In the absence of a permanent installation delineating between the folk art gallery and the fine and contemporary art galleries within the same museum, temporary delineations--such as murals--provide an important bridge for museumgoers. As visitors to the museum are asked to engage with both fine art and folk art exhibits and their respective lexicons, sets of meanings, and paradigms, curators are responsible to provide interpretive direction not only within the exhibit but between them. Building into exhibit design the interpretive materials, which can function as a step transition between folk art and fine art, enables visitors to more easily identify linkages and differences between folk and fine art, facilitating a more meaningful interaction with both. The installation of two contemporary art murals--drawing from tradition--during two recent folk arts exhibitions at the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University (www.castellaniartmuseum.org) served as a bridge between folk art, fine art, and the interpretive sets of meanings necessary for visitors to engage with them.

Building Blocks and Crafting Connections

Designing an exhibit is a lot like playing with blocks--figuring out how the many individual pieces of varying shapes, sizes, colors, and connections can be fit together to make one cohesive whole. For example, how an interpretive panel in one section connects to a fieldwork photo in another, to how the title of the exhibit relates to a displayed work. Every component of an exhibit must be both distinct from one another but also still circle back to the "big idea": the overarching message expressed through the exhibit's purpose and scope (Chambers 2009, 68; Serrell 2015, 8). As a curator, one of my main responsibilities in exhibit design or assembling the various blocks (to continue that analogy) is to equip visitors to the exhibit with an instruction manual: to provide a mixture of specialized and contextual information that enables them to have meaningful interactions with the displayed works.

Covering all of the interpretive elements of an exhibit from its written content to the overarching structure and layout, the instruction manual functions as a set of guidelines that educate rather than dictate. These guidelines prepare visitors with the meanings, lexicon, and paradigms necessary to interact with a work in an informed and approachable way, without declaring opinion of the work or being "preachy" (Serrell 2015, 117). Any interpretive component of an exhibit, whether textual, visual, or audial, conveys information about the works on display and how it all fits into wider sets of meanings. In essence, the instruction manual teaches visitors "how to look" (Hernandez 1987, 70) at folk art or fine art as an informed observer: that is, holistically and not in isolation.

Yet, as anyone who has ever had the pleasure to assemble "ready-to-assemble" furniture can attest, whether the instruction manual is vigorously hurled into the fireplace (sometimes, literally), followed as infallible doctrine, or somewhere between, can vary greatly from person to person. This is an acute challenge where folk arts and fine arts are displayed within the same museum, as the repertoires and interactions asked of visitors with each varies: though common to both, we hope for visitors to walk away at least with more from their experiences than the wall of an exhibit being "a nice shade of green." Where the similarities and differences are poorly articulated on the curatorial side, we run the risk of a visitor interacting with folk art as fine art, privileging the aesthetic expression of the individual while overlooking their role within their community and community tastes (or vice versa). A further challenge is added in needing to maintain internal cohesiveness and museum identity between folk arts and fine arts exhibits--lest the museum feel like two divergent spaces in one.

At the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University, one recent approach we experimented with to face this challenge has been to foreground visual interpretive elements, in the form of installing temporary, contemporary art murals rooted in the traditions featured in that specific exhibit. Narrative murals designed and installed by Erwin Printup, Jr., to accompany the Made of Thunder, Made of Glass II beadwork exhibit at the Castellani Art Museum in 2016, merged two traditional Haudenosaunee folk narratives and incorporated a breadth of traditional motifs used in beadwork. Calligraffiti murals installed by Muhammad Zahin Zaman, as part of the Appealing Words cross-community calligraphy exhibit in 2017, blended three forms of traditional calligraphy and graffiti into one new contemporary script. These murals functioned as a visual bridge between the interpretive elements found in the folk art and fine art galleries, facilitating a step transition for museumgoers between the two repertoires of meaning.

Exhibit Interpretation: A Visitor's Manual (Not Doctrine!)

All of the interpretive elements that are curated in an exhibit do more than communicate ideas or information: they also identify and direct the viewer toward linkages between them. For example, a sentence on a panel describing the relationship between the edge--shape of a qalam (reed pen) and the ability to transition quickly between wide and narrow strokes in the Arabic Calligraphy section of the Appealing Words exhibit also, more generally, tells the reader that the shape of the writing implement influences the design of what is written. So, even if a visitor reads only this one section and one panel, it plants a seed of information applicable to all of the other calligraphy traditions in the exhibit. In another example, fieldwork photographs of paint being sprinkled onto water starting an ebru (Turkish paper marbling) work shows not only that specific technique but also guides the viewer to reflect on the sequence of techniques that led to the finished work on display.

