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| The Dal Art Gallery's Michele Gallant holds up a Carol Hoorn Fraser ink sketch for me to consider. (Danny Abriel Photo) |
I didn’t think it would be so difficult to choose. Something contemporary, something colourful, I tell Michele Gallant, as she pulls out canvas after canvas from the Dalhousie Art Gallery vault. “What about this one?” she asks.
Too big. Too squiggly. Too I-don’t-know-what, I say, thinking of the square of dark green wall space back in my cubicle, and what I can live with day in and day out.
I’ve always meant to take advantage of the gallery’s loans-on-campus program, so here I am. Dalhousie Art Gallery has lent out its artworks to Dal faculty and staff for decades. Its collection of some 1,300 works got started when Dal’s first president, Rev. Thomas McCulloch donated a John James Audubon print back in 1830.
Acquiring a piece from the collection for your workspace is actually a very easy process. You get in touch Ms. Gallant, the art gallery’s registrar/preparator, and she arranges to survey your work space, assessing for potential risks (such as a too-close radiator or direct sunlight) and recommending a suitable size of artwork.
The next step is to make an appointment with Ms. Gallant in the vault, where she shows what’s available for lending. There are historical etchings, prints, photography and paintings to choose from. (You can look at the collection online, too, at .) Not everything is available for loan, however. You probably won’t be able to borrow the gallery’s Rembrandt or Goya, for example, or some of more fragile works in the collection.
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| Michele Gallant in the vault. (Danny Abriel Photo) |
As Ms. Gallant listens to your likes and dislikes, she’ll wow you with her encyclopedic knowledge of each artwork, the artist, his or her influences, and how the gallery came to acquire it. She can tell you where pretty much where all 248 works now on loan are on display, probably because she's installed them all herself.
“You get extraordinary insight into people’s personal taste,” says Ms. Gallant, who has worked at the gallery for more than 20 years. “And people know more than they think they do about art. And that’s not really that surprising considering we make aesthetic decisions all the time.”
She says the interesting part is seeing how people’s own stories—their background, travels, personal taste—intersect with an artwork.
“We have great conversations here,” she says, her open arms taking in the large abstracts that lean against the walls, the historical portraits that hang near the door and the shelves filled with framed artworks. “It’s a great opportunity for people to take time out of their day, have fun and look at art in a very personalized way.”
So, back to my decision. Will it be Lewis Smith’s painting of Nova Scotia coastline that looks Group of Sevenish with its broad, bold strokes and vibrant colour? Or an ink drawing of an olive grove by Carol Hoorn Fraser, an artist I’ve always admired? I’m going to have to sleep on it.
To take advantage of the Dalhousie Art Gallery’s loans-on-campus program, call Michele Gallant at 494-2889 or e-mail at Michele.gallant@dal.ca. Please note, there is an annual fee for the program to cover the cost of insurance and handling; fees vary depending on the value of the artwork.
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