Museum staff, publication design and technology recognized for excellence
We are proud to announce that the Georgia Museum of Art was recognized by the Southeastern Museums Conference (SEMC) for outstanding work with eight awards at the annual SEMC meeting last weekend in Louisville, Kentucky. Museum staff are instrumental to the success and overall mission of the museum and we are delighted to celebrate this year’s 2023 SEMC awards and the people behind them.
SEMC Museum Leadership Award
Tricia Miller, museum deputy director of collections and exhibitions and head registrar, was awarded the SEMC’s Museum Leadership Award in recognition of her many years of service and generosity to the field. Initiated in 1994, the award recognizes mid-career museum professionals who have contributed to significant advances within the profession through leadership in museum activities at their own institution or within the museum profession, as a whole, especially in the southeast region. Winners must have at least 10 years of service as a museum staff member and a minimum of five years immediate past tenure with a museum in the SEMC region.
Miller has worked at the museum for 25 years. Promoted to Deputy Director of Collections and Exhibitions in 2023, she first joined the museum staff as assistant registrar in 1998 before rising in the ranks to become head registrar in 2004. While she is known for going above and beyond in her position at the museum, she is also well known in regional museum circles for her dedication to influencing the growth of other registrars, regional museums and the museum field at large.
In 2016, she was named Museum Professional of the Year by the Georgia Association of Museums and Galleries; she has been active in the Southeastern Registrars Association for many years; and regularly organizes and presents professional sessions centered on collection management, exhibition management and career development for the both the Georgia Association of Museums and the Southeastern Museums Conference. Fellow museum colleagues have taken note, as remarks from colleagues in nomination letters for the award clearly illustrate how much she is valued and appreciated.
Annelies Mondi, senior advisor to the director at the Georgia Museum of Art wrote: “In addition to her regular duties of providing oversight for her department, managing the logistics for countless exhibitions, coordinating the accessioning of hundreds of objects a year, Ms. Miller has led training sessions and workshops for interns at the museum, spoken to various university classes in museum studies and has moderated or participated on panels for many sessions at professional conferences such as SEMC. Her commitment to the future of the museum field is evident. It is her ability to balance her responsibilities while guiding others towards a common goal that makes her particularly deserving of the leadership award.”
Another colleague’s nomination letter noted that she “demonstrates dedicated leadership to the region by consistently lending a hand to her area colleagues whenever the opportunity arises. Whether assisting the Albany Museum of Art with inventory and triage in a damaging tornado’s aftermath, touring her museum’s storage spaces with a Georgia College & State University museum studies class, or guest-blogging about art care for the Society of Georgia Archivists, Tricia evidences a generous heart and insightful mind that are frequent resources for the southeastern museum community.”
She “provides valuable insight into not only our field of collections management but also that of working in the museum industry,” another nomination letter from a colleague said. “Her work and influence on a state and regional level can be seen throughout the field. She has worked as a mentor for many and remains a great resource for collections managers and registrars at all levels and institutions.”
Excellence in Exhibitions Competition Award: Art is a form of freedom
The Georgia Museum of Art also received awards in three competitions at the 2023 SEMC meeting. “Art is a form of freedom,” an exhibition that was on view at the museum earlier this year, was awarded a silver award in the Excellence in Exhibitions Competition in the category for exhibitions with a budget of less than $10,000. A result of a collaborative project that brought works of art from the museum’s collection into classrooms at Whitworth Women’s Facility, a prison in north Georgia, the exhibition was unique because works were chosen by the incarcerated women at the facility and featured prose and poetry the women had written in response to the works.
Callan Steinmann, the museum’s curator of education, organized the exhibition with the assistance of Caroline Young, lecturer of English at the University of Georgia and site director for the Common Good Atlanta program at Whitworth Women’s Facility. Common Good Atlanta, founded in 2010, provides people who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated with access to higher education by connecting Georgia’s colleges and professors with Georgia’s prison classrooms. Dr. Young’s UGA service-learning English course “Writing for Social Justice: The Prison Writing Project” linked the museum to the incarcerated students in classes at Whitworth Women’s Facility.
