Coming Home: Alissa Brown Klaus ’15 returns to lead Centenary’s Meadows Museum of Art
Alissa Brown Klaus, a 2015 Centenary graduate, was named director of the Meadows Museum of Art in July 2021. One of her first tasks after arriving on campus was safely re-opening the museum to the public after more than a year of shutdown due to COVID-19. With the help of student workers and interns like junior Emilie Adams, Klaus is bringing back in-person community events while continuing to engage art enthusiasts through the Museum’s website with new features like an Artists’ Blog.
Emilie Adams recently sat down with Klaus – a former Meadows intern herself – to discuss her journey from student to director and her future plans for the Museum.
What was your path from Centenary student to Meadows Museum director?
As a student at Centenary, I studied Religious Studies and Visual Culture, even completing an internship at the Meadows during my senior year. Immediately following graduation, I worked as an arts administrator at the Noel Community Arts Program, an art and music nonprofit in Shreveport’s Highland neighborhood. I moved to Chicago a year later and ultimately decided to pursue a Master’s degree. While I worked towards my Masters of Arts Management degree at Columbia College Chicago, I gained development experience at the Hyde Park Art Center, an arts nonprofit in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, and gallery management experience at the Hokin Gallery, Columbia College Chicago’s campus gallery. It was actually during my final week in grad school when I was starting to get serious about job hunting that a friend reached out and said that the Meadows was hiring a new director. Now I’m back at my alma mater thoroughly enjoying working with the incredible artists in our Shreveport-Bossier City community, learning more about the Museum’s permanent collection, and providing hands-on museum management experiences to students on Centenary’s campus!
What is the relation between the Meadows Museum and Jean Despujols?
The Meadows Museum opened in 1975 to house Jean Despujols’s Indochina Collection. Centenary alumnus Algur H. Meadows purchased the entire collection of 360 paintings, drawings, and watercolors that Despujols created of French Indochina between 1936 and 1938. At that time, the land was a French “colony of economic exploitation,” and Despujols was hired by the French government to document the land, people, and customs of the region.
Since 1975, the permanent collection has grown to over 1,600 works from a variety of world cultures and traditions including Inuit Art, Haitian Art, African Art, American Impressionists, and local artists.
What is the role of the Meadows Museum on Centenary College’s campus?
The Meadows is such a valuable resource for the school and its students. Supporting Centenary’s mission, students on campus are challenged to think critically, analyze and interpret ideas and information, celebrate the diversity of human cultures, and appreciate the value of artistic expression at the Meadows Museum of Art through our regularly rotating exhibitions, artist talks, and partnerships with faculty that utilize the museum for class assignments.
The Meadows Museum also offers internship and work-study opportunities for students who wish to pursue a career in the arts, arts management, or a related field. Student projects range from developing skills in communication, exhibition curation, research, community outreach, and more. Students who create art or are interested in curating also have opportunities to install exhibitions at the Meadows, including senior exhibitions by Centenary’s BA Studio Art graduates.
Who helps make up the Meadows Museum staff? What roles do they play?
The rest of the Museum staff is composed of Centenary student workers and interns! In Fall 2021, students have undertaken projects such as building an archive of past exhibitions for our website, researching items in our permanent collection, writing press releases, conducting artist interviews, managing social media, creating educational materials for younger visitors to the museum, and curating exhibitions for the museum and other gallery spaces on campus. While they are directly contributing to the museum’s daily functions, they are also developing professional skills that will serve them in their future careers.
The Project Space Gallery is a new addition to the Museum. What plans do you have for this space?
This space is a rotating gallery space that will feature month-long exhibitions by local artists and curators. In Fall 2021, we have featured a portrait photographer, a landscape photographer, and Centenary’s Studio Art professor Shea Hembrey. In Spring 2022, we will have a BA Studio Art senior exhibition, a photographer, a poet, and a student-curated show from our permanent exhibition. This is a great way for us to support local and student artists and curators, encourage visitors to return to the museum, provide a space for artists to experiment on a small scale, and provide a more approachable space for emerging artists to install work.
For those wishing to, how can others get involved with the Museum?
This year, the Meadows introduced new membership opportunities for donors. Long-time supporters of the Meadows will remember the Friends of the Meadows as the museum’s fundraising body. Replacing the Friends of the Meadows, these new memberships will allow donors of a variety of levels to support our programming, operations, and mission. More information can be found here.
Local artists and curators wishing to exhibit in the Project Gallery Space can fill out an application here. We are currently accepting applications for the 2022-2023 academic year.
Our current exhibitions and related events are always free and open to the public, and we can be found on social media on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.