Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 8, 1990 TAG: 9004041293
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JEFF DeBELL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
To the employees of the Roanoke Museum of Fine Arts, where Appelhof just finished her first year as director, that is not exactly a revelation.
"She's a whirlwind," said Sharon McGeorge, the museum's executive secretary. "She has a lot of ideas. It's been interesting, but it's been kind of hairy."
It's been hairy for Appelhof, too.
"The number of things that have come my way has been almost overwhelming," she said. "On the other hand, I've learned a lot about the community and how this museum runs."
One thing she learned is that it will take longer than she had thought to raise enough money "to put this museum on the map. But I'm totally undaunted."
In her first year, Appelhof has presided over a doubling of the staff and a near-doubling of the museum budget. She has overseen expansion and extensive remodeling of the museum space at Center in the Square. She has been in the thick of the newly aggressive fund-raising efforts.
At the same time, she has had to get used to the staff, the board of trustees and the museum's Docent Guild, and they have had to get used to her. That process has gone reasonably well, though things did get off to a bumpy start with the docents.
The guild was worshipful of Appelhof's predecessor, Peter Rippe, and was stunned when he was fired in the summer of 1988. When Appelhof arrived the following spring, there were complaints that she was aloof and was taking the guild for granted. The complaints have abated but not disappeared.
Appelhof is aware of them and says she is taking pains to demonstrate her appreciation of the guild: "Without the docents there would be no museum."
Guild chairman Karen Wilson doesn't blame the director, whom she said was immersed in museum organizational, fiscal and public relations business practically from the moment of her arrival.
"She has had a hard time," Wilson said. "And let's face it, the difference between her and Peter is a like a flip of the coin."
The museum director also hit a glitch last year in relations with The Arts Council of Roanoke Valley, which she felt was pre-empting the museum's rightful role in public art and other community issues. There was an encounter with Susan Cole, the council's executive director, that briefly fed the arts community's rumor mill. Both women say they have settled their differences and are on good terms.
"Susan was doing a better job of what I thought the museum should be doing than we were," Appelhof said. "I'd like to thank her for being kind enough to let the museum get in gear."
The trustees decided in 1988 that the museum needed to be revitalized and made more responsive to the public, and they felt Rippe was wrong for the job. Appelhof - always the leading candidate - has a vision they like.
She wants a museum that is open to the people and that the people are comfortable with. She wants people to use it in great numbers. She wants it to be a credible and valued educational resource. She wants "blockbuster" exhibitions, both imported and home-grown, and she wants some of the latter to travel under the museum's name. And she wants to build a collection of regional art that is peerless and definitive.
"She has pushed us to spend money, money we don't have, so we just have to go find it," said trustee Betty Dye.
Raising money hasn't been Appelhof's only challenge to the trustees. She expects them to take an active part in museum activities, including the entertainment of visiting artists and attendance at museum events.
At a recent board meeting, she politely but pointedly mentioned the trustees' conspicuous absence at a lecture. At the next lecture, trustee attendance was better.
Despite such gentle hand-slaps, the board is like a 30-member Ruth Appelhof Admiration Society. If there are demurrers among them, they're quiet.
"I think she's a tremendous asset to the board, to the museum and to Roanoke," said trustee Mary Ann Harvey Johnson. "She has given us vision and the courage to try to do things we might not have tried."
The signs are favorable to artists too, accord- 3 1 APPELHOF Appelhof ing to Bob Crawford of the Contemporary Art Group. He pointed out that the museum, under Appelhof, is planning a contemporary gallery to show the work of regional artists and will be host to this year's Roanoke City Art Show for the first time ever.
Appelhof loves to "talk art" with curator Tara Tappert and the artists on the staff, who include Bill Rutherfoord, Brian Sieveking and Beth Shively. Curatorial meetings tend to be lively and extended.
In her previous job, as curator of the Birmingham (Ala.) Museum of Art, one of Appelhof's most admirable achievements was to build "an active, living relationship" with contemporary artists, said Hank Willett, who is southeast regional representative of the National Endowment for the Arts.
"Ruth had a reputation in Birmingham for being very good," he said. "She's most definitely Roanoke's gain, and I would expect lots of good things to happen."
A woman with connections
Appelhof is in her first directorship. Her background is in scholarship and curating. Though the museum has a curator in Tappert, the director plans to reserve one exhibition per year for herself.
Her track record is good, according to Sonja Rieger, who was teaching photography at the University of Alabama at Birmingham when Appelhof became curator of the Birmingham museum in 1984.