The exhibition competition recognizes exhibitions for overall excellence or for stretching the limits of content and design through innovation. Winning entries were well-designed exhibitions of merit with educational value and demonstrated, respectful treatment of objects. For Young and Steinmann, it’s clear that the project and resulting exhibition had a big impact.
“As I’ve been working on this project over the past few years, I keep returning to an idea that one of my grad school professors, Dr. Paul Bolin, first introduced to me: That art is both a window and a mirror,” said Steinmann. “I believe that art can be a portal, allowing us to peer into and perhaps understand others’ lived experiences, and it’s also a reflection of the time the work was made and of ourselves as we view it.”
For Young, the collaborative experience with the Georgia Museum of Art, Steinmann and the women of Whitworth is not something she will forget anytime soon. “I have never met two communities that gained more from being near each other,” Young said about the project and exhibition in a recent UGA Research feature article. “It took me back to why I began writing poetry: getting the academics out of it and just reflecting.”
Want to view more of this past exhibition? The Red & Black’s photo gallery documenting the exhibition is worthy of your time. The Georgia Museum of Art’s Instagram account also features several posts from the exhibition that showcase the Whitworth women’s prose and poetry that featured in the exhibition.
Publication Design Competition Awards: 75th Anniversary Campaign, Facet, Gallery Guides
In the Publication Design Competition, the museum received a gold award in the campaigns category for its 75th Anniversary Campaign; a bronze in magazines and newsletters for Facet, its quarterly newsletter; a silver for gallery guides for “Jane Manus, Undaunted”; and a bronze for gallery guides for its “Longleaf Lines” coloring book (illustrated by Katie Mulligan). Noelle Shuck, the museum’s graphic designer since 2020, designed all four award winning designs.
The SEMC Publication Design Competition recognizes and rewards excellence in graphic design in southeastern museum publications. Judged by an appointed jury of museum professionals who specialize in graphic design., the winning designs showcased effective design, communication, creativity and pride in work and recognition of institutional image and identity. The awards underline the value of good design as part of the museum’s mission and overall success. Afterall, a well-designed newsletter, publication, campaign or gallery guide all help the museum create and maintain connections with a vast network of supporters and the art community, as a whole.
Shuck’s recognition for design excellence is well earned. While she’s been on staff since 2020, she has actually been designing the museum’s quarterly newsletter, Facet, since 2013, when as a graphic designer for Adsmith. In 2022, SEMC awarded Facet, which Shuck redesigned in 2020, a gold award and “best in show” in the publication design competition.
“I’m glad the redesign has been so well received over the last few years, and feel that it’s a reflection of good design, but [it’s] also a reflection of the quality of our museum and the high level of competency of everyone who works here,” she said in a UGA article about the award in 2022. “The Georgia Museum of Art is a wonderful place with an incredible amount of heart, and any time I can help elevate its message or create more awareness of its existence is an opportunity I am excited to take.”
Technology Competition: Instagram Trivia Stories & Museum Madness Campaign
In the Technology Competition, the museum received a gold award for virtual media (budget under $1,000) for its Instagram Stories trivia feature and a silver for its Museum Madness campaign, in association with the museum’s 75th anniversary. The museum’s communications team created and designed both features.
As technology continues to gain importance throughout the museum field, expectations and standards were also exceptionally high for applicants in this year’s Technology Competition. Similar to the SEMC Publication Design Competition, there were a record breaking number of applications submitted from museums across the southeast. Winning entries were expected to demonstrate innovation, effective design, accessibility, creativity and recognition of institutional identity. Recipients of the awards were judged by an appointed jury of museum professionals across the region who specialize in digital media and technology.
Authored by:
Museum Staff
