

"We took the museum from 10% to 100% in nine years by achieving accreditation from AAM. This is no small feat," Berry said. "We acquired this status through hard work, the quality and collective experience of our team, and the overwhelming support of university leadership and our community."

The accreditation followed a yearlong self-study by OSUMA, capped by a three-day virtual site visit. During this same period - at the height of pandemic restrictions - the museum continued to provide art access through modified exhibition tours, outdoor art activities and take-home art kits.

"We realized early on, even before the pandemic, that we could provide a free, open space for creativity," Ihde said, noting that their free Second Saturday events are especially popular with families. "This has taken many forms over the years, developing and growing as we have developed and grown, but we've made a conscious effort to get art in front of diverse audiences.

"Not that long ago, if you wanted to go to a museum, you had to go to Tulsa or Oklahoma City. And not only was that Stillwater, it was surrounding towns like Perkins, Yale, Cushing, Ponca City, so we bring it home for people ... and hopefully prompt lifelong learning and appreciation of art."

With 10 years under its figurative belt, the OSU Museum of Art is looking toward the future. Although there's limited capacity for collecting more art - the vault isn't infinite, and donors have been generous - OSUMA staff see it as "an opportunity to explore the permanent collection and bring in traveling exhibitions that serve the interests of academic programs and the community," Berry said. "The provost and the president are working toward strengthening the arts at OSU through collaborative programming and making connections across the curriculum and into the community. We expect the museum will play a large role in this goal to make the arts a permanent feature of the OSU experience."

Learn more about the OSU Museum of Art on the web.

Click here to watch exclusive content about OSUMA.

Photos: Jason Wallace and provided

Story by Elizabeth Gosney | College of Arts and Sciences

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.