"When she moved to town I noticed a lot of changes at the museum," Rieger said. "It became very visible. There were a lot of contemporary shows and things that reached out into the community."
Two of Appelhof's Birmingham exhibitions toured other cities under the museum's banner; one went to France and the other to Canada. Appelhof has similar expectations for the Roanoke Museum.
"It's mostly a matter of organization," she said.
The Roanoke Museum already was committed to a number of shows when Appelhof arrived. "The West Explored," which opened in January, was the first that she could call her own.
It was an auspicious start in terms of the quality of the paintings - priceless works by Charles Russell, Thomas Moran, Alfred Bierstadt and others from the top ranks of painters of the 19th-century American West.
However, art historian Kathleen Nolan, reviewing the exhibit for this newspaper, faulted the informational materials supporting the show. They failed to point out that the paintings represented not "recorded reality but . . . a particular version of the West" that conforms to American mythology, Nolan wrote.
Museum attendance during the first three months of 1990 was estimated at 6,300, most of it for "The West Explored." Officials regard the figure favorably because it came at a time when much of the museum was closed for remodeling. The comparable figure for 1989, when all parts of the museum were open, was 8,671.
The western paintings, on view through April 15, were borrowed by Appelhof from friend and collector Gerald Peters of Santa Fe.
More recently, the museum opened its Crestar Sculpture Court in a second-floor space overlooking the lobby of Center in the Square. It adds a visually striking element to the building's interior, not least because several of the pieces are by Auguste Rodin, one of the monumental figures of western art.
Another friend of Appelhof, Jay S. Cantor, agreed to lend the Rodins indefinitely.
"I really enjoy tapping my friends in the art world," the director said, meaning both collectors and artists. The trustees enjoy it too; one of the things they liked about Appelhof was her extensive connections.
`A step in the door'
Appelhof has two Rolodexes on her desk: "One is for the outside world and one is for Roanoke," she said.
The latter has filled rapidly since Appelhof moved to Roanoke and hurled herself into the job of being the museum's top executive, emissary and fund-raiser. "I think I've knocked on every corporate door in Roanoke," she said.
"She's not above doing any kind of fund-raising," Dixie Wolf said. "There's nothing she won't do."
Wolf is often at the director's side on fund-raising forays. She is president of the board of trustees and was head of the selection committee that chose Appelhof.
Wolf is said to work practically as hard as Appelhof for the museum and is given a share of credit for the new director's success, especially in raising money. Contributions are running about $75,000 ahead of the same point in 1989.
The women's search for money this winter took them to Richmond, where they lobbied for the museum's first-ever appropriation from the General Assembly. The quest resulted in $56,250, which must be matched by contributions. Though only a tiny fraction of what the legislature gives the Virginia Museum and Norfolk's Chrysler Museum, the sum is gratefully regarded by Appelhof as "a step in the door."
In efforts to raise money from Roanoke Valley governments, which are served by the museum's growing educational outreach program, the museum has been less successful. That has left Appelhof puzzled and disappointed.
"One of the things we've got to do is make our city councilmen love our museum," she said.
In addition to soliciting contributions and government support, the museum is pursuing grants from every available source.
"You never know 'til you try," assistant director Martha Martin said. "Before, we never tried."
Toward that end, the museum is employing the expert services of a Birmingham development consultant named Jo Roy Donaldson. Using data supplied by the museum staff, Donaldson fills out the arcane application forms and gets 10 percent when a grant is approved. When it isn't, she gets nothing beyond expenses.
Donaldson and Appelhof are close friends. The relationship began when Appelhof called to beg help on "just one little project" for the Birmingham museum, Donaldson recalled, laughing.
"She has that sweet little sing-song voice. That `one little project' took almost a year and turned into a major traveling show."
Stress, hard labor and thrills
In the area of raising money, Appelhof the scholar has received an education during the past year. She has found that it is a slower and more intricate process than she expected.
"I thought the minute the last carpenter left the building we'd be up and running. Now I'm on a five-year plan."
That's not to say the museum has been still in the water. When Appelhof arrived, the budget was $340,000. Now it's around $600,000. Work is starting on the budget for fiscal 1991, which is expected to stay at about the same level.
Appelhof has hired a curator (Tappert), an education director (Pat Villeneuve) and a development director (Page Hayhurst), plus additional support personnel. Since she came, the roster has grown to 12 full-time and nine part-time employees.
