Starting on Jan. 29, 2018, the University of Wyoming Art Museum will have a new director to succeed the former director Susan Moldenhauer of the UW Art Museum, who officially retired in early November.
Professor Marianne Eileen Wardle of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, will be the new director.
Wardle has worked with the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University for many years. She worked there as a graduate student at the front desk for one year and for four years, she worked as an assistant for the Nasher Museum’s event department.
Wardle currently works for the Nasher Museum of Art as the Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programs and head of Education & Interpretation for six years.
“I really love learning,” Wardle said. “I like to know about a lot of things and I like to talk with other people who are interested in a lot of things and at a university campus, that is a real asset. As far as the administrative side, I’m a strategic thinker and I’m sort of a systems person and I like a system that works. I like processes that work and when they don’t work, I like to figure out what’s wrong, so we can smooth it out.”
Wardle said that art can be something that’s utilized across all disciplines, not just disciplines that are involved with the Humanities, and this can apply to the UW Art Museum as well.
“For three years, I had a collaboration with neuroscience faculty and it was called, ‘Art Vision in the Brain,’ about perception and how brains understand concepts like color and light,” Wardle said.
Wardle intends to collaborate with the staff once she is seated firmly in her position as the director.
“I’d really like to spend time with the staff and figure out what do they need in order to do their jobs to the best of their abilities,” Wardle said. “You know, what do they think has been successful so far, and what they would like to improve on.”
Wardle wants to promote public interest in the UW Art Museum as a state-funded art museum.
“I know there have been outreach programs, and the Artmobile has been really popular and exciting, but I think maybe people don’t think about the [UW] art museum as a state art museum,” Wardle said. “There are other museums in the state, but it’s the state-funded art museum and I think if people really thought about that, that would be great.”
Students are looking forward to the future with the new director.
“I think that the new director will bring different ideas on how to engage the community, and I am looking forward to seeing what comes next,” a second year art student, Stacey Tilton, said.