This model stands in contrast to the "whatever interpretation" constructivist approach in museum interpretation that Cheryl Meszaros identifies (Meszaros 2006, 12), in that although visitors are not necessarily expected to make use of the provided interpretive materials and/or make the same connections in the same way that I might, as the curator developing the exhibit, they are expected to "move about" within a specific repertoire of meaning conveyed by the curator. This encourages self-reflection on the visitor's part of how they construct meaning when interacting with displayed works (Meszaros 2006, 168), in effectively setting parameters or boundaries of conclusions while also acknowledging the curator as not having the only authoritative interpretive opinion (Chambers 2009, 75).

The type and tone of interpretive information, which curators provide for fine art and for folk art to museumgoers, differs in perspective in one key way. The instruction manual accompanying fine and contemporary artworks encourage visitors to have a meaningful interaction with the visuals of the work, firstly, and secondly, the meanings or situations (where provided) that led to it. The use of limited information labels (containing perhaps nothing more than the name, year, and title of work) minimizes "noise" so as to not affect a viewer's visceral interaction with a work. This perspective extends through to when contextual information is included, such as an artist biography or description of the meanings expressed in the work: the end focus is still on how those experiences resonate through the visuals of the work. In other words, the fine art instruction manual points to the world of meanings seen.

The instruction manual for folk art, on the other hand, encourages visitors to interact with the meanings (and situations) leading up to and revolving around the works, firstly, and secondly, how the displayed work itself looks. For example, labels for a set of beaded picture frames by Bryan Printup in Made of Thunder, Made of Glass II, which featured blue jays and cardinals, focused equally on community folk belief about them, Bryan's relationship to that knowledge, and on how that influences why they were included by him. If working from the visual foregrounding of the piece--and with limited context--visitors would be unable to draw a connection between the sets of meanings (community and personal preference), which led to their creation on the picture frame. In other words, the folk art instruction manual points to worlds of meanings seen and unseen.

In partial contrast to Jo Farb Hernandez's conclusion "... that distinctions between folk art and fine art should be eliminated whenever possible... and doing away with the need to explain what "folk art" is doing in a "fine art" museum" (Hernandez 1987, 74), commonalities between folk art and fine art should be deconstructed and articulated as a transitioning point, leading to their differences. The elimination of distinctions between folk art and fine art--both the specific works and in the instruction manuals--should not be the finishing line but the starting point to explore those differences, why they matter, and how they complement one another.

For example, the relationship between a folk artist to community issues is similar but distinct from a contemporary artist's reactions to the same community issues. The former operates within a shared repertoire of technique, form, and function to react to those issues, and the contemporary artist forges new connections, expressions, or alterations of tradition in reacting to shared issues. This articulation is important in educating visitors on the divergent ways that similar meanings and experiences can be expressed: removing them would detach the bonds that link artist, meaning, and the circumstances leading to the created work, resulting in further--not less--objectification. Highlighting their links and distinctions better prepares visitors for interacting not only with the fine and folk artworks on display, but also "welcoming" them into the values of the museum in including both (Meszaros 2008, 166). The use of contemporary art murals rooted in tradition within the folk art exhibitions did precisely that: simultaneously deconstructing and articulating similarities and differences between fine art, folk art, and their repertoires of meaning.

Reading Pictures: Narrative Murals

In the spring of 2013, the Castellani hosted Gerry Biron's Made of Thunder, Made of Glass II exhibit, which brought together historic and contemporary beadwork from Haudenosaunee and Wabanaki communities, and paired them with contemporary portraits of featured beadworkers by Gerry Biron. Drawing on the historic beadwork collection of Gerry Biron and Grant Wade Jonathan (Tuscarora), contemporary beadwork, and painted portraits of featured beadworkers, Made of Thunder, Made of Glass II involved both fine art and folk art through its exhibit materials.

As part of the exhibit's installation at the Castellani, we partnered with Erwin Printup, Jr., a Cayuga/Tuscarora illustrator, to design and install temporary murals for the exhibit: an idea born out of brainstorming sessions with Gerry Biron, Grant Wade Jonathan, Bryan Printup, and Erwin. The themes of Erwin's illustrations--for example, in Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message--often draw on traditional Haudenosaunee narratives and motifs. Erwin had also previously been involved with the Castellani Art Museum, featured in an exhibit of Native American illustrators at the Castellani in 2008, entitled Many Winters Ago. Aside from his works as an individual artist, Erwin had a unique connection to the Made of Thunder, Made of Glass II exhibit: his mother, sister, and niece were all beadworkers featured in the exhibit.

