Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art

Finally I will talk about our own dear museum right here on campus. It has been an exciting year for the FJJMA. They've had world-renowned exhibitions and opened an entirely new wing, which doubled their exhibition space. They also hired a pretty cool new intern. :) That would be me, of course.

One of the biggest considerations in updating the old wing of the museum was that the new design must make the space more visitor friendly and architecturally match the current eastern wing of the museum.

To achieve the visual aspect of this goal, the museum looked at many architects before choosing Rand Elliot. He is an Oklahoma native and has designed many other buildings in Oklahoma. He was offered a job with Phillip Johnson in New York, but he decided to stay here in Oklahoma, where his roots lie. He expressed in an interview that "I have red dirt in my veins.” So Elliot decided to stay here and build beautiful buildings in Oklahoma. He now owns his own design company in Oklahoma City called Elliot + Associates Architects.

Elliot chose to keep the architecture of this building simple. The outside if the building is made using a natural almost yellow stone and incorporates many windows. Inside, he used many natural materials. The current wing has a rough, dark, grey slate floor. The new wing uses a lot of dark woods, in the floors and the staircases. The handrails, for the main stairway, are hand carved and look rough-hewn but are smooth on your hands. The natural dark woods are a stark contrast to the all white walls of the new wing.  Another important design tactic that the architect used was to add a third floor to the museum. It is now three and a half floors tall, instead of just two. (The half is the photography gallery about the offices.)

On the bottom, top and photography gallery floors, all of the walls are moveable. This give the curator flexibility when he designs the layout of each show. He can exhibit the art in the space that it deserves. He can design the layout to guide each visitor a certain way through the art and help tell the exhibition's story.

But, more than anything else, this gallery is a tool that the museum can use to have larger traveling exhibitions and better exhibit its own permanent collection. One of the reasons that President Boren supported this addition to the museum was because of the donation of multiple collections of Native American art to the museum. The FJJMA now owns one of the largest collections of Native American art in the United States. When Eugene B. Adkins decided to sell his collection, there were bids from around the world. President Boren knew that this collection would be a huge boost for our museum so he began negotiations. Eventually, the FJJMA and Philbrooke Museum in Tulsa came together and bought the collection. They were not the highest birders, but Adkins decided it was best for his collection to stay in Oklahoma. Soon after the FJJMA also gained the Strickland and Bialac collections. Bringing the total number of Native American works to approximately 4,000.

Through all of this handwork, our little campus museum has become one of the best public university museums in the country. And not only that, our collections are known around the world. It's a pretty amazing little place, I hope you all learned a little something and will come visit someday. Who knows, maybe you'll even like it.