ONE HOUR DRIVE: Art Faculty Exhibition

It is my great pleasure to inaugurate the Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum’s 2004/2005 season with this long-awaited exhibition. One Hour Drive presents artworks of various media by ten tenure-track professors and more than a dozen part-time faculty members. Its handsome, accompanying catalog includes all the faculty members, even those who are not represented in the show.

From the perspective of my six-year tenure with the museum, I see this first faculty exhibition in this venue as an important defining point in our relationship with the art department. The exhibition concludes a formative phase, which started when the museum gained its administrative and fiscal independence from the department in 1998. Rather reluctantly accepted at the beginning, this independence has helped us to find new ways of working together and building strong foundations for still more fruitful collaboration. The phase we are concluding has been rich in programs, mutually beneficial partnerships of many individuals, and fundamental structural and organizational changes within the museum. The phase we are beginning promises a long-lasting, mutually inspiring and stimulating instructional cooperation of two extraordinary partners.

For years, the department and its many individual faculty members have been closely involved in the life of the museum. Many faculty members have contributed their valuable time and money to fulfill their dream of the University’s own museum. Richard Johnston, who for many years served as the department’s gallery director, was also the most instrumental person in the creation of the new museum and was its founding director. Dr. Julius Kaplan has also been extremely passionate and actively supportive throughout the entire history of the museum. Currently, he has been conducting research of the museum’s permanent collection of Predynastic Egyptian pottery in preparation for the scholarly exhibition scheduled for late 2005. Don Woodford, Roger and Kathy Lintault, Louis Fox, and many others successfully shaped the museum in its early stages, and they, together with others who worked hard on building the museum, should be commended for their dedication and long, loyal involvement.

Julius Kaplan, Soonja Oh Kim, and Sant Khalsa have supported the museum by serving on its advisory board, and the ever-growing permanent collection of the museum wouldn’t be the same today without major art donations by faculty members such as Soonja and Julius as well as Don Woodford, Louis Fox, Sharon Suhovy VanderMeiden, and Richard Johnston.

Another essential way many art department faculty members have contributed to the development and success of the museum was by curating some of the museum’s pivotal exhibitions. Don Woodford curated Portraits from LA (1999), Sant Khalsa co-curated with me Mirrors of the Invisible: Contemporary Art Reflecting on Islamic Mysticism (2000), Billie Session curated Ripples: Marguerite Wildenhain and Her Pond Farm Students (2001), James Gobel 21 Paintings (2002), Louis Fox Symbols of Devotion: Spanish Colonial Art of Mexico (2003), and Thomas McGovern Photo Editors Who Shoot (2004). In the next three years,we will see more exhibitions organized by faculty, including Dr. Kaplan’s Predynastic Egypt in the Collection of RVF Art Museum, Heather Murray’s Photography Unbound and James Gobel’s exhibition of contemporary art influenced by Romanticism.

Since 1998, the museum has hosted numerous solo exhibitions of the department’s talented faculty members including Sant Khalsa, Don Woodford, Richard Johnston, Thomas McGovern, Susan Beiner, James Gobel, Joe Moran and Sharon Suhovy VanderMeiden. It has also held eight annual student art shows and close to a hundred presentations by individual students, groups of students and studio areas in the Dutton Gallery, designated to displaying student work. In the fall of 2005, the museum will also co-organize and host the long-anticipated, first ever art department alumni show incorporated into Cal State San Bernardino’s 40th anniversary celebrations.

So, from today’s perspective, the past has been good for both parties and the future promises to be even better. I would like to thank Sant Khalsa for dedicating her time and energy, and the art department’s financial resources to make this exciting show and its accompanying catalog possible, and for all her contributions in organizing the exhibition, preparing its catalog, and installing its art. Of course, many others have contributed to the success of this project. I greatly appreciate their involvement. In particular, I thank Thomas McGovern and Dr. Julius Kaplan for their catalog essays, Thomas Ruvolo for the catalog layout, and John Fleeman for his always innovative and professional installation of the exhibition. I also thank all the other museum staff members: Cathy Aurora, Sharidy Cunningham, Megan DeWitt, Jorge Lopez, and Sal Sandoval for their help with many aspects of the exhibition’s organizational process, installation, and opening reception.

The exhibition and catalog have been funded by the Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum and Department of Art, with additional support from individual donors. Friends of the Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum sponsored the opening reception of the exhibition and Arrowhead Credit Union the ongoing gallery remodeling project.

Thank you all.

Eva Kirsch, Director

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