DOWNTOWN DELAND · MATERIALS, MAKERS AND MEANING
Museum of Art DeLand: A Small City With Room for Big Ideas
Found wood, egg tempera, a photographic print: the Museum of Art DeLand’s collection gives very different materials a place in the same conversation. That variety is one of the pleasures of having a serious art museum in a small city. You can arrive interested in one kind of work and leave thinking about another.
By Robert Urban · PaperBoat Media
Begin with what the artist chose
The museum’s permanent-collection selection includes Purvis Young’s Crowd Scene, painted on found wood, and William Entrekin’s The Keeping Room, made with egg tempera on panel. Those descriptions are already invitations to look differently.
Found wood arrives with a physical life before the artist uses it. A panel prepared for tempera suggests another relationship between surface and image. The material belongs to the meaning, even before we consider what has been depicted.
That is a rewarding place for a conversation to begin. A visitor does not have to supply an expert interpretation. Noticing what the artist worked with can open the next question: what did this particular material make possible?
A familiar face, an unfamiliar way of seeing
Jack Mitchell’s photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono is also represented in the collection, along with work by Kirsty Mitchell, Jerome Witkin, Reynier Llanes and other artists. Photography, painting and works on paper give the collection several ways to hold a viewer’s attention.
A recognizable person can make a photograph immediately approachable. The maker’s choices determine what happens after recognition: how near the subjects seem, what the light emphasizes, which relationships become visible. A known face can still be encountered through someone else’s way of looking.
That is part of a museum’s generosity. Different works provide different starting points. People can disagree about which one matters most and still leave with a richer conversation than the one they brought.
The collection has a life beyond one doorway
The museum’s account also points to Jackson Walker’s Legendary Florida collection in the Historic Volusia County Courthouse rotunda and to the DeLand Sculpture Walk. Its work reaches into places where people may be doing something other than deliberately visiting a museum.
That relationship gives art a useful place in the city’s daily geography. A civic building or a downtown walk can become the beginning of an interest. Public space makes room for a longer look.
DeLand’s public-art story follows that invitation through the streets. The museum supplies another part of the foundation: the collecting, interpretation and continuing attention that help creative work remain available.
A city can keep learning to look
The Museum of Art DeLand’s mission includes preserving and exhibiting fine art, with gallery talks and workshops extending the conversation. That continuing work matters as much as any single exhibition.
Art can enter a person’s life gradually. One material raises a question. One image becomes worth remembering. A later exhibition gives that interest somewhere else to go. A local museum allows those encounters to accumulate close to home.
The DeLand Fall Festival of the Arts offers the pleasure of meeting makers in the street. The museum adds sustained time with their larger field of work. Together, those experiences give the town a cultural life with room to grow.
I value the Museum of Art DeLand for the differences it lets us notice: among materials, among artists and among our own responses. The city gains a place where curiosity can become a habit, one work at a time.
Questions about this place
What kinds of work are represented at the Museum of Art DeLand?
Its collection includes painting, photography and works on paper, with materials ranging from found wood to egg tempera. That variety gives visitors several starting points for looking closely.
How does the museum connect with art outside its galleries?
The museum’s work includes the DeLand Sculpture Walk and Jackson Walker’s Legendary Florida collection in the Historic Volusia County Courthouse. Those settings extend art into the city’s public life.
Continue exploring Volusia County Stories.