Initially, a few design ideas were tossed around--from the layout of the pedestals in the shape of a turtle to referencing the Great Turtle from the Haudenosaunee creation myth through to the hanging of beaded birds from the ceiling--but logistical or design concerns intervened. Difficulties in settling on the design were rooted in concerns of suitability (and objectification)--if the physical space of the gallery was going to be altered in a meaningful way, the design and its meanings needed to fit purposefully and clearly into the exhibit. The murals needed to both be distinct from the exhibit to maintain its role as a transition for visitors into the exhibit from their preceding space and also be clearly interwoven, so as not to be mistaken by visitors as an "ambience only" installation (Serrell 2015, 167). Ultimately, the design and installation of the temporary murals were left up to Erwin, who designed three murals, installed over a period of two weeks, using a mix of vinyl and black electrical tape.

The three murals were spread throughout the gallery: one large mural in the main entryway, one in the secondary entryway, and one large central mural at the other end of the gallery. Each of the entryway murals featured a variety of traditional motifs commonly found on beadwork, from sky domes to flowers to fiddlehead ferns, creating a direct visual bridge to the designs visitors would expect to find on the beadwork featured in the exhibit. The designs used in the "Welcome Mural," as Erwin called it, were intended specifically for this purpose: to immerse visitors in Haudenosaunee culture through exposure and grounding in a shared visual repertoire. For visitors to the exhibit who were already familiar with those motifs and were members of the Haudenosaunee community, the three murals provided more than a visual refresher, as together they told two Haudenosaunee folk narratives: The Creation Story and the Grapevine Legend.

Written descriptions for the murals were developed in collaboration with Erwin, who had learned the narratives from a storyteller in his community--the text was not installed next to the murals but included in the exhibit catalog only. On one level, this enabled the visual qualities of the murals to be foregrounded and maintain the function of the mural in being a bridge between the folk art and fine art instruction manuals for the visitor through focusing on visual repertoire. On another level, codifying this space by communicating a specific, insider message helped to carve out and articulate the exhibit gallery space itself as being for community insiders.

The following descriptions are taken from the Made of Thunder, Made of Glass II exhibit catalog:

Creation Story (Welcome Mural)

Three semi-circles form a sky-dome design, each depicting the sky-world
that encompasses all of creation and its inhabitants. Sky woman, whose
fall through a hole in the sky-world led to the peopling and creation
of Turtle Island (North America), is represented as a flower in full
bloom. The flower roots emerge and bridge the sky-world with creation,
speaking to the roots of tradition in past, present, and future
peoples. The seven circles which unite and support the earth holding
the flower draw from the Great Law of the Haudenosaunee, encouraging
visitors to reflect and be mindful of how their actions would impact
seven generations.

Grapevine Legend (Welcome Mural)

The grapevine legend, depicted by the two figures united by the
yet-unbroken vine over a raging river current, evokes the traditional
story of the separation of the Tuscarora from the other Five Nations of
the Iroquois. Geometric designs underneath the scene draw on early
patterns on Iroquois pottery to represent a shared foundation in Mother
Earth.

Double Scroll and Fiddlehead Fern (Welcome Mural, alternate)

This entryway design merges the flowing river currents of the Grapevine
mural, with the double curve or double scroll design of the fiddlehead
fern, found throughout the beadwork of the Northeastern Woodland
nations. It reminds us of the common experiences and connection to
nature, and the diverse meanings drawn from them.

Great Turtle Mural

The Great Turtle mural concludes the Sky woman creation story in the
Welcome Mural, providing the final rest and respite from her descent
through the sky domes. On its back, the Hiawatha design represents a
global message of unity and peace in the model of the Haudenosaunee,
throughout Turtle Island (North America) and Mother Earth.

These written descriptions were written in a way to directly connect the visuals of the murals with the narrative knowledge they represent. Rather than summarizing or retelling the entire Creation Story or the Grapevine Legend and then pointing readers to where it is represented visually in the murals, this writing approach focused on using the visuals of the murals to retell that specific portion of the narrative. Although this resulted in a fragmented presentation of both narratives, it helped visitors to the exhibit to think directly about the relationship between image, meaning, and the shared repertoire of knowledge necessary to understand them--as they moved to engage with the beadwork in the rest of the exhibit.

