Exhibition Planning Part II: A Guest Curator Visit

Winter visit

It was a grey and overcast day in Western Massachusetts. Snow was still pilled on the ground, blanketing everything in winter’s signature color. I had been here twice before, both times when the green was still abundant and the sun sparkling through the leaves. Those last times I had come as a visitor but this time was different, I was going to be an insider!

Here’s the backstory.

In the fall of 2023, I was invited to give a talk at Springfield Technical College. Courtney Waring and Alexandra de Montrichard happened to make the trek from The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art to listen to me jabber about Natives in Pop Culture. After the talk, they invited me to come by the Museum and chat more about an idea they had for bringing a Native perspective to upcoming exhibits.

So, the next day, I brought my family with me to The Carle where I had an amazing and exciting conversation about developing an exhibition of native picture book art. This was something I had wanted to work on since I first taught Native Americans in Children’s Literature at the University of New Mexico almost twenty years prior. The idea that we could showcase the history of Native American illustrators and their contributions to children’s book illustration. The exhibit would connect to the past by including rock art and petroglyphs and bring the audience to the present day explosion of Native illustrated children’s books. It was also important that we highlight local and regional books, the ones that didn’t get national distribution but were nonetheless important for Native communities.

So on a wintery day in early February, I drove up to Massachusetts from North Carolina. On my way, I thought about the virtual meetings we had had over the course of the past year in planning the exhibit. I thought about the staff training I had conducted a few months prior. I thought about how we had just had our first meeting of our advisory group and how exciting it would be to have them here at the opening of the exhibit. set to open January 2027.

(A quick aside: our advisory group is one of the exciting aspects of the exhibit. Comprised of six Native scholars, creatives, artists, writers, and experts, the advisory group seeks to support the development of the exhibit by lending their thoughts and energy to our deliberations.)

So here I was, entering the museum as the Guest Curator, quite the wonderful title, I must admit, and what a moment to be sure!

I passed by the enormous works by Eric Carle that filled the long hallway. Light from the snowy field filled the room through the windows. I was always stuck by the light and how the openness of the design was so warm and welcoming, the bright colors from the natural world overlapping the bright colors from the illustrations that Eric meticulously brought to life.

But back to the matter at hand. It was going to be a busy few days while I was here and it was time to get started.

I first met Laura Leonard, Associate Registrar for Exhibitions, and Isabel Ruiz, Associate Curator, in the Collections space. I am always a fan of getting to go behind the scenes and this was no exception. Getting a curated view by Isabel and Laura was amazing, especially the Virginia Stroud piece.

I must admit, the tour was definitely enhanced by the home-baked cookies Laura brought me, in reference to one of our many video calls.

After the “behind-the-scenes” tour, I spent a moment in the gallery. The current special exhibition in the East Gallery (where our exhibition will take place), Created In Color, with artwork by Raúl Colón was lovely. It evoked a sense of wonder and excitement, especially the youth reading area which was surrounded by stars. Having seen the gallery in a few iterations, I was able to envision the multiple ways in which the space could be configured, and I built a mental map of the gallery and it’s endless possibilities.

I took some time to sit in silence and allowing my mind to wander into the future. I could see our opening day, people taking a journey through a remarkable history. Learning and exploring together. It brought a smile to my face.

After that lovely time it was on to the next collaboration

I spent the afternoon chatting with the education team and the communications team about how we could build out the programming. It was such good energy to explain the vision and hear so much passionate and creative imaginings about what we could put together. I am always in awe of the professional nature of amazing museum folks and the Carle staff didn’t let me down.

Of course, no visit would be complete without a trip to the library and the museum shop. The library is one of my favorite places with all its shelves at “kid level,” the space is like snuggling into a warm blanket on a snowy afternoon. As for the shop, well, having run a bookstore myself, I always love to cut it up with like minded folks who know the insides and outs of the retail game.

Finally, we ended with a creative meeting about how we could put the exhibit together and what it could look like. This was where the meat met the potatoes as we hashed out some fundamentals of Indigenous design and a few ideas on how we could ensure that the spirit of Indigineity was represented not simply through the materials presented but also in the representation of the space itself. Once again, the incredible staff did not disappoint and we closed the meeting with a feeling of wonder and anticipation.

After two days, I was tired and inspired. The ideas and the wonderful staff at the museum filled my heart to the brim. I stepped out into morning, a lite snow began to fall as I made my way home. It was gentle and lovely, fitting, I thought, knowing I would be returning soon.