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Neuberger Museum of Art

backstory: Working Across

Last week, the museum presented a conversation among the Mayhew family. Richard, the father, is a well-known artist and educator. Daughter Ina, a production designer for featured films and television, and son Scott, a creative director and graphic designer, both went to Purchase. Our own Curator of Education Diana Puglisi moderated.

One of the most striking things to me about the conversation was the ways in which Ina and Scott pointed to the burgeoning of their ways of thinking about interdisciplinarity at Purchase, or what I sometimes have referred to in my writing as the promise of Purchase. It’s something extraordinary that I’ve heard time and time again. Artist Fred Wilson, in particular, told me the story of how at Purchase there was no such thing as performance art study but the conceptual frame for the College allowed him to just figure it out, to work with the artists, the dancers, the actors, and make what he wanted, intuitively. This is still what is, to me, most special about Purchase—the allowance for, and fostering of, intuitive study and experimentation in interdisciplinary ways.

Tracy Fitzpatrick
Director, Neuberger Museum of Art
Interim Managing Director, The Performing Arts Center

Find me on Twitter @tracyfitzart

P.S.  In Conversation: The Mayhew Family is part of the Daniel P. Paduano and Janet W. Prindle Lecture Series. Watch this and other In Conversation videos in our archive.