New Spaces

The staff may have all moved out of the Addison Gallery, but most of us are still on campus. The majority of us have moved into existing Addison-controlled spaces down School Street in Abbot Hall (see left).

My office and our Education department are on the first level in what serves as the Addison's "workshop." Our desks and the Registrarial files and archives are nestled amongst the equipment used in building pedestals and cases for our exhibitions. Our printer sits in the "paint booth" where a large fan is used to pull paint fumes out of the space, and our filing cabinets and shelves are arranged around the meandering tubes of the sawdust collection system.

On the second level, Anna Gesing, our Administrative Support, and the Preparators, now occupy the spaces in and around the artists' studio, where our artists-in-residence work during their stints on campus. Their desks sit under the glow of natural light coming in through the skylights above and the grand windows overlooking Abbot Circle below (see right). This is where we are planning to have selections of our permanent collection available for study and visiting classes later this year.

The Curatorial department and our Registrar are now in the Artist-in-Residence's Apartment high up a narrow, winding staircase in Abbot Hall's attic. Several desks are tucked in around the thick wood roof supports and the David Ireland-designed furniture and skylights (see left). The quiet, dramatic space provides an excellent place for our Curators to plan the new slate of exhibitions in the works for our reopening.

There are also several staff members who are not located in Abbot. Our Director, Brian Allen, has an office in Graham House, the Development Department is in an office located adjacent to our off site storage facility, and our security staff will still be stationed at the Addison Gallery itself providing coverage for the construction site.

The staff is only temporarily occupying these spaces. They will return to their former uses in eighteen months once the staff returns, in its entirety, to the museum after our expansion and renovation project. In the meanwhile, we can be reached at the phone numbers we've always had and our mail will still find us. We may be busy preparing for our re-opening, but please do come by and visit!


James M. Sousa
Associate Registrar for Collections and Archives