Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
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186 PEM curator Lynda Roscoe Hartigan believes art is for everyone and works to make it very accessible. At various times in her life, Lynda Roscoe Hartigan wanted to be an artist, actress, and interior designer. But life takes quirky zigs and zags. Today, Hartigan is the James B. and Mary Lou Hawkes Curator at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, a position that calls on many aspects of her earlier aspirations. As head of PEM's ambitious curatorial and exhibition program, Hartigan serves as leader, interpret- er, collaborator, decision-maker, and fundraiser. "Fundraising can be a lot of fun," Hartigan says of the task, which many managers of nonprofit institutions instead liken to battling in trenches. Simply put, she loves art and sharing it with people of all walks of life. "You have to have some visceral response to the art you work with," Hartigan says. "I have a very strong penchant for pushing the button to make people pay attention to things that have been overlooked." Now in her 12th year at PEM, Hartigan genuinely loves her work, speaking about it as if she's living T H E C U R A T O R Lynda Roscoe Hartigan That's a good measure of what I want people to tap into, and what we're doing at PEM." She relishes organ- izing exhibitions because they are a form of communication and "can make ideas visible. The whole idea of an exhibition is as a public act, the notion you are sharing." Her philosophy that art should be shared was heavily influenced by her girlhood. Her parents raised their children in Scranton, Pennsylvania, teaching them that by marshaling their self-sufficiency and independ- ence, they could achieve anything. "I grew up in a house where ex- ploration was deeply encouraged," Hartigan says. "There were lots of lessons in elocution, art, ballet. There was the notion that learning was im- portant, rounding yourself out." Her father, a surgeon, treated patients in need for free; her mother, Hartigan says, "had a philosophy of 'Do good.'" When Hartigan was in third grade, the family lived across the street from Everhart Museum, Scranton's small art and science museum, and Hartigan visited frequently. After attending Bucknell University, where she delved into art history, she chose a master's program at The George Washington University because it meant she the best dream ever. Her position places Hartigan squarely at the heart of the esteemed museum, which has an annual budget of $30 million, staff of 250, and volunteer corps of 100-plus. PEM's collection, which dates to 1799, today consists of a breathtak- ing 1.8 million works, including approximately 800,000 photos. Hartigan is especially proud to build collections of works that are some- times overlooked, including African- American art and American folk art. "We've taken a strategic approach to building the collection," Hartigan says. "One thing we've done is go full tilt into the present, with contempo- rary art and artists." To keep PEM's art organic and progressive, she helped create a fashion initiative to support the museum's outstanding textiles collection. Hartigan has a refreshing anti-elit- ist streak, driven by a belief that art belongs to everyone. "Aspects of our culture think art is elitist," she says. "But creativity exists in the world around us in multitudes of ways. by Mary Grauerholz photograph by Lauren Poussard "I'VE BEEN A CONSTANT ARRANGER ALL MY LIFE, FOR VISUAL EFFECT, EMOTIONAL EFFECT, OR EXPERIENTIAL EFFECT." MOVERS SHAKERS &