“Everybody stand up—we’re going to play a game.”
On my second day of Art History 283: Museum Education, I get the feeling this isn’t going to be a standard lecture in a darkened room with slides flashing from the projector. We rise and engage in a museum-themed icebreaker game orchestrated by our instructor, David Rau. Rau is the director of Education at the Florence Griswold Museum in nearby Old Lyme, and teaches courses in Museum Studies at the College.
Rau, a Michigan native, has lived in New England three separate times during his life, and as he said during our interview “third time’s a charm!” Rau started work at the Florence Griswold Museum in 1998. His two prior stints in New England were spent working at the Currier Museum in Manchester, NH.
After a national job search, Rau took a job at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, MI, coincidentally just a few minutes from his hometown. Rau spent eight-and-a-half years at Cranbrook, until he saw an ad for Florence Griswold—they wanted to instate a new education department and had received money to build a new education center. “They were trying to reinvent themselves. I had a lot of neat ideas and [The Florence Griswold Museum] had the money to make them happen.”
His brainchild, the “Wee Faerie Village” is an outdoor installation occurring every three years, in which artists create tiny fairy houses out of mostly natural materials. Last October, “Wee Faerie Village in the Land of Oz” drew over 17,000 visitors to the museum in the span of a month.
A little over a decade ago, Rau was approached by Professor Chris Steiner of the Art History department, who lives in Old Lyme, about teaching Museum Education at the College. Since then, Rau has also taught the courses Museum Methods, Intro to Museum Studies, and House Museums.
Part of Rau’s interest in art museums stems from being an artist in his own right. He works primarily in collage and paper, but started experimenting with 3D pieces through his work at the Florence Griswold—especially the Wee Faerie Village. “I’m not always making fairy houses, though. I participate in whatever the museum does,” he said, “I’m always creating something, whether I’m making something to auction off or exhibiting in a gallery show.” In fact, Rau spent a semester as a student in Cummings when he audited Professor McCabe’s collage class and “just loved it”.
For Rau, teaching at Conn and working at the Florence Griswold are mutually enriching experiences. “Coming to the College really allowed me to have an interaction with a young adult audience. When you’re a practicing museum educator you just do stuff but don’t always explain why, but teaching forces you to reevaluate. Teaching here makes me better at my job because I have to explain why I do what I do. It keeps me on my toes, and I really enjoy the challenge to be fresh.”
Rau thinks highly of the Camels he teaches: “The students at Conn write extremely well and they’re worldly. I can jump right in to my content area and they can keep up. I’ve always been so impressed by their creativity in the classroom.”
When asked what advice he would give to Conn students interested in a career like his, Rau replied: “Great jobs are few and far between, but they’re out there. Really do what you love. It’s a luxury to find a job that you don’t consider a job, but it’s possible.” •
