Dear Friend,
Holiday greetings from the American Folk Art Museum! It has been a busy and exciting season of programs, exhibitions, and announcements.
Our marquee exhibition, American Weathervanes: The Art of the Winds has been the subject of glowing reviews and mentions in The Wall Street Journal, ABC News, and Channel Thirteen. The exhibition has been visited by thousands of people, including Tony-award-winning actor Andrew Garfield. Noting that the Museum is one of the actor’s favorite New York haunts, CBS News’ correspondent Rita Braver walked and talked with Garfield through the exhibition. On the topic of weathervanes, Garfield noted: “The craftsmanship and the detail and turning something so simple and practical into a piece of art, that’s one of the great things that human beings do.” Hear, hear!
The Museum continues to develop high-quality virtual programs and has seen this reflected in attendance numbers and overwhelmingly positive feedback. To date, AFAM’s live-broadcast programs have served thousands of individuals from 36 different countries, as well as from across the United States and all five boroughs of New York. We have also begun to program intimate and select in-person experiences at the Museum, which include student programming, tours, talks, and music events.
We welcomed a new class of interns from LaGuardia Community College as part of the Museum Career Internship Program. Now in its seventh year, this nationally-recognized program was created to foster diversity and inclusion in the museum field through a paid-internship model. We are grateful to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its support in helping us engage the next generation of museum leaders.
Individuals have honored the Museum through 60th anniversary gifts. As we continue to celebrate this milestone, I hope you will join me in supporting the Museum. I am also happy to report that the Museum received large contributions from several notable government agencies and foundations, including the Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York Council on the Arts. The Institute of Museum and Library Services provided AFAM a grant for substantial digitization of our art and archival holdings that will result in the accessibility of our entire art collection online, an objective outlined in the Museum’s Strategic Plan. Meanwhile, the Sparkjoy Foundation, a new funder, will provide a grant for learning and engagement programs.
Last week, the Museum’s Board of Trustees elected two new members: Dr. Ben Cohen and David De Luca. Both individuals are enthusiastic and long-time supporters of the Museum and I look forward to working with them.
Next month, we will open MULTITUDES. Organized on the occasion of the Museum’s 60th anniversary, it will showcase some 400 stellar works, including recent gifts and new acquisitions that will be exhibited at AFAM for the first time. These include William Edmondson’s Martha and Mary, Yuichiro Ukai’s Yokai, and works by Helen Rae, Ammi Phillips, and Susan Te Kahurangi King. In addition, Pushing Boundaries: 60 Years of Exhibitions will be presented in the Audrey B. Heckler Gallery. This exhibition will highlight key shows from the Museum’s six decades and will feature a selection of beloved works of art and rarely seen documents from the Museum’s archives.
Outside our walls, three AFAM exhibitions have been launched in different regions of the country. Handstitched Worlds: The Cartography of Quilts opened at the Washington State Historical Society, Mystery and Benevolence: Masonic and Odd Fellows Folk Art from the Kendra and Allan Daniel Gift to the American Folk Art Museum opened at the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Texas, and American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection opened at the Vero Beach Museum of Art in Florida.
In closing, whether you visited us in Manhattan or tuned in to a virtual program I hope the Museum has been a source of inspiration, delight, and fun over the last year. As we look back at 2021, there is a lot to reflect upon. And as we look ahead to 2022, there is even more to be excited about. I wish you and yours a very happy and healthy new year!
In gratitude-
Jason