This semester concludes our official Collections Year at UNMAM, and we’re proud to have accomplished an amazing amount of work and to have met our goals on several major projects. Special thanks to Collections Manager Andrea Perez-Martinez, Collections Associate Joseph McKee and Collections Technician Ethan Aronson for their continued leadership. We also celebrate and thank our Collections Apprentices, without whom we could not have accomplished all that we did.

Some of our major accomplishments during spring semester: 

• Inventoried 865 archive folders. 

• Inventoried 781 materials and documents, including paper ephemera, photographs, cassette tapes and CDs. 

• Inventoried 460 Tamarind Institute prints. 

• Cataloged 167 new acquisitions. 

• Photographed 157 objects. 

• Created 77 custom book enclosures. 

• Updated 234 object condition ratings and reference images in The Museum System (TMS). 

• Created 52 new object records in TMS. 

• Cleaned 118 object records in TMS. 

In January, UNMAM staff members, museum assistants and collections apprentices attended TMS (The Museum System) training, where they learned the particulars of our new digital database. The Museum System is an upgrade to our record management system that will boost the museum’s efficiency, as well as lay the foundation for eMuseum, which will allow the public to have online access to UNMAM’s permanent collection.  

Led by Collections Associate Joseph McKee and Collections Apprentices Cruz Davis-Martinez and Misti Starkey, we made major strides in stewarding the Raymond Jonson Archive. The team created 77 custom book enclosures this term to house objects within the archive and completed cataloging previously uncatalogued objects.  

Along with these major projects, the collections team has continued to prepare galleries for our new exhibitions opening this fall, Tamarind Goes Global (1985-2020) and Abundance: New Acquisitions from 2016 to 2026. 

Even though our official Collections Year has come to a close, the collections team doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon. During this summer and next academic year, we’ll continue Collections Year stewardship initiatives that include a focus on photographing the UNMAM collection for eMuseum use. 

Thank you to all the UNMAM staff and student assistants for your amazing work during Collections Year! 

Fast fact: we handled more than 2,800 artworks with no damage and no injuries. We’re so proud of how that reflects the care every team member has taken along the way.

Read more about the totals for Collections Year from July 2025 to May 2026.

The Beaumont Newhall Study Room maintained its busy pace this semester, welcoming 499 visitors in 40 separate groups, including UNM classes in drawing and painting, interdisciplinary arts, architecture, printmaking, photography, art history, art and ecology, and English.  

The study room also hosted 12 class visits from UNMAM’s pilot museum studies course, “Contemporary Perspectives on the Art Museum (MSST 486/586).” 

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith Open Hours

This spring, the Beaumont Newhall Study Room featured the work of the late Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and other artists in four open hours sessions. Open hours were presented in collaboration with Tamarind Institute’s exhibition, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: All My Relations. Quick-to-See Smith (Salish and Kootenai, 1940-2025) was a distinguished alumna of UNM. She received a master’s degree in visual arts in 1980 and an honorary doctorate in 2008. 

Delilah Montoya Study Room Visit

UNMAM was happy to host artist, educator and UNM alumna Delilah Montoya in March for study room sessions with UNM photography classes taught by Sara Abbaspour and Anna Rotty. Montoya’s visit aligned with the retrospective of her work on exhibit at the Albuquerque Museum, Activating Chicana Resistance, and offered an opportunity for her to connect with current UNM students. 

We were honored to receive significant grant awards this semester. Both awards recognize our demonstrated excellence to our mission as a teaching museum and our commitment to being an active educational partner at UNM.

Helen Frankenthaler Foundation $50,000 Award

UNMAM is privileged to have been awarded a $50,000 unrestricted grant from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation to support exhibitions, teaching initiatives and institutional priorities. Director Arif Khan highlighted the impact the grant will have on UNMAM. “This generous grant from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation is a welcome affirmation. It recognizes the role that UNMAM plays in creating collaborations and partnerships at and beyond UNM,” he said.

Frederick Hammersley Fund $650,000 Award

UNMAM is honored to have received a one-time grant of $650,000 from the Frederick Hammersley Fund for the Arts at the Albuquerque Community Foundation. The gift will support acquisitions and conservation initiatives while honoring the legacy of Frederick Hammersley (1919-2009), an influential American abstract painter who taught at UNM. 

