Dialogue with the Director Archives Dialogue with the Director

Director Saralyn Reece Hardy speaks with Dave and Gunda Hiebert.

Dave & Gunda Hiebert
September | October 2005

Volunteers are the lifeblood of museums. The Spencer relies on a multi-talented ensemble of volunteers for its day-to-day operation, from help in cataloguing the collection to tour guides in the docent program. These special friends of the museum bring positive energy, diverse abilities, infectious enthusiasm, and interesting ideas to their labors of love. Recently, Saralyn Reece Hardy talked with Dave and Gunda Hiebert, a Lawrence couple whose commitment to the Spencer exemplifies the tremendous value of and need for volunteering in the non-profit sector. Dave serves as both a member of the Spencer's Advisory Board and as a docent; Gunda is president of the Friends of the Art Museum, and has served on its board for two years.

Saralyn Reece Hardy: When working for an institution like the Spencer we always need to be thinking about its most important work in society through time. Dave, what do you believe is the most important work of the Spencer at this moment?

Dave Hiebert: The major strategy of the total organization must be to restore or create a sense of vitality. Children respond to excitement and intimacy in their relationship with adults. Adults do the same. I do the same even as an older adult. Vigorously incorporating the public and the University into the Spencer program with "Boy, do I have a deal for you" enthusiasm would be advantageous and already is becoming a part of the Spencer program. More, please.

SRH: Gunda, can you share with me the most rewarding aspects of your volunteer work at the Spencer?

Gunda Hiebert: It's hard to focus in on just one aspect. Dave became a docent first, and really got enthusiastically involved in that way. Then I was asked to be on the Friends board, and it's been one of the really great joys of my life. I love art, but to become intimately acquainted with the museum and the curators and the other staff members has been a joy. The entire experience has been wonderful; I can't really settle on one thing.

SRH: So you're talking about both the art and the kind of behind-the-scenes aspects of it.

GH: Exactly. One of the things that I enjoyed the very most was last year when we were in between museum directors and I was sort of prematurely thrust into the role of president of the Friends of the Art Museum. I had to organize a retreat in June, and it was my feeling that the board members should become very intimately acquainted with the museum and how it worked, where everything was, and who people were. Some of the board members had already had that experience, but a lot of them hadn't, including me.

So I asked for a tour to be organized, and Carolyn Chinn Lewis was extremely helpful in that. We went through everything, met everyone on the fifth floor, went through the print department, went downstairs in the bowels of the museum, saw where the quilts are stored, saw where all the things are built, saw all the storage areas. I thought it was one of the most fun and interesting aspects of being part of the museum. I think that your get-together for the Friends that you organized in July was sort of a microcosm of that experience, since you had the curators there, and had the Friends looking behind the scenes. I would like to see more of that go on because I think it allows people to really appreciate how a museum operates. And I think that most people don't have any idea how a museum operates.

SRH: One of the fascinating things about having both you and Dave involved at the museum is that Dave has a very key role in my advisory group and you have a key role as the president of the Friends. So an advisor and a Friend, they're two slightly different positions. In your capacity as a Friend, I think you offer support of all kinds, you know, like a good friend. Many Friends here have multiple roles. I've seen you support through your presence, through your resources, through your beliefs, and your creative ideas. In short: your work. Why do you believe it is important to give so much of yourself to the Spencer?

GH: I've always been, in most of my life, sort of reluctant to take on leadership roles of this sort because quite frankly I've felt that I was not a good person to put in a job like this. So when I accepted the job as president of the Friends I only did it with the idea that if I did it I had to do it well. I had to really put myself into the job and follow up with as much work as was needed and more. And I still feel that way. I feel strongly that being president of a board or being on a board, you shouldn't just be a figurehead. If you're going to accept that role you should throw yourself into it and really be part of things.

SRH: And I think you've borne that out in significant ways. You know, especially in America, museums really exist because of volunteers. We operate on a significantly larger scale because of our volunteerism. What is it that you think draws people to volunteer for a place like the Spencer?

GH: I think that people have to perceive that there is some personal reward. And I think that's up to the person. I mean, everybody has to define what his or her personal reward is. For me and for Dave, recognition isn't the important thing. I think the important thing is feeling a part of things, feeling as if you're making a difference, and feeling as if you are able sometimes to bridge gaps, soothe feelings, make people come into focus.

One of the things I hope will happen this year with the Friends board is to bring all the members of the board into a more intimate work relationship with the Spencer and make each person feel special by giving them something important to do, some way to participate, that gives them the reward that would leave them saying "this was worth my time."

SRH: Dave, in addition to serving on our advisory board, you volunteer as a docent. Can you offer some insights into that experience?

DH: The docent program is vital. Jerrye Van Leer continues the robust optimism of her predecessors, and docents are responding to that effort and mimicking that in their tour presentations. The docent program allows intimacy with the collection through our Thursday morning educational program and the gallery conversations during the noon hour. This is a wonderful program with which I am proud and pleased to be associated.

SRH: You obviously take your work at the Spencer to heart. What general advice would you offer to me during my first year as director?

DH: My advice based more on feeling than knowledge. First: Use your board. Second: Continue your energetic leadership. It is already working. Third: Please do not burn out. Despite your travels, you are still ubiquitous at the SMA. We need you. Fourth: Let's find a way to share the enthusiasm and work more closely with the art history department and other departments across the University.

SRH: Gunda, you've mentioned a kind of intimacy not only with the art itself but also with the place. And as I look at the legacy of the Spencer as well as its future, it seems to me that this attitude about getting really close to the mission of the place--so close that you feel you're almost in constant dialogue with the organization--is what we always hope to achieve, so that the Spencer Museum is not a building but rather that the Spencer Museum is a set of relationships that we are all part of establishing and growing. So I guess in closing I will ask you if there is a work of art in the museum that at this particular moment seems to have special meaning for you.

GH: As you know, this summer we've had this Buddha carved from the stump of this tree in our yard.

DH: Which of course is inspired by the wonderful Standing Amida Buddha in the Spencer's Asian Gallery.

GH: There was an article in the local newspaper and a lot of people have come by to see it. I've had a lot of people ask me why on earth we allowed our address to be published in the paper because there are going to be people out there who might wish you ill or wish the statue ill. So I went home and asked Dave, who did the interview with the paper, why is it that you gave out our address? He said, "Because art is public, and art is to be appreciated by everybody." And that makes me think about our mission at the Spencer, and that is to reach the widest audience we can and hope that they appreciate what the museum has to offer.