Weber Burnishes FUAM’s Reputation
Organized, Pragmatic, Collaborative. Creative. The accolades for Carey Mack Weber, the Frank and Clara Meditz Executive Director of the Fairfield University Art Museum, are widespread and growing, as Weber continues to position FUAM as a serious venue for the exchange of art and ideas.
New Ceramics. Photo: John Groo.
Ms. Weber had been on the ground floor of the museum’s creation and had already shepherded a diverse range of exhibitions before her appointment in 2019. She was integral to the founding of the Bellarmine Museum of Art, one of the constituents of today’s FUAM, where she assisted Jill Deupi, PhD, the founding director, in developing the museum’s first three years of exhibitions and programming, as well as setting up the collections management systems. She served as interim director after Dr. Deupi’s departure, prior to the arrival of Linda Wolk-Simon, PhD.
Since Weber’s appointment in 2019 her distinctive curation has garnered kudos from many corners, whether from her stunning 10th anniversary commemorative exhibition, Birds of the Northeast: Gulls to Great Auks, or the ease with which she was able to pivot to virtual programming during the pandemic. FUAM’s offerings proved so popular that it has attracted a national online following. And last year’s commemorative exhibition will undoubtedly serve as a template for other university museums to harness their on-campus talents and expertise.
In addition to enlisting the support of Fairfield professors for the essays in exhibition catalogues, or as speakers at accompanying symposia, Weber has also found ways, as she did in the preparation of a guide by the campus biology classes, to enlist student help as well.
“Creating an interdisciplinary exhibition, like this one, is really only possible on a university campus or through a collaboration of an art museum and a natural history museum,” Weber said at the time. “By working with biology faculty as my co-curators (and with the assistance of a biology student), we were able to build upon the art that I’ve selected with additional, important components.”
The end result was a show that functioned as a bracing distillation of the science and majesty of avians as well as an exploration of the serious ongoing threats to their existence. Beautifully installed and full of surprises, the show was distinctive for its scope and attention to detail.
On a recent rainy morning the Bellarmine Gallery had not yet opened for the day; the corridor to Weber’s office was quiet and pleasantly serene. Greek and Roman plaster casts served as sentry; “It’s one of the best collections in metro New York, “Katherine Schwab, a Fairfield University professor and expert in antiquities told me later, “and I use them regularly in conjunction with my classroom teaching.” Schwab said that at Fairfield, there are a number of students who were not exposed to museums like this before arriving on campus, and “many have told me that they are finding this is a place to come and think and reflect.”
Schwab is among the professors with whom Weber has collaborated.
“Her programming has been wide-ranging—it’s exciting to be a part of it,” Schwab said.
Ann Woolsey, an independent consultant for campus art museums, worked closely with Weber as the Bellarmine and the Thomas J. Walsh Gallery coalesced under the umbrella of FUAM and prepared a strategic plan that led to the institution’s accreditation.
“She was very concerned with instituting policies that reflected best practices, and about building into the museum life learning opportunities—and to mount exhibits that would enable faculty to teach from objects, she said.
She’s found ways to experiment and push the edges.”
At the same time, Weber has presided over the CT Arts Trail, steering what might have been a simple tourism initiative into award-winning and nationally recognized partnership. Weber continues to see great collaborative potential for the 22-member consortium as it finds ways to pool resources and talent.
The artist James Prosek first encountered Weber when he was featured in a FUAM exhibition in 2011. She tapped him again for art in last year’s commemorative exhibition and also to work with her on the Arts Trail’s Made in CT show that opened last December at the Wadsworth Atheneum.
“I have nothing but positive things to say about her. She’s amazing. I’m grateful she has embraced my work—and happy that we have become friends,” he said.
Increasingly Weber has drawn upon her background in American Art History to explore serious contemporary social issues. One sees this mission expanded upon as FUAM wall text has gone bilingual, and as Weber envisions and orchestrates exhibitions with serious political content.
Seeing works by Roberto Lugo, Carrie Mae Weems, and Robert Gerhardt, in the recent FUAM exhibition, one could not escape meditating on a country that is in shards, with its people, so many of color, wearied, disenfranchised, or rendered invisible. The specter of police and gun violence was inescapable, whether in Lugo’s ceramic teapots, with their handles crafted from gun parts reclaimed in a Hartford gun buyback; or in Gerhardt’s powerful documentary photographs of the Black Lives movement. One alumna, who was among the 12 students of color in Fairfield’s class of ‘95, was moved to write her alma mater after visiting the exhibition in September.
She recalled arriving as a freshman and discovering a racial slur had been left on a classmate’s door. “For most of us it was the first time in our lives we had experienced overt racism and this bonded us as African American students,” she wrote.
And yet on September 21, 2021 when she returned to campus and attended FUAM’s exhibition, it re-enforced why “I have never regretted my decision to attend Fairfield University. For me Fairfield was a safe place to challenge norms, ask questions, solidify a foundation and flourish.” Quite in synch with this, Weber last year announced the creation of a fund by which to build an African American art collection. She is actively soliciting donations.
“Accordingly, I would be remiss if I did not express how relevant, how contemporary and how progressive the exhibit was. And more importantly the forethought and values communicated in the selection of the exhibit is noteworthy,” the alumna wrote.
The University’s stated mission is “to welcome individuals of all beliefs and traditions who share our passion for scholarship, justice, truth, and freedom, and we value the diversity their membership brings to our community.” To that end, Weber is challenging all who visit FUAM to stretch and wrestle with the issues of our age.