Isabella Sanchez ’16: A familiar 51-foot paintbrush towers over Broad Street, standing between two buildings that showcase and cultivate creativity. Both a museum and art school, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) is committed to creating and appreciating American artists. To the right of the crashed airplane is the main entrance to the famous art school’s academic building. President, CEO and interim Museum Director, David Brigham, keeps the oldest museum in the country vibrant.
From the Paint Torch sculpted by Claes Oldenburg in 2011 to Jordan Griska’s PAFA class of 2008, Grumman Greenhouse, there is art showcased everywhere on campus. Every wall is graced with art created by students and faculty. Every floor’s elevator lobby displays painting and sculptures. Brigham noted, “Elevator lobbies on every floor function as contemporary art spaces where the students can show off their artwork…. They also provide great city views and sometimes out students will set up right here and paint the city which is nice to see.”
Brigham’s day starts with his wife Holly, and children Once he arrives to his third floor office he is greeted by Sheryl Kessler, his Executive assistant. The hours of the day consist primarily of meeting with various groups within PAFA, as well as donors.
The heads of the different departments throughout the school and museum work directly under him and often partake in different meetings throughout the day. As he goes about his day, Brigham makes a point to connect with people within the community. Melissa Kaiser, Executive Vice President of Development, commented he, “really connects with students… they get very excited that he knows their names and is very personable.”
Brigham explained, “We do four things, we train artists, we do community education programs we collect art and we organize exhibitions. Those are our big program areas.”
“While I was there, Brigham met with the development team to go over renovations and future projects. He said, “Probably my biggest project is the campus master plan and that is how are we going to improve the campus to continue to attract students and museum visitors.” A lot of this meeting consisted of revisiting a drafted list of locations and naming opportunities while making sure that the language used for each space was appropriate and appealing. Soon after, followed a meeting with nine members of Museum staff including members of the development, operations and communications team. Brigham as president and interim Museum director oversees all the permanent and temporary exhibits in both the Historic building and the Hamilton building.
At the beginning of his time at PAFA there was a dual mission to raise museum prestige by curating content and to expand their reach in the community.Brigham felt that the museum had a responsibility to curate their own exhibits; he shared “We have our own stories to tell.” These missions were easily mingled as new exhibits have had a diverse focus with strong representation from the African American community and many women artist, both local and nationwide. “The First big decision is who are we going to commit our resources to representing, who do we think is a very important artist and we try to choose American artists that have not had as much attention as other artists.” Procession: The art of Norman Lewis is the current exhibition in the Fisher Brook’s Gallery. Five years went into the curating of the 90 pieces that are on display, showing the significant contributions Lewis made to American art movements in the 20th century. As we walked through the first floor of the Sam Hamilton building which holds this exhibition Brigham, explained, “He has a wonderful range of content…There’s the sheer beauty of the ocean and then holding up a mirror telling us that we need to confront racial inequalities and injustices in our society.” This is only one of the many shows that pushes boundaries and includes all kinds of diverse backgrounds. Even more with more long term displays “things are always coming and going.” As Heika Rass, Executive VP of Marketing and Communications, observed “art is a reflection of the larger world, it doesn’t happen independently so we want to show that.”
Photo Courtesy of Isabella Sanchez ’16
Throughout PAFA history there has also been a strong commitment to community outreach and Brigham made sure to continue pursuing important endeavors in the Philadelphia area. Aside from the amazing exhibits feature artists of all different backgrounds, PAFA has been focusing on giving back to the community by bringing arts education adopted two public schools in Kensington, Sheppard Elementary and Julia De Broges Middle school. Brigham shared that this partnership is necessary because “It is really important for kids to have different ways to freely express themselves…it also helps them to excel in their core subjects by providing new ways to learn with increased creativity, an understanding of design…and problem solving skills learned through art.” This program is expanding soon as PAFA will adopt four more schools in the near future in order to spread arts education throughout Philadelphia.
As for education within PAFA, Brigham has added to the program by introducing a low residency MFA and a major in Fine Art Illustration. “Each year we graduate about 100 students and have 300 total students at a given time. There are also 1700 students doing continuing education classes and have 70 faculty members,” said Brigham.
Another major role PAFA has in the community is hosting events, such as the 2016 EA Starfest on March 5th. Brigham said “We do about 100 events a year … everything from weddings to corporate events to nonprofit fundraisers for EA and other organizations…we are very excited to be hosting Starfest.”
A part of his day not as glamorous but just as important is overseeing restoration and renovations in both buildings. There are several projects spread throughout. The Historic Landmark Building requires constant care in order to remain in pristine condition and to ensure safety. “One of the things that we’ve been doing is some renovation projects on this building. It was built in 1876 so it’s 140 years old this year. We are constantly paying it attention, it needs lots of love and care…We’re putting about 8 million dollars into the Historic building for… all kinds of improvements that make the building better but don’t necessarily add new functionality…” The interior requires the same attention to detail. Currently there are renovations in the historical building which Brigham oversees with guidance from his Operations team.
Throughout the day Brigham takes on many roles and with the help of his team has been able to improve and maintain the mission of PAFA. Brigham ended his day by dashing off to meet his son at the train station.