Event Details:
Stanford Libraries presents ART/WORK | Creative Pursuits of Stanford Libraries Staff, on view February 20, 2024, through April 27, 2025, in the Peterson Gallery and Munger Rotunda, Cecil H. Green Library, Bing Wing.
With this exhibition, we sought to create a space where staff could share their artistic, creative side that may not otherwise be a part of their work at Stanford. In the Summer of 2024, Special Collections invited current Stanford Libraries staff to enter creative work in any medium to be considered for a Winter 2025 exhibit in Green Library’s Peterson Gallery and Rotunda. Response to the call for entries was hearty. In addition to traditional fine art techniques of drawing, painting, printmaking, and photography, submissions included mixed media sculpture, ceramics, collage, textiles, and poetry. An anonymous selection committee of library staff blind-reviewed over a hundred entries and chose the fifty works displayed in the galleries. We asked the people whose pieces were selected to write a brief statement to accompany their work in the exhibit and posed several questions for their consideration: Why do creative work? What medium do you work in and why? How did you get started? What does it mean to you to be an artist (if you define yourself as one)? Does art need an audience? Who is your audience? What influences your work, and whose work do you admire? As you will see, Stanford library staff are talented and thoughtful, pursuing many forms of creative work after hours.
The exhibition is curated by Roberto Trujillo, Associate University Librarian, Director of Special Collections and Frances and Charles Field Curator of Special Collections; produced and designed by Deardra Fuzzell, Manager and Designer of Exhibitions, with assistance from Elizabeth Fischbach. Special thanks to the many colleagues in the Stanford Libraries who helped to make the exhibition possible: For their careful consideration of all staff art submissions, we thank the staff members who served on the jury; For their assessment of materials, Aisha Wahab and Beth Ryan in Conservation Services; For their assistance with logistics Ranelle Sharma and Jacob Cohn in Library Facilities, and Tim Noakes, Leif Anderson, and Kylee Diedrich in Public Services.
NOTE: Exhibit cases in the Peterson Gallery and Munger Rotunda are illuminated from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The exhibition is free and open to the public. Visitors are encouraged to call 650-723-0931 or visit the Library Hours page to confirm hours and access.