New curator discovering treasures at Cedar Rapids Museum of Art

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art has a new storyteller on staff, and Julia Jessen can’t wait to bring the tales out of storage and into the light — the controlled light, of course, inside the museum.

But first, she needs to continue wandering the racks and opening the drawers and flat files to discover just what lies in wait among more than 8,000 pieces in the museum’s permanent collection.

Jessen, 31, of Coralville, joined the museum staff July 10 as the curator of collections and exhibitions. Her predecessor, Katherine Kunau, stepped down June 30 before moving to St. Louis, where her husband is embarking on a surgical fellowship while she stays home with their infant daughter.

One month into her new job, Jessen is immersing herself in the collection and finding surprises. That plays right into the first exhibition she’s designing for the museum: “Surprise! The New Curator’s Surprise Finds in the Collection,” on view Oct. 7 to Jan. 21.

The theme was planned before she arrived, to help her get acquainted with the collection. And she’s glad.

“I've had to immerse myself very quickly, which is good,” she said. “I think it should be a really exciting show, and I hope that it gives us a sense of a little bit of the breadth and depth of the collection. And I hope it's surprising for everyone — even those who have been here again and again and again. I hope they also find something unexpected.”

One of those surprises was finding a work by Mary GrandPre, who illustrated the “Harry Potter” books.

“I was totally not expecting that to be in the collection,” Jessen said, “and so to come across that was really exciting.”

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Curator’s background

Storytelling is near and dear to her heart, rolling through her educational and work experiences, including internships in Iowa, New York and Minneapolis, and her most recent position as registrar at the Museum of Danish America in Shelby County’s Elk Horn.

A native of Joice in north-central Iowa, Jessen graduated from the University of Iowa in 2014, with bachelor of arts degrees in art history, studio arts and journalism and mass communication. She also received a Museum Studies Certificate from the UI that year. She then joined the UI Museum of Art’s education department for three years, before leaving for New York’s Syracuse University, where she earned master of arts degrees in art history and museum studies in 2020.

Her new position envelops all of those disciplines and experiences.

“They all relate to storytelling and being able to communicate something,” she said, “and I think that's what we do as curators — we're telling stories through the artworks that we put on display and communicating something to our visitors. I think having some of that journalism background has helped with that. And of course, just with art history, the knowledge to be able to interpret and then communicate that to an audience.”

New communities

She couldn’t resist the lure of the city and the museum for this new phase of her storytelling journey.

“Cedar Rapids — and this area — is a really vibrant community,” she said. “There are so many people who are interested and engaged with the arts, and there's a thriving local artists community as well. So that was one thing that excited me about this institution.

“And then of course, there's the collection here, which is just a world-class collection, I would say. There are the ones that everybody knows about in the collection, like Grant Wood especially, but Marvin Cone as well.”

Standing in the room where Wood painted “American Gothic” — in the upper level studio and living quarters known as 5 Turner Alley — was another thrilling discovery for her.

“It's hard to even describe it, put it into words, but it feels very special,” she said. “To be there and to be in that same space that he was makes you also feel connected to him perhaps in a way, and makes him feel more like a real person that you can almost relate to in one way or another.”

She was surprised to see so many other famous names in the museum’s holdings.

“Artists that people wouldn't know are in the collection,” she said. But so are famous icons like Andy Warhol, Albrecht Durer, Salvador Dali and Henri Matisse.

“And so I was really excited about the chance to get to work with this collection, and be able to tell new stories that perhaps we haven't been telling already, using the collection,” she said, “and delving in and learning more, as well.”

She also is enjoying the warm embrace of her new colleagues.

“The staff here is so wonderful,” she said “and has been really welcoming and helping me find my footing. I'm glad to be part of the team here.”

She’s looking forward to meeting the area artists and collectors, too.

“I want to make sure that I'm meeting everyone and getting to know them,” she said, “and having them know me, as well.”

As for her own art, she enjoyed the jewelry and metal art aspects of her studio arts studies, but these days she considers herself more “crafty.”

“I do really enjoy a lot of different artistic hobbies. I've done sewing and knitting and crocheting. I enjoy collage and things like that, but I wouldn't say that I am superskilled in any of those,” she said. “I enjoy them as a way to relax and un-focus for a minute, focus on something else, and get out of my head a little bit.”

At work, she’s focusing on the immediate needs of her new job — “things that need to be done sooner rather than later,” she said.

Paramount to that is making sure “this institution can be viewed as the asset that it is for the community,” she said, “and that the community can feel that they are welcomed and wanted here, as well, and really take advantage of what we have to offer them and what we hold in trust for them as the public.

“That's one of my really broad and amorphous goals right now, and I hope that's already there somewhat. But I'd love to see more of that.”

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com