Creativity in Action: Virginia Shearer & Sarasota Art Museum

By Ryan G. Van Cleave | September 2022

Since it opened in December 2019, the Sarasota Art Museum—housed in the 1927 Sarasota High School building on South Tamiami Trail—has served as a new home for art, art lovers, and students. With 15,000 square feet of dedicated exhibition gallery space, an auditorium, sculpture courtyard, and extensive classroom facilities, the contemporary art museum has been impressive from the start. 

New Executive Director Virginia Shearer knows all about it because she’d been following the project from the planning stages. She knew the area already, having worked as the Director of Education at The Ringling until 2003. The High Museum recruited her to come to Atlanta and build a whole suite of public programs and initiatives, but she still liked to return to Sarasota to vacation with her family and watch how The Ringling developed. Each time she visited, she also checked on the progress of the Sarasota Art Museum because it was so exciting. “I love contemporary art,” she says,” and I love working with living artists. Plus, it was amazing to watch the community build something that was going to be such a special legacy.”

Fast forward a few years, and a search firm wanted to assess her interest in the leadership position at the Sarasota Art Museum. “The more we talked about it, the more I realized I could make a real contribution there and transfer a lot of my experiences, skills, and connections.” Since August 2021, that’s exactly what she’s been doing. 

The Sarasota Art Museum is unique because of its connection to Ringling College of Art and Design. Shearer notes that “college and university museums are a subset of the larger art museum landscape, and it’s extremely rare to have one that’s not located on the campus.” Being a few miles down the road from the main campus is a challenge, yes, but she saw the amazing promise and opportunity for Ringling College students. “The students don’t have to travel to a big city to get exposed to contemporary art—we’re bringing it to them. We’re doing it at such a high level that the community wants to support that.”

One of the goals Shearer has is to create participatory experiences that make the spaces and places inside the museum come alive for museum visitors and to provide opportunities for guests to wrestle with big ideas and participate ways that help guests reach new understandings. While some people like the old-school idea of museums being a quiet place where people shuffle past exhibits in a self-directed manner, she says that the vast majority of people learn by looking, listening, and talking with others. “I’m always thinking about ways we can help visitors personally connect with the works of art and give our guests a way to participate and be part of meaning-making within the museum.” 

An example of this is the first fall 2022 exhibition, called Steven and William Ladd: Lead with a Laugh. The artists are brothers who create their work with the public. A big part of their practice is social, so Shearer is having them do a brief residency which includes making art with the community. The idea of bringing in artists to work directly with visitors is part of the DNA of the museum. It’s something they’ve been doing well before the museum was operational and the project leaders were trying to drum up interest in restoring the old Sarasota High School building. “That kind of educational opportunity is also part of my practice as an educator, curator, and museum professional,” she adds.

Shearer is making another change by moving from longer exhibitions to shorter ones that offer more variety. “Most museums are changing exhibitions every 13 or 14 weeks,” she explains, but the Sarasota Art Museum was changing every 20 to 24 weeks. And one time, the entire museum was taken over by a single artist. “I prefer to create a sense of urgency for people in the museum to come back,” she says. “We want this to be a community hub and destination. We want it to be vibrant, and the best way to make it vibrant is to have a robust, changing exhibition schedule.” To that end, she’s added a third cycle of exhibitions each year, which will help add value to the overall museum experience and create even more reasons for people to become a member.

Another way the Sarasota Art Museum is becoming a destination site is the addition of the Bistro. It’s an elevated dining experience where most of the food ingredients are Florida sourced. Shearer says, “Looking at art takes energy. You need brain food, so the Bistro is a big part of that.” They also offer a rotating art exhibition program in the Bistro. Additionally, the Bistro’s chef creates a special menu based on and inspired by the exhibitions.

While some might think contemporary art isn’t for them, Shearer says that’s completely untrue. People don’t need a deep knowledge base in art to really get something out of the experience. “What museums are designed to do is pose questions, provoke curiosity, and inspire you. That’s something contemporary art does well because the artists of today are thinking about many of the things we’re all thinking about, and they’re feeling the feelings that we’re feeling and living the moments that we’re living. And they’re bold enough to express themselves in two- and three-dimensional ways, using media like video or performance or installation. I think that it can be so rewarding if people give themselves time and the credit to know that however you enter into the work, that means something. You could do it again and again and go deeper every time.”

It’s clear that the Sarasota Art Museum is designed to make everyone feel comfortable coming together, whether it’s to experience the art, have lunch at the Bistro, or learn something new through the museums’ education programs or through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute which is housed there. It’s also a place to participate, whether that’s taking a class in their amazing ceramics studio which is adjacent to the Bistro or by adding your name to the 50+ volunteers who support the 20 full-time employees that work to make this a world-class museum in our own backyard.

“We’re bringing in art from around the globe, and we’re inviting artists to come into this space and create something new for Sarasota,” Shearer says. “The visitor is central to all we do, and everyone’s welcome to be part of this amazing place.”

For more information about the Sarasota Museum of Art, please visit www.sarasotamuseum.org or call 941.309.4300.