The award is specifically designated for UNMAM to acquire visual art that reflects Hammersley’s dedication to experimentation, the exploratory nature of artmaking, mastery of artistic skills, and the practice of artmaking as a source of personal growth and community engagement. 

Museum Studies Course

This semester, UNMAM and the museum studies department together launched a new course,  “Contemporary Perspectives on the Art Museum (MSST 486/586).” Conceived and guided by Teaching Assistant Christina Cook, a graduate student in both art history and museum studies, and UNMAM Director Arif Khan, the class explored the roles and behind-the-scenes work in contemporary art museums.  

Through conversations with curators, educators, collection managers, exhibition designers, directors and outreach coordinators, the course offered a firsthand look at art museum careers and presented a wide range of perspectives on contemporary topics facing art museums today.  

Antonious-Tin Bui Workshop, ‘Objects of Meaning’

UNMAM was pleased to welcome artist Antonious-Tin Bui (b. 1992, Bronx, NY) as part of the 2026 Gale Memorial Lecture Series Out of Bounds, which explores expanded practice in contemporary art. Bui conducted a lecture and workshop entitled “Objects of Meaning: A Collective Altar of Story and Performance.” 

Ten students were selected to participate in the workshop, in which each brought an object of personal significance — an item carrying memory, identity, ancestry or imagination. As a group, participants created a collective altar as a temporary site of shared remembrance, reverence and reinvention. Through guided conversation, intimate storytelling and movement-based practices, Bui facilitated exploring how the objects could be animated through performance.

Conferences and Professional Workshops

UNMAM staff members have continued to attend significant conferences and workshops throughout the semester. Director Arif Khan attended the 2026 American Alliance of Museums (AAM) Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, where he took part in the CEO & Directors Roundtable and focused on expanding UNMAM’s network. Khan also attended the 2026 Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG) Annual Conference at the University of Iowa in Iowa City; he continues to serve as an AAMG board member.  

Khan, along with Senior Curator Mary Statzer and Graduate Assistant to the Director Christina Cook, attended the Southwest Regional Community Engagement Consortium (SWCEC) in January in El Paso, Texas. SWCEC focuses on bringing together faculty, staff, students and community partners in New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Colorado and Utah to explore new ways universities and cultural organizations can collaborate for greater regional impact. 

Finally, Statzer, along with Curator of Prints and Drawings Angel Jiang, attended the International Fine Prints and Drawing Association (IFPDA) Fair in New York in April.

Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG) 2026

Several additional members of our staff took part in the 2026 Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG) Annual Conference in June at the University of Iowa, Iowa City. 

Associate Director of Operations Devin E. Geraci was a panelist for “Creative Problem Solving for Attendance Tracking in Academic Museums,” which focused on best practices for tackling and communicating visitation data in academic museums. 

She also served on the AAMG 2026 Conference Committee and Awards Panel for the Distinguished Service Award and the Champion of Creativity Award. In addition, Geraci hosted a conference affinity dinner, “Empowering Student Employees.” 

Four UNMAM team members presented the panel “Embracing Change: Collections Care Through Purposeful Apprenticeships.” Panelists were Manager of Visitor Experience and Collections Technician Ethan Aronson, Collections Associate Joseph McKee, Collections Apprentice and Marketing Assistant Idris Parker; and Collections Apprentice Misti Starkey. Parker served as panel moderator.    Their discussion highlighted UNMAM’s student employee training program, the ways in which our Collections Apprentices helped meet Collections Year goals, what they learned in the process of completing those goals, and how both they and museum staff responded creatively to the challenges offered.

Milestones

We celebrated two major anniversary milestones for the UNMAM staff this semester. Our Director, Arif Khan, marked 15 years with UNM, and Coordinator of Exhibitions Steven Hurley celebrated 20 years with UNMAM. Congratulations, Arif and Steven! Here’s to many more at UNMAM! 

Heather Kline, who served as Assistant to UNMAM Director Arif Khan, retired after nearly two decades of supporting student learning and collections stewardship at UNM, 10 of which were spent at UNMAM. Throughout her time at UNMAM, Kline coordinated class visits to the Beaumont Newhall Study Room, helped reimagine the UNMAM Clinton Adams Gallery as an interactive study space where classes could continue visiting UNMAM during the COVID-19 pandemic, and inspired UNMAM to expand study room activities into the galleries, among other accomplishments.  

Congratulations, Heather, and happy retirement!

