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n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m | N o v e m b e r / D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 9 | n e w h a v e n B I Z 35 YALE MUSEUMS Continued on Page 36 People need to be active, physically and mentally. They need to experience new ideas, new information and new ways of learning. All those things are available to us here. Steve & Georgia Jennings, residents since 2014 Write your next chapter at Whitney Center. Learn more about our Life Care senior living community. Call (203) 439-6297 or visit www.whitneycenter.com to schedule a personal appointment. the tour and to come see and be amazed by it," Gordon adds. "You just need to be curious and appre- ciative. Or if you're someone who is interested in learning more about what is rococo style in furniture or what exactly is Chippendale, we can just focus on that, too." Open to the public? But the larger question remains: How accessible does Yale want the center to be with at present just an hour or so a week for public tours? "We put a lot of work into it, so we want it to be very successful," says Gordon. "e goal of the study back to its founding in 1959 is giv- ing visual access to the collection." An increase of public opportuni- ty would probably first come with school groups, says Kane, especially with the addition of new educa- tional components on display at the Furniture Study, such as exhibits featuring the different kinds of wood, tools, cutting, craing and gilt techniques, to displays of different kinds of upholstery. One display even follows the many complex steps of the journey a piece of furniture navigates from tree to parlor. "Curators talk in a certain language," says Kane, "and we think everyone understands us, but many people don't have a clue about what we're talking about. But now we can show, for instance, what a mortise and tenon joint is or a what a particular type of wood is — and it all comes alive." Could the West Haven complex eventually grow to be a new desti- nation for the arts? "Critical density is important," says Gordon. Originally, the building was a way to lessen the pressure of storage space for Yale's arts holdings downtown. "We very quickly realized it could be much more," says Gordon. "ere's always this ethical question about why a museum collects more than it can exhibit. If [art objects] only live their lives in darkness, what benefit are they doing? To create these study centers was a way of animating the collections and al- lowing people to see the collection in new ways." e ways of seeing the objects are different, too. "When you're in a museum you have things that are pre-selected for you," explains Gordon. "When you're in a study center you get to "'You don't need to know anything about furniture to take the tour and to come see and be amazed by it.' — John Stuart Gordon"

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