This semester’s sculpture class has had the absolute pleasure of meeting Debbie Kuo, a Marywood Alumni with a BA in Art History, English, and Business Administration, and current curator for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She was a former student of our professor, Stephen Colley, and still works with 3D material. She is also currently participating in the MET’s staff artist gallery.
On November 1st the Art Department went on a trip to the MET and our class not only got to meet Debbie but she gave us a guided tour, shared a great deal of information, and had lunch with us where we had quite a great talk with her. We got to see her favorites of the Greek and Roman section and she showed us little details like how certain pieces were fixed or how the stands were made for certain pieces. It was an absolutely wonderful look into the behind-the-scenes of the museum and the different aspects of being a curator.
She was so kind and really excited to meet all of us and we all had such a wonderful time with her. Getting to pick her brain about different things was really wonderful for us all! After being there for a bit, we went to the museum’s cafeteria and got lunch. We all sat together and had a great time talking about a bunch of different things. We talked about her career, our majors/future careers, our sculpture exhibition happening next week, and all that was going on at Marywood. We all got to share our experiences at Marywood and what we had going on both good and bad. She not only listened to us but offered such wonderful kindness and advice. It was such a wonderful time and we continued to talk about it after we had left her for the day.
The following Friday Debbie came to Marywood for the President’s inauguration and we were able to get together with her again and then got to show her our sculpture exhibition that had opened the day before. We went to lunch in Naz where we had yet another amazing talk and got to know more about her experience as a student at Marywood. I know I definitely could have kept talking with her all day and I’m sure the rest of the class could as well. After lunch when we showed her our sculpture exhibition and she was so kind and very complimentary towards our art which definitely made us all feel incredible. I don’t get to show my work often and when I do get to there are not really any professionals looking at it and giving feedback. It was so new and wonderful to have her looking at our stuff and talking with us about it in such a professional manner. It was especially wonderful because we fully set up the gallery, making the name tags/price book, deciding the placement of pieces, and setting up the lights so it was really validating for her to see it and be so wowed by it. I know we all worked really hard to try to make it look as professional as possible and I definitely let my OCD take over just a bit so this was such a rewarding and validating experience.
Now I absolutely have to share the fact that at the MET they are hosting a gallery of the staff’s works and she has some absolutely amazing work on display and I have to encourage everyone to go see it. During our trip to the MET she shared how she makes a lot of jewelry and has even sold a lot of jewelry in the past, in this gallery she will have some of her absolutely stunning jewelry on display. The gallery is already open and will be on display until December 1st. Debbie was so amazingly kind to come to our show and I would love it to be able to make people aware of hers.
Debbie, I have to say thank you so much for being so kind to us and allowing us to create this absolutely wonderful connection with you! Every interaction with you has been so incredible I cannot express how appreciative myself and the rest of the sculpture class is, Thank You!
~Sincerely,
Madison Kelly