From Home: An Interview with Matt Donovan

A conversation with Matt Donovan about The Map of Every Lilac Leaf: Poets Respond to the Smith College Museum of Art, a collaboration between the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center and the Smith College Museum of Art which was released earlier this week as a part of SCMA100, the Museum’s centennial celebration. We talked about how this project came together, what’s next for the Poetry Center, and whether he’s been writing in quarantine.
A large slice of yellow melon sits next to a pile of peaches. Some of the black seeds have fallen away from the melon and there is foliage behind the fruit. The colors are somber.
Four students with homemade crowns on in SCMA atrium

STEAM Halloween at the Haunted Museum

12:00 pm

What does an SCMA sculpture wear to trick-or-treat? What is the creepiest object in our collection? On the occasion of our centennial, we wonder, is the museum haunted? Join your hosts, the SCMA SMEs (Student Museum Educators), for a spooky silly afternoon of holiday hijinks inspired by artworks in the museum’s collection!

SCMA100 logo with shop products for sale including a necklace, a vase, a book and a puzzle of the world and scarves

SCMA100 Pop-up Shop Online Sale!

Times to be announced

Tuesday, November 17–Sunday, November 22
All are welcome!

Members receive a 10% discount on everything + FREE shipping
Become a member and save today!]

Artisanal textiles, jewelry, objects for the home, gifts for children, and one-of-a-kind handcrafted items by designer/makers from around the world. Plus: books and catalogues highlighting the SCMA collection

Get comfortable, make your list and get ready to shop the online SCMA Shop!

 

A Challenge to Practice Optimism

I offered a challenge to my friends and family in various backgrounds and colleges outside art history to engaged with two works of art from the 5 College Museum collection which reflect similar anxieties or sentiments we feel during the COVID-19 shutdowns. asked them to identify something positive in each image. I left the prompt open-ended as I wanted to encourage optimism to take a variety of forms.
This detail of Anne Morrow Lindbergh shows her bust. Slightly hunched over with a sad expression on her face, she wears a purple sweater and red scarf and looks slightly downward.

The conservation process of Still Life with Fruit, Meat, Pipe, and Goblets

  

Still Life with Fruit, Meat, Pipe, and Goblets, a 17th-century still life painting by Dutch artist Maria van Oosterwyck has been selected to be included in the museum’s centennial exhibition SCMA Then\Now\Next. It has been recently conserved by Birgit Straehle at the Worcester Art Museum. These images taken during and after the treatment show how she brought this work back to life.

Still Life with Fruit, Meat, Pipe, and Goblets by Maria van Oosterwyck (1630–1693)
Amanda Williams, "An Imposing Number of Times" (2020–22), black and white banner on front of the Smith College Museum of Art

Amanda Williams: An Imposing Number of Times 

November 2020 through spring 2022
“How do you bring closure to something that lingers? How do you memorialize an injustice that is ongoing?” These are two of the questions that artist Amanda Williams asks with An Imposing Number of Times (2020–22), a multipart, site-specific artwork that explores how campus traditions create and transmit forms of belonging.
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