Kristen Bailey
Published: September 28, 2005
Composed of more than 400 varied pieces covering all possible art mediums, PJC’s art department has been formulating PJC’s Permanent Collection for more than 30 years.
“When I was hired in 1974, the charge was to create a professional art exhibition for the department and the college,” Allan Peterson, current director of the Visual Arts gallery said.
“We held annual series of changing exhibitions. They were national competitions. It was bringing art to Pensacola that have never been seen before. We bought four or five of those pieces,” Peterson said.
Professor of Art, Bill Clover recalls some pieces bought at these exhibitions, others being donated to the collection.
“Some have been donated by faculty, some are purchase prizes. Sometimes people that have owned pieces donate them back.”
Being distributed throughout private owner’s homes and faculty offices, the collection has rarely, if ever, been seen in the gallery all together.
“This is the first time we’ve ever shown the whole collection. This is the first time we’ve ever really been able to,” Peterson said.
Clover takes in the beauty of seeing all the pieces displayed together.
“I’ve been here for 40 years and I haven’t seen them in a long time. It’s great to see them again. You don’t usually see all of them.”
The collection, containing pieces owned by PJC for more than three decades, remind long time faculty members of the past.
“Some of (the artists) were students,” Peterson said.
Without a doubt, every piece has a past.
“When I go around the show I talk about the history. It’s like your history for various people. I remember some of the people who made them, some I was around when they were making them,” Clover said.
Diverse in its history, the collection is also very diverse in appearance.
“The collection repesents every medium you’ve ever heard of, even including some ethnic examples and medival manuscripts,” Peterson said
Professor Bill Clover encourages students to make an effort to view this compilation of PJC’s diversely artistic past.
“It’s only out ’till the middle of next month. It’s so diverse from every kind of art medium you can think of. It’s a wonderful show.”