An Appelhof exhibition schedule is taking shape, its centerpiece a show of art in the collections of prominent Virginians. The construction work is winding down at last.
The director involved herself in the remodeling and expansion even before she came to Roanoke, recommending a number of changes that were implemented. One was to replace the second-floor tea room with exhibit space (the sculpture garden was the idea of public relations officer Ann Masters).
Appelhof didn't wait until the staff was complete or the remodeling was done or the budget was doubled to start filling her out-basket. She hit the ground running and employees had to cope as best they could, crowded into already cramped space and stepping over and around construction workers.
Even Appelhof is sharing her office - with curator Tappert, a rolled-up carpet and assorted large pieces of folk art.
"The staff just walks around in a daze sometimes," said Betty Dye, trustee and a longtime docent.
Staffers like to say the year has been a "challenge." It's a diplomatic and slightly ironic way of characterizing a year of stress and hard labor mixed with the thrill of a new start.
"We were stagnant," Martin said. "I'm glad the board had the vision to move on."
Staffers say the director is accessible and reasonable, but demanding. If someone tells her an idea or project isn't going to work, they'd better have good reasons.
"She'd like the moon and the stars," Ann Masters said. "She'll settle for the moon, but she's got to know you tried for the stars too.
"Ruth is fun," Masters continued. "When it's time for a giggle, you'll get as good a one from her as anyone. She remembers birthdays and she loves to secretly plan someone's birthday cake."
Appelhof said her best Roanoke friends are the members of her staff.
"I've never been in a museum where people cared so much about each other and the institution," she said. "It's almost as though the institution is a living entity and the personalities make up something that's almost like a living resource."
If you can't walk, crawl
Appelhof is in her late 40s and is twice a grandmother. She was born in Washington and reared in Chevy Chase, Md. She was educated at Syracuse University in art history, painting and related subjects.
"Dr. Ruth," as she is sometimes called, has been divorced for 20 years. She raised her two children alone while working and going to school. Long working hours and relatively little sleep became a habit that is still with her.
She wrote her master's thesis on Lee Krasner, artist-wife of Jackson Pollock. The dissertation for her doctorate, which she completed in 1988 after nine years' work, was on the Canadian artist Emily Carr.
Appelhof's great love is contemporary art. She has taught at Syracuse University and Cayuga College in New York, and at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Before joining the Birmingham Museum, she worked for galleries in Auburn and Syracuse, N.Y., and was a fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
In making her decision to come to Roanoke, she turned down a New York sales job that would have paid "really big money" in comparison with the approximately $50,000 she makes at the museum. She said she wanted "to use the degree. It took so long to get."
To save the cost of plane fare, Appelhof rode from Birmingham to Roanoke in the cab of the moving van that brought her belongings and furniture last March.
"We packed all day and we rode all night, and we got here just as the sun came up and there were the mountains," she said. "I took it as kind of an epiphany."
The director still limps slightly from a serious ankle injury in February. She tripped and fell on one of the steep aisles at Mill Mountain Theatre during a concert sponsored by the museum.
The accident left her temporarily reliant on others for transportation, and for a while she was forced to move from floor to floor in her Roanoke condo by crawling. It startled guests, she said, but was no big deal to her.
"I don't have too many pretenses about me," she said.
Appelhof frequently works at night. If not actually engaged in museum work or a museum function, she reads books on management and museum administration.
Her weekends typically alternate between work and travel: "I guess that's the way I unwind. I get on an airplane."
Her trips usually are visits to museums and galleries. Lately, she has spent a lot of time inspecting the contemporary art collections of prominent Virginians like Sydney and Frances Lewis of Richmond, John and Patricia Kluge of Charlottesville and U.S. Sen. John Warner.
Some of the work is likely to end up in the first edition of "The Common Wealth," an late-1990 exhibit of art owned by Virginia collectors. She will curate the first part, which will be devoted to modern art, and Tappert will handle the later section dealing with art of the 19th century.
"It's just a streak of gold out there," Appelhof said, clearly thrilled about prospects for the exhibition.
Meeting such people is a facet of the job she enjoys. In fact, Appelhof said, there isn't a facet she doesn't enjoy.
Jo Roy Donaldson believes Appelhof is in the right place at the right time.
"I've been in Roanoke enough to believe your community wants and needs what I believe Ruth is going to make happen in about five years," she said.
"I have a feeling she is going to be able to ride the whirlwind and make the whirlwind her own. She has the vision and the tenacity to bring it about."
by CNB