Seeing Words: Calligraffiti Murals

In fall 2017, we curated an exhibit at the Castellani entitled Appealing Words: Calligraphy Traditions in Western New York, which brought together four different types of traditional calligraphy--Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, and Chinese--medieval manuscripts from the collection and two contemporary interpretations of traditional calligraphy. In bringing together numerous calligraphy traditions into one exhibit, Appealing Words provided a comprehensive introduction to traditional calligraphy practiced locally, and through its development, connected those calligraphers with one another.

The works of Rosemary Lyons, a Buffalo-based contemporary illuminator and calligrapher, and Muhammad Zahin Zaman, a Buffalo-based calligraffiti artist, formed an integral part of the exhibit's interpretive plan. In situating their works in relation to the traditional works in the exhibit, their accompanying interpretive materials provided a crucial resource in articulating why their works are contemporary art drawing from tradition, rather than a tradition in contemporary practice: for instance, the act of giving traditional forms new purpose, context, and content. However, interpretive materials also drew connections between folk art's community dynamic and their own work's relationship to their communities and associated social justice movements.

Muhammad Zahin Zaman's experience with calligraphy began by learning traditional Arabic calligraphy from another local calligrapher, but he felt restricted by the breadth of rules. He instead began to explore calligraffiti: a more free-form interpretation of Arabic calligraphy, which has recently been spreading throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Calligraffiti alters the traditional script with a more open and free-flowing approach, merging it with graffiti aesthetics and techniques--in addition to providing new context in being public, in outdoor installations. After meeting eL Seed during his Coney Island installation, Muhammad began work on developing his own calligraffiti script and approach, eventually developing his own typography tied into his personal identity as a Bangladeshi American: fusing the Arabic, Bengali, and English scripts into one new script. As part of his calligraffiti installation, Muhammad installed two large murals in his section on the far side of the exhibit gallery.

The two murals installed in the exhibit were directly integrated into both his own section of the exhibit and the wider theme. A large, nearly floor-to-ceiling circular installation of a quote attributed to Jalaluddin Rumi, a 13th-century Sufi mystic and poet, reading: "Love will come through all languages on its own," tied together the cross-community structure of the calligraphy exhibit. Accompanying the circle, geometric lines and triangles spray painted onto the wall were installed by Muhammad to create an aesthetic balance to the ringed quote. On the neighboring wall, two large nuqta--brush stroke "dots" commonly used for measuring and ornamentation in Arabic calligraphy--accompanied by a contemporary alteration: a paint-drip flowing from the bottom dot. Beneath the nuqta, Muhammad wrote Peace and Salam twice: once in English in his own typography and once in Arabic in a free-flowing script.

His other works in the exhibit, consisting of two works on canvas and three planks, featured messages relating to issues reflecting personal experiences of community identity. The series of three separate wooden panels, entitled My Country, My Home, featured the phrase written repeatedly using red, white, and blue hues: made in the wake of growing Islamophobia in the country and the impact it has had on his identity as a Muslim American. Their installation as neighboring but separate planks also helped to communicate this feeling of division--inviting viewers to imagine what the three would look if made whole. The two works on canvas bore cross-community messages in picking up themes of love, devotion, and humility common to all of the major religions, with the colors on each canvas rooted in the elements mentioned in their message: blue for As the water covers the sea, your love covers me and an earthy brown for I am from the dirt, and I will go back to the dirt. These works were installed over the murals, with the letters flowing from the wall, to the canvas and planks, and back onto the wall, creating a three-dimensional installation.

The placement of Muhammad's calligraffiti next to the traditional Arabic calligraphy works by helping to provide a visual bridge with Arabic calligraphy in both aesthetics and meanings. Although the vast majority of Muhammad's works are written in English in his own blended typography, Muhammad uses the same flat-angle brush (or pen) used in Arabic calligraphy, maintaining the same signature movement between wide and narrow strokes. On many of his works, Muhammad writes the same phrase over and over and over again, creating a layering cascade of words and letters: a way of writing through the issues or emotions that he is feeling at the time. This use of calligraphy as meditation and reflection through repetition of impactful phrases was shared by the Arabic calligrapher in the exhibit, Amjad Aref. Amjad mentioned in an interview that through his daily reading of the Quran, he might come across a particular sura that resonates with him at that time, and in order to commit it to memory and reflect on it further, he would write it out in calligraphy.

