The Museum Shop

With the holidays just around the corner, we thought we’d focus some attention on our Museum Shop, a perfect place to find unique and beautiful gifts.

Though the Addison has been around for more than 80 years, the Museum Shop was a part of the Addison’s recent renovation and expansion project, and has been open just since September 2010. The Museum Shop carries primarily works by American artisans and craftspeople in keeping with the Addison’s mission of collecting American art. When choosing what to sell in the Shop, we look for high-quality items that are not found in other shops in the area, finding new things at craft shows and working with vendors who can create one-of-a-kind items specifically for the Shop. Since the Shop’s opening, the most popular items have been jewelry and scarves, as well as Addison mugs, note cards, and postcards.

Also available in the Shop are many custom-made items inspired by works from the Addison’s collection, including iPhone covers, notepads, and limited-edition bags made from the vinyl exhibition banners which once hung from the Addison’s portico. And in addition to the ever-popular jewelry and scarves, we are carrying a selection of housewares and holiday ornaments from artisans from New England and around the country. For book lovers, we offer catalogues and publications relating to our collection as well as our exhibitions, including the catalogue for the spectacular American Vanguards: Graham, Davis, Gorky, de Kooning and Their Circle 1927–1942, on view at the Addison through December 30.

We’re always looking for ideas from our fans, visitors, and vendors for new items and artisans that might be a good fit for the Museum Shop. If you have suggestions, please contact us at addison@andover.edu. We hope you’ll stop by soon! And remember, Friends of the Addison and Phillips Academy faculty, staff, and students receive a 10 percent discount on shop merchandise.

Monumental banners across Phillips Academy campus highlight exhibition

Six members of the Innu community, along with artists Wendy Ewald and Eric Gottesman, visited Phillips Academy during the week of October 8, 2012, where they met with a variety Phillips Academy classes with subjects ranging from English to Biology to and Art, and with classes from schools in the local communities. The Innu community members also participated in a series of evening programs, including film screenings and readings. Their visit came as part of the exhibition Pekupatikut Innuat Akunikana/Pictures Woke the People Up: An Innu Project with Wendy Ewald and Eric Gottesman. Their weeklong residency culminated in a public reception at the Addison Gallery of American Art on Saturday, October 13 and included a student led tour of the banner sites on campus.

The project was inspired by Ewald’s 1969 voyage to Sheshatshiu, Labrador, where she first met members of the Innu community, who were adapting to life on a reserve after being forcibly settled several years earlier. The eighteen-year-old Ewald taught the Innu children to document their experiences through photography.

In 2007, concerned by the persistent challenges facing the Innu, Ewald returned to Labrador with fellow photographer Gottesman. They reconnected with many of her former protégées and embarked on a new photographic project with three Innu high school students to create an updated portrait of the community originally depicted in the 1969 photographs. Later, the artists worked with the entire community to create a series of large-scale banners based on the 1969 and 2007 photographs and installed them throughout their community.

The installation of 10 banners at Phillips Academy aims to echo the installation in Labrador and to provoke conversation here about how communities respond to change and challenges, and how they define their identities both internally and to the world at large.

The exhibition can be seen at the Addison Gallery until January 13, 2013. Generous support for Pekupatikut Innuat Akunikana / Pictures Woke the People Up: An Innu Project with Wendy Ewald and Eric Gottesman has been provided by the Abbot Academy Association, which was founded in 1973 to foster and promote the legacy and spirit of Abbot Academy in the campus and in the programs of Phillips Academy, and by the Poss Family Foundation.

Posted by:
Rebecca Hayes
Curator of Education

Greetings from the Addison Gallery's new Curator of Education

Greetings from the Addison Gallery of American Art’s new Curator of Education Rebecca Hayes

It’s wonderful to be back at the Addison Gallery of American Art after 16 years! After starting my career in museum education at the Addison in 1995, I went on to work at the Peabody Essex Museum, the Williams College Museum of Art, and the American Folk Art Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, both in New York. I’m thrilled to return to my native Merrimack Valley and to a museum that has been deeply committed to education since its founding 80 years ago.

The Addison’s incredible collection and innovative exhibitions make the museum a unique part of Phillips Academy, the local community, and the larger world. Our mission as a teaching museum and commitment to sharing the collection with as broad an audience as possible is what inspired my career in museum education. It has been a rewarding experience for me to reconnect with former colleagues and friends in the community, and heartening to see that our local partnerships from 16 years ago continue to flourish as new ones develop. I am looking forward to an exciting year of programs and collaborations with the Phillips Academy community and educators, students, and members of our local community organizations.

The opportunity to work at the Addison is particularly exciting to me because of the museum’s commitment to sustained collaborations with our partner schools. For example, this past year the Addison Gallery collaborated with first grade teacher Mary Guererro and her students at the Henry K. Oliver School in Lawrence to conduct a yearlong investigation exploring the question “What can art be?” Students reflected on what type of objects and mediums can be considered art based on both their aesthetic and functional qualities. Students visited the Addison to examine and discuss a variety of artworks such as an Alexander Calder mobile, Hudson River School paintings, the seascapes of John Marin, drawings and writings by Elizabeth Enders, and the sculptures by Dale Chihuly on the Addison’s green roof.

Students also created artwork twining colorful yarn around sticks collected in their local landscape (attached to written memories), painted rocks with fantastic shades of color, and designed their own elaborate mobiles. Each week during the months of May and June, students traveled to a new location in their community to curate and install their artwork in a temporary exhibition. Students used their day books to create detailed maps for each of their journeys from the school to exhibition sites and wrote about curating their artwork in each new location. Exhibition sites included the Lawrence Public Library, the steps of the Lawrence Heritage State Park, the basketball court across from the Oliver School, and the grounds at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA where students explored the whimsical sculptures of artist Gary Webb. The project culminated with a book detailing students’ artwork and writing and created collaboratively by Mary Guerrero and the Addison’s Kait Ziskin, Education Fellow for School and Community Collaborations.

Posted by:
Rebecca Hayes
Curator of Education