The NIU Art Museum’s latest exhibition, "Local Visions," features items plucked from the homes of area collectors.
Peter Olson is the assistant director of the museum, and one of the curators for the show. He says a couple of years ago, he was thinking of possible themes for an exhibition.
“I’m an artist and my house is full of artwork that I love, and I know a lot of other people who are artists and who have a lot of artwork themselves that inspires them . And that seemed like a great idea for an exhibition.”
Fellow artist, collector and co-curator Michael Bennett says his inspiration for the show arose out of a daily ritual – walking his dog.
“Especially at twilight, you’d see people who left the blinds open, and sometimes their walls would be bare, and then other instances, you’d see just incredible stuff on the walls. And when we were talking about the exhibition, I thought that would be really great, to see what people in DeKalb, Sycamore and Rockford have.”
Bennett says many people have an image of a collector as a wealthy person in some far-off metropolis adding masterworks to their collection according to a carefully thought-out plan. And that’s just not the case. The contributors to this show come from all walks of life. Bennett says word-of-mouth played a big factor in assembling the pieces in the show.
“We sort of drew up a list of people who we thought would have interesting stuff. And then, when we would approach them, and see some of the stuff they had, they would say, “oh yeah, but you should see so-and-so, they’ve got a really wonderful collection, you need to get to their house.” So that’s what we essentially did.”
Then came a process of assembling the pieces for the show, including persuading folks to part with, at least on a temporary basis, what many considered their personal treasures.
There’s no doubt about the eclectic nature of the exhibit, one that Olson and Bennett say reflects the varying tastes of the different collectors. Masks, chairs, tapestries, circus posters, ashtrays decorated with bottle caps – art of all kinds, high and low, is on display.
In some cases, there’s a range within a household. Dan and Virginia Seymour have pieces in the show. Dan’s beer steins line a shelf in a hallway, while in another room an exquisite tapestry they own hangs on the wall. The Seymours say they didn’t set out to be collectors.
“A lot of it is happenstance. You find things just by chance. Other things we find just because we like how they look and we just like to furnish our house with pretty things. (Dan) Be at the right place at the right time and finding something that looks right.”
Olson says that’s a pretty common sentiment, and one they’ve tried to emulate in the show.
“No one’s house looks like an art gallery, with big long white walls where you hang stuff in a straight line. You have to fit it over the couch, and you have to fit it in your breakfast nook. And it’s next to something else, like a little ceramic rooster.”
The challenge with all the elements, Olson says, was to avoid making it look like a flea market stall. So there’s plenty of space, but things are arranged along walls and in rooms with styles and types of work juxtaposed in what he and Bennett hope will be a pleasing arrangement.
Olson says they’ve also tried to make the show more interactive, inviting visitors to write down what sort of things they’ve collected, and why. And there will be a number of events related to the theme of collecting during the run of the show.
For their part, the Seymours say, whatever you call what they have, they’ll go on as before.
“We just take the opportunity when we see it, if we can afford it. There’s no real grand plan at all, it’s just things that we like.”
Olson and Bennett say, for a collector, that’s the best plan of all.