Convergences and divergences between the traditional Arabic calligraphy in the exhibit and Muhammad's calligraffiti were articulated in the interpretive materials on three levels: through visuals, text, and audio recordings. Visually, visitors were asked to draw direct connections and differences between calligraffiti and Arabic calligraphy through the placement of the murals and works side-by-side. Through written label and panel descriptions of calligraffiti and Arabic calligraphy, visitors read about the applications of both forms of art--and where they might be encountered. Finally, through the audio vignettes in the exhibit, visitors could hear Muhammad articulate and identify similarities and differences between his calligraffiti work and traditional Arabic calligraphy--and also an overview of traditional Arabic calligraphy by Amjad. By appealing to these three levels of engagement in a variety of forms and starting from the shared visual engagement of the fine art interpretive materials--just as in the beadwork exhibit--visitors were eased into and provided with the tools necessary to navigate the folk art works and meanings in the exhibit.

Casting a Wide Net: Reflections on Interpretive Material Design

In the Made of Thunder, Made of Glass II beadwork exhibit and the Appealing Words calligraphy exhibit, the installation of contemporary art murals, drawing from traditional art, was featured as a bridge for visitors between folk art, fine art, and the interpretive materials provided in each exhibit. Instead of throwing visitors into the deep end and barraging them at once with new ways of meanings alongside the new works themselves, the murals helped visitors test the waters by tapping into a common level of engagement--visual--to lead them into new sets of meanings. Foregrounding the visual elements of the instruction manual acknowledges that the sights, which visitors see, are interpretive materials in themselves, informing and influencing how subsequent works are experienced. By decentralizing and dispersing the meaning-making opportunities of the instruction manual between different categories, visitors are taught that the conclusions and meanings will be at the confluence of those disparate pieces--rather than found wholly in one.

This approach to casting a wide net of interpretive materials and multiple points of engagement for visitors to interact with ensures that at least some degree of contextual information is being communicated to visitors, even if they were to idly saunter past with no more than a passing glance. Just because text is written on a panel does not mean that it will be read; nor does the inclusion of fieldwork photos mean they will be paid attention; nor will providing audio vignettes mean they will be listened to. If all three categories of text, visual, and audio interpretive materials are included in various ways, however, there is a good chance that one might stick, pulling them into the wider net of holistic exhibit experience.

Bibliography

Aref, Amjad. 2017. Interview by author, March 4.

Biron, Gerry, Grant Wade Jonathan, Rhonda Besaw, and Edward Millar. 2016. Made of Thunder, Made of Glass II: Continuing Traditions in Northeastern Indian Beadwork, exhibition catalog, Castellani Art Museum, Niagara University, NY.

Chambers, Marlene. 2009. "Sometimes More is Too Much." Curator: The Museum Journal 52 (1): 67-76.

Hernandez, Jo Farb. 1987. "Folklife and the Rise of American Folk Museums." In Folklife and Museums: Selected Readings, edited by Patricia Hall and Charlie Seemann, 67-75. Nashville: The American Association for State and Local History.

Meszaros, Cheryl. 2006. "Now THAT is Evidence: Tracking Down the Evil "Whatever" Interpretation." Visitor Studies Today 9 (3): 10-15.

Meszaros, Cheryl. 2008. "Modeling Ethical Thinking: Toward New Interpretive Practices in the Art Museum." Curator: The Museum Journal 51 (2): 157-70.

Millar, Edward. 2017. Appealing Words: Calligraphy Traditions in Western New York, exhibition catalog, Castellani Art Museum, Niagara University, NY.

Printup, Bryan. 2015. Interview by author, November 9.

Printup, Jr., Erwin. 2016. Interview by author, February 11.

Serrell, Beverly. 2015. Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach, 2nd ed. London: Rowman and Littlefield.

Zaman, Muhammad Zahin. 2017. Interview by author, February 25.

BY EDWARD Y. MILLAR

Edward Yong Jun Millar is the Curator of Folk Arts at the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University and an Adjunct Faculty in Niagara University's Art History with Museum Studies program. Ed graduated from Seton Hall University in 2012 through the Honors Program curriculum, with a BA in Anthropology. Ed received his MA in Folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 2014, with interests in occupational folklife, folk arts, public folklore, folklore in literature, ballads, folklore and popular culture, game design, and foodways. Since joining the Castellani in July 2015, Ed has curated a host of folk arts exhibitions and programs, with a particular focus on connecting similar traditions and practitioners across multiple communities. Most recently, Strung Together: Zither Encounters, was a music program in June 2018, which mixed performance and presentation, in a roundtable format developed by the three local musicians featured, who each play a type of zither: Recep Ornek, a kanun player from the Turkish community; Eva Pan Pin, a guqin player from the Chinese community; and Julie Dulanski, a hammered dulcimer player from the Western New York community. Photo of the author by Kiyomi Millar.