50 Years of Artful Conversations: A Completed Campaign
SAAM’s Docent Corps recently reached an impressive fundraising milestone. Docent Betsy Hennigan describes the success of the campaign, “50 Years of Artful Conversations.”
The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s (SAAM) 100-member Docent Corps recently completed their fundraising campaign to raise $50,000. To celebrate the corps’ 50-year anniversary, they set this aggressive $50,000 goal with the intention that it be added to the $50,000 already in the endowment – 50-50-50. It had a nice ring. They labeled the campaign 50 Years of Artful Conversations.
At first this goal felt daunting. The big boost to the fundraiser, however, came early in the campaign when it was announced that an anonymous SAAM donor gave $25,000 in matching funds. Docent Chair David Weisz said, “when we got the $25,000 matching gift, all of a sudden our goal felt very doable”. Most of the other funds were donated by the docents in gifts that ranged from $10 to $2,500. Everyone wanted to be a part of the campaign. Docents were inspired to give for many reasons: some for the tax benefits, some to celebrate each other’s birthdays, some to recognize the legacy of fellow docents who have passed, some just because of their incredible commitment to the docent program.
The docent corps uses the earnings from this endowment to support enrichment and training activities for their program. For example, in recent years, they took enrichment trips to both Richmond and Philadelphia.
On a stormy morning in December 2019, the docents boarded a bus to Richmond to visit the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ (VMFA) exhibit Edward Hopper and the American Hotel and then on to the private contemporary art collection of Bill and Pam Royall. That same day, the Kehinde Wiley sculpture, Rumors of War, was unveiled on the grounds of the VMFA.
When the docents went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, they invited Carmen Ramos, SAAM Acting Chief Curator and Curator of Latinx Art, to go along to view Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. Ramos helped them prepare for a SAAM exhibit, Tamayo: The New York Years, and gave them a good foundation for the many new Latinx artworks coming into SAAM’scollection.
This past year, travel turned virtual. And while the “trip” this past December to the studio of Noah Scalin didn’t involve a bus ride, it did start with a lot of docent chatter on the Zoom call. When they “arrived” at the studio, Noah talked about his artistic philosophy. He uses everyday items to ask the viewer to recontextualize the “things” in their lives that are normally taken for granted, overlooked, or discarded. Noah then showed them around his studio, talked about his inspiration, how he spent the last year, and some of his collaborative work. Much of his work is done using stickers. Yes, stickers. They create interesting mosaic-like images. During the summer of 2020, he collaborated with clothing retailer Old Navy to promote their campaign to help clothe families affected by the pandemic by creating a giant mural depicting a family using Old Navy clothes.
While all the activities that the endowment has supported have been fun, the funds are designated to support SAAM docent education. The endowment also supports things like guest lecturers for monthly meetings, learning from experts in museum engagement, and seminars that help the corps interpret SAAM’s collection in new and dynamic ways. Visiting other museums and private collections, talking to contemporary artists, and working with a wide-range of museum professionals broadens docent experiences providing insights and new techniques that engage visitors more deeply in American art and history.
Now that their endowment has reached this milestone, the SAAM docents have appointed a docent to be their endowment champion. This person will seek out more exciting opportunities for this group of art loving, fun loving Smithsonian volunteers.
Betsy Hennigan has been a docent with the Smithsonian American Art Museum for 10 years. She has served as the chair of the SAAM Docent Corps and works on a variety of docent programs including the endowment fundraiser, specialized tours for people with low vision and the Access Smithsonian See Me … program.
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Posted: 17 March 2021
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It’s a great article describing the art-driven, educational, fun-loving, serious fund-raising and giving side of docent life at SAAM. Betsy’s talents are well known by docents at SAAM and other Smithsonian museums as well. It’s fair to say that one of her major talents is that of an amateur photographer. Who else could have gotten such heart-warming smiles from every single docent in the group photo above? Likely, not even a professional photographer could have accomplished such a feat.
Gini Robinson