By: Anna Prentiss, Jamie Rager

 

At The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida State University students can gain career-building experience working in a variety of museum departments such as archives, collections, development, education, library, and a performing arts theater.

Helping to facilitate these student experiences is The Ringling’s Associate Director of Academic Affairs and Collections, Jay Boda.

Since 2000, the museum has been governed by Florida State University, making it one of the largest university art museums in the nation. This connection gives FSU students access to the 66-acre campus, which boasts more than 200,000 square-feet of galleries featuring eclectic collections ranging from antiquity to contemporary.

Boda supervises academic programs at The Ringling and oversees its program team consisting of archives, collections, education and library departments. Programs like the Department of Art History’s Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies Master of Arts and the specialized program in Museum Education and Visitor-Centered Curation offer courses and internships at The Ringling.

“The Ringling is a major asset to our university and our students, and Dr. Boda himself is an incredible asset,” said Lorenzo Pericolo, chair of the Department of Art History. “His dedication to our Art Education and Art History students is unmatched.”

After 20 years of service in the United States Air Force, Boda retired as a Master Sergeant and followed his passion for education in museums. In 2011, he started his museum career as a volunteer docent at the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Boda answered questions about his life and work.

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What is your role as a faculty member at The Ringling?

On the academic affairs side, I oversee the programs related to higher education, such as internships and fellowships. Internships at The Ringling are connected to FSU’s art history and art education programs. On the collections side, I oversee the program team consisting of archives, collections, education, and library departments. While it’s easy to put your blinders on and stick to your lane, I try to help staff to think bigger and look at how we can maximize opportunities for a performance or an exhibition. We need to think about how to leverage our strengths across all departments to create the best experience for the visitor.

What unique perspectives do you believe you bring to the position?

I am a retired Air Force Master Sergeant — I served for 20 years, and I think that provides a specific perspective on collaboration, teamwork and seeing the bigger picture. I also think being in the military instilled in me a sense of public service. I have worked in different types of museums since I finished my education and I’m happiest working in a public capacity.

I started at The Ringling mid-pandemic when programming was more limited. Now, I’ve been trying to expand our audience. For example, I’m working with veteran groups and student-veteran groups. We want to show veterans what we can offer and that museums include them, too. It comes back to fostering empathy and understanding between our communities.

 

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota.

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A gallery view in The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota. (Photo by Ron Blunt)

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How has your doctoral research through FSU’s Museum Education and Visitor-Centered Curation Program prepared you for your advancement in museum development

My doctoral research was specific to contentiousness in art museums. Art can elicit a lot of reactions from people. Sometimes it creates a sense of awe, sometimes it challenges and provokes us to question our values. Anyone in a museum who wears a badge and interacts with visitors speaks on behalf of the museum. I was curious as to how these museum professionals contend with gray-area topics.

FSU’s Museum Education and Visitor Centered Curation Program prepared me for what I do today because I try to instill a sense of empathy for the visitor within students and interns. We want to foster relevance and personal meaning for people who come into museums.

How do the classes you teach at The Ringling relate to FSU’s main campus?

I teach two graduate-level classes for the Department of Art History supporting the Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies Program (MCHS). Every student who starts at the MCHS program completes the first year of their master’s at FSU’s main campus in Tallahassee. After that first year, students have the option to take The Ringling Course. Here, they do a two-semester in-residence internship at The Ringling and take two graduate courses with me—one is on exhibition-making, the other on public programs.

What advice would you give FSU interns and students you work with?

Many students come into the internships with previous classroom experience in the museum or cultural heritage sector, so I try to operationalize what they’ve learned. My advice for students seeking careers in museums is that they need to show how they can positively impact the organizations they apply to. I assign skill-building tasks they can then include on a resume to demonstrate how they positively impacted The Ringling. Those hard skills are what a lot of employers need from early career professionals.  

For more information, visit ringling.org.

BY: ANNA PRENTISS , JAMIE RAGER

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A Florida State University art history professor and a group of graduate students are working to uncover and preserve the architectural traditions of Indigenous and African diasporic communities in the Americas through a series of conferences and workshops.

Over the past year, FSU Associate Professor of Caribbean art and architectural history Paul Niell collaborated with Stella Nair, associate professor of Indigenous Arts of the Americas at the University of California, Los Angeles, Indigenous knowledge keepers and graduate students at both universities to organize a three-part conference series, “Forgotten Canopy: Ecology, Ephemeral Architecture, and Imperialism in the Caribbean, South American, and Transatlantic Worlds.”

Historically, thatch work architecture actively made by Indigenous and African diasporic communities in the Americas has been excluded from scholarly discussions and considered “primitive” due to construction methods. Scholarship has focused on monumental stone buildings, such as those at Machu Picchu or Tikal, even though the domestic thatched house as an architectural form and social practice has persisted far longer than stone temples or palaces.

“This conference series brings to light this understudied area of architectural history at precisely a moment when we need to most think about the material sustainability of our daily lives within the context of global environmental degradation, inequity and climate change,” said Michael Carrasco, associate dean for academic affairs and research and associate professor of Art History and Cultural Heritage Studies.

The conference series brought together Indigenous knowledge keepers and scholars in architectural history, archaeobotany, cultural anthropology, archaeology, heritage studies and art history to discuss complex ecologies in the Indigenous Caribbean and South American worlds; “Ephemeral Architecture,” highlighting American traditions; and “Imperialism,” which considered the impact of imperial transformations in the Caribbean and South America.

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“We learned so many new things about these neglected architectural traditions of the Americas this year,” Niell said. “The program underscored the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to the topic. Our conferences and workshops also exposed the vital importance of considering the perspectives of Indigenous knowledge keepers and other community members when we approach and think about this kind of architecture.”

Among the conference speakers were Everett Osceola, Seminole Tribe of Florida Cultural Ambassador and a member of the Bird Clan, who was interviewed by Shannon Speed, tribal citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, director of the American Indian Studies Center and professor of Gender Studies and Anthropology at UCLA. Osceola discussed the making and use of traditional Seminole dwellings known as “chickees,” a structure made of cypress logs with palmetto thatched roofs, and their evolution through time.

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“During these conferences, we built a community around this topic, connecting knowledge keepers previously unknown to one another who had the opportunity to exchange views about their respective traditions,” Niell said. “Our approach also challenged academics to consider local knowledge, exposing disciplinary linkages.”

Lorenzo Pericolo, Vincent V. and Agatha Thursby Professor and chair of the Department of Art History said the department is incredibly proud of Niell and his students’ work on this project.

“The Forgotten Canopy is making strides toward addressing critical blind spots in our field when it comes to the study of architecture, as well as preserving valuable knowledge for future generations,” he said.

Each of the Forgotten Canopy conferences also featured a critical community-based workshop funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art and sponsored in partnership with the American Indian Studies Center of UCLA, directed by Speed.

For more information, visit TheForgottenCanopy.create.fsu.edu.