For SCMA, this has been a wonderful year of rededication: to our spaces, our mission and each other.

Our newly renovated Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings and Photographs was a project many years in the making, led by Collections Manager and Registrar Deborah Diemente. Deborah retired in February 2023 after bringing the work to completion and ensuring a seamless transition to her successor. All of us at the Museum will miss Deborah’s depth of experience, expertise and energy. We are ever grateful for her seven years with us and her vision and acumen that allowed us to achieve such a major, transformative renovation seamlessly and successfully—and in the middle of a global pandemic, no less.

The end of the project also meant saying goodbye to Assistant Registrar Amy Doyel, who was contracted to facilitate the storage renovation project—both the physical rebuilding of the space and also a full collection inventory of 24,000 works on paper. Just weeks after starting in February 2020, Amy found herself facing an even greater challenge when the job she anticipated was put on pause. She was able to see the project through before the end of her three-year grant-funded contract in March 2023, when she started a new position at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine.

Our collections department continues to thrive in the very capable hands of Collections Manager and Registrar Robyn Haynie. She moved here from Colorado, where she led collections management for the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College. Robyn has an abiding appreciation for the work of teaching museums and their mission of engaging with students to make art visible and accessible.
With training in object conservation and an interest in archeology and cultural heritage, Robyn has always been interested in the materiality of objects. “I joke that I got into this work so I can touch the art,” she says. “But I actually really do love the hands-on nature of it, and also it’s such a collaborative process, which I find very fulfilling.” Whether strategizing with curators about what can be accommodated and where, coordinating with the educational team to facilitate object-based learning in the teaching gallery or exploring emerging areas of interest with different audiences, Robyn is excited by the many aspects of her new position.

“Only a tiny fraction of a museum’s holdings is on view at any given time,” she says. “To me, as a collections manager, there is real value in working at an academic museum and having the ability to activate so much more of the collection through valuable and engaging teaching and learning.”

Connecting people with art is a joy she shares with another new member of SCMA’s staff, Bridget Hart Martin, who was hired as Museum Shop Buyer and Retail Manager in January 2023. As an undergraduate at Clark University, Bridget studied English and history and went on to earn a master’s degree in medieval studies at the University of Connecticut. She began her career in art and antiques appraisal while working retail on the side. The latter evolved into a full-time job she was passionate about. Over the next 15 years, she gained a wealth of experience in everything from point of sale and shop management to hiring, scheduling and ecommerce. When the job at SCMA came up, it felt like the perfect combination of her personal and professional background and skills. “It’s a natural fit,” says Bridget—whose mother was an Ada Comstock Scholar who graduated from Smith with an art history degree in 2000.

Bridget is excited to expand on SCMA’s online retail offerings as well as think collaboratively and holistically about the role of the shop in the museum, whether working with artists on custom projects or coordinating with current exhibitions. “People come here to engage with art in meaningful ways,” she says. “What our shop offers is part of that experience: art they can purchase and take home with them.”

top to bottom, left to right: Deborah Diemente, outgoing Registrar, at her retirement celebration; Amy Doyel, outgoing Assistant Registrar. Photo by Lynne Graves Photography; Collection Manager/Registrar Robyn Haynie. Photo by Derek Fowles Photography; Museum Store Manager Bridget Hart Martin. Photo by Derek Fowles Photography