Meet your colleagues in museums around New England! It’s often too easy for colleagues to feel isolated in their own institutions—we hope this feature will help close the gap. We also hope that it reinforces your own joy in your work and encourages you to recognize your own positive impacts.
Jan Crocker is currently the exhibits manager for the Heritage Museums and Gardens, which includes three museums on 100 acres in Sandwich on Cape Cod, MA. She has worked in numerous roles in museums and as a museum consultant, and serves on the board of NAME (National Association of Museum Exhibition.) Jan is also currently volunteering as one of NEMA’s Exhibits PAG chairs.
How did you get into the museum field, and what was your path to where you are now?
That’s actually a long answer! I started right out of college; the New England Fire & History Museum was opening down the street and I walked down and asked for a job. The museum was headed up by a husband and wife pair who’d just graduated from the Cooperstown museum program, so they had a very professional approach. It was a great learning experience, working with objects and helping with exhibit set-up, but it was only seasonal. I also had been one of the first kids in the birding and tidal pool classes at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History when it started. You could say I grew up in museums, so when I moved to Boston I looked for a job in a museum. There was an opening at the Museum of Science, it was a good fit. I took the job and it just kept on growing, from administrative assistant to the Vice President of Exhibits, to coordinating, managing, and making exhibits, on to managing the creative project teams who designed and developed exhibits. Working my way through the ranks was a fantastic learning ground for every aspect of museum work. Then 2008 brought a shift in museum finances and forced me to explore new opportunities, at deCordova, Historic New England, and elsewhere, as a tour guide and as a guard. It really gave me a new understanding of museums from ‘the user end’. Getting immediate visitor feedback on a tour is one you never get making exhibits. Now I’m at the Heritage Museum as exhibits manager, so I’ve gone from managing creative people to getting to be creative myself, which is proving to be quite fascinating and addictive.
Since you say you grew up in museums, do you have any particular early or influential museum memory to share?
That’s a good question, but a tough one. There’s no magic moment that comes to mind, more a compilation, a sense of feeling comfortable and at home in museums, that they were always there as a place to learn, and as a resource. I do remember the classes at Cape Cod Natural History, especially going birding with the famous John Hay, who was a widely respected educator, and who founded the museum, back when it was just in Brewster’s town hall. It was an introduction to natural history, certainly, but also to a way of learning; I think he was memorable as an educator because of his passion. He was the sort of guy who continued learning, so he was good at instilling the desire to learn. Some things really stuck: “They’re not sea gulls, they’re herring gulls!” My best friend and I still quote him whenever we see a herring gull! It was inspiring in a way that school never was for me. That’s why I think what informal science education can do and how it has influenced museum education is vitally important. A lot of my coworkers at the Museum of Science were the same; they knew what the magic of the museum can do from the inside, because they’d experienced it too.
What can you tell us about your current projects?
One of the projects I oversee is a yearly project in the landscape and gardens, working with artists to create site-specific installations. Heritage Museums & Gardens is a really different kind of museum from other places I’ve worked, but I do have an arts background—dance and design, in fact—so I’m comfortable working with artists as well as thinking about the endless possibilities in large open spaces. I didn’t have much opportunity to use that in other roles, though I’d drag it in wherever I could! I’ve really enjoyed growing the program here, coming up with new themes each year. There’s a kind of trick to inspiring artists to create for a theme. Sometimes what I visualize the designs to be happens without me specifically describing what I’ve imagines. Then there are times when the artists go beyond anything I would have imagined. It’s a kind of magic that I feel so grateful to be a part of. This year, the theme was ‘Secret Shelters,’ with a call for one-person shelters for contemplation of the landscape. One of my favorites was made of a wood milling by-product, and it wrapped around a tree, facing inward, so that when you sat inside, you were left looking really closely at the fabulous tulip tree bark. Next year will be all about fibers and textures, inviting people to use fibers or fabrics to connect elements of the landscape, or to highlight a specific feature, and the following year is on landforms—I can’t wait to see what they come up with to enhance the grounds, the woods, and the kettle holes. I am always intrigued to see how the designs change the way we look at what is right in front of us, and I love the open-ended-ness of the project. Of course, sometimes I worry “Will anybody apply?” But then they do, and it’s so rewarding. Other than outdoor art, I make exhibits to create exhibits about cars. Between Heritage and consulting work I think this coming year will be my seventh lifetime exhibit on cars! I would have thought I would be the least likely person to become somewhat of a car exhibit expert yet here I am determined to find new ways to think about the history of automobiles!
What is on your museum bucket list (things to do, place to visit)?
I’d really like to go visit Storm King and Grounds for Sculpture since I love my work with contemporary artists doing outdoor art installations at Heritage. That may not be what you’d expect, but I’m fascinated!
If I could find a way, I would do more public art, too, that gets people participating as community developers and where the visual experience stimulates passerby. There are so many projects where with just a little tweaking; you can get that participation, by moving art to unexpected locations. The more I work making outdoor experiences the more I want to incorporate the element of surprise.