6 days Ago
The typically pristine floors of the Columbia Museum of Art are now covered in sawdust. It hangs in the air and coats shoes. The walls are plainer than usual.
Many of the ceilings boast holes. It's a toss-up whether light bulbs will be lit. But behind the tarps and construction barriers, many changes are happening.
Executive Director Della Watkins said they will make visitors' experience better than ever. The museum has been open at its location on Main Street since 1998 after moving from the Taylor House on the corner of Bull and Senate streets. The space used to be a Macy's department store and has benefits like extensive gallery and storage space, and steel beams strong enough to hold large artworks.
But it also comes with multiple setbacks that are often associated with a building renovated over 25 years ago. The walls were riddled with holes to the point that staffers were putting nails back in old nail holes, Watkins said. The walls' finish easily showed bumps or scratches, and they varied drastically in the amount of weight they could hold, meaning curators often had to shape their exhibits around the the walls' ability to support art.
Executive Director Della Watkins speaks to a group on a Hard Hat Tour of the Columbia Museum of Art on April 3, 2025. Plus, the light system, which spurred the museum's latest $2.9 million renovation project, has aged to the point that replacement parts are hard to find.
Watkins said she asked her employees for their wish list to make the museum better: hang art from any wall, hang work from the ceiling, clean up the ceiling and fix the lighting. The result is an overhaul and improvement of the building over a monthslong closure and renovation. During a behind-the-scenes "Hard Hat" tour of the museum, Watkins said each work of art that enters the museum has a specific light requirement to ensure it stays in the best condition.
For example, items that feature markers or pastels on paper need much less light than other art. A lights "graveyard" sits on a shelf in a storage area of the Columbia Museum of Art. The old lights will be replaced as a part of a $2.
9 million renovation of the space. But with the old lights, creating that perfect condition meant completing a process that became increasingly tedious over the years, Wakins said. The lights were big and bulky.
So old that the bowl and bulb no longer had an official replacement. Staff members were jerry-rigging light bulbs from Walmart to fit, Watkins said, but the household lights were too bright for many pieces. This meant staff members manually reduced the brightness by layering pieces of cut window screens over lights on every museum floor.
"So the problem we have is, if you have a little drawing right here, but a big, beautiful sculpture over here — this needs bright light and this needs no light," Watkins said. "So we were doing this manually." The new lights are smaller, lighter and have a nervous system that can be accessed from an iPad.
"If I want to have it divided, flood, wash, 20-percent, floodlight, spotlight, no matter what, we just pull the accessory off and the accessory just clicks in, boom, you got it," Watkins said. And staff will be able to adjust brightness, tone and depth to "get it just right." Executive Director Della Watkins shows a tour group how staff members layered window screen over household lights to reduce the amount of light shining on sensitive pieces of art.
Watkins hosts a monthly Hard Hat Tour of the museum while it is under construction. Watkins said this will help the museum achieve what curators strive for: natural light. They can also provide options for red, pink or whatever color light a guest might want during an event.
But most importantly, the lights will keep the art in the best conditions possible. "We consider the visitor and the art, how the visitor is going to interact with this light? You know, we don't want lights in your eyes, and we don't want shadows. And so all that's for the visitor experience," Watkins said.
"But first and foremost, it's the safety of the art." While the museum is being renovated, its more than 7,000 pieces of art are being stored. Watkins said only about 400 of these pieces will be able to be put back on the walls.
"That's like in your dress closet, going, 'I got all these, and I can wear four,'" Watkins said. To help, curators have made tiny paper cutouts of every piece of art owned by the museum — each sized to scale. Then, they went to work arranging them in their own miniature model of the building.
Executive Director Della Watkins shows a 3D replica of the Columbia Museum of Art's Sam Gilliam exhibit opening which will open on May 24, 2025. While the museum's displays are updated about every five years, Watkins said this renovation is an especially "big moment" after delays due to the pandemic. Before the renovations, the galleries were organized based on individual themes, but when they reopen, they will be based on the museum's four collecting areas: European, Asian, American and modern and contemporary art.
"So it's going to be a little bit of yesterday and today, by culture," Watkins said. She said the reorganization aims to create moments that tell "a big old beautiful story." "When we put things side-by-side, for our tour guides and our visitors, we want these to have a relationship," Watkins said.
"Like we say, 'Every one piece should tell a story to two other pieces,' so that it's in conversation." Renovations to the building started in mid-January, and the first phase will be completed by May 24. The ground floor gallery space will be reopened, featuring work by American abstract painter and printmaker Sam Gilliam .
Work by American pop artist and activist Keith Haring will follow shortly after in the fall. Executive Director Della Watkins explains updates being made to the Columbia Museum of Art's ceiling during a Hard Hat Tour on April 3, 2025. “So I actually have something called a ceiling inspector, so I have the sexiest ceilings in town," Watkins said.
"And in about two months, no one's going to know it, because it's all being tidied up” The full museum will officially open all its floors with a grand reopening currently planned for Jan. 16, 2026. Watkins plans to continue giving hard hat tours throughout the process, though they will adapt as the renovations progress.
While patrons are anxious to see the Columbia Museum of Art's doors open again, Watkins said people have been patient with an end date in mind, and Watkins is looking forward to reopening the museum "for our state." "I want people to feel welcome here and excited about being here," Watkins said. "We always say it's your museum.
It's not ours. If nobody came, it wouldn't be much of a museum. So we always say it's your museum.
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