The show must go up

Through the long, long, long Iowa winter, April seemed very far away. But now it’s here, and that means our VISIONS Across America: Portraits of Iowa State Alumni by Jim Heemstra exhibition is opening THIS WEEK! Yesterday, we very carefully moved all 116 of Jim’s portraits out of the ISU Alumni Center, where they have been stored for more than a month, and into the Brunnier Art Museum. It’s just across a big parking lot, but it took a couple dozen of us from the Alumni Association, University Museums, and ISU Printing and Copy Services to do the move. (That’s Rob Louden from Printing and Jim above.)

Once all the portraits were in the museum and unwrapped, Jim and I worked with Lynette Pohlman, director of University Museums to place each photograph within the gallery spaces — and that’s not as easy as it sounds. But by mid-afternoon we felt we had a pretty good handle on it, so Museums staffers Nancy Girard and Adrienne Gennett started climbing the big ladder and pounding nails in the walls and adjusting lights, and pretty soon the first room looked like a real art show.

Today we’re working on the other rooms, and by Friday night we’ll be ready for our big opening reception. Hope to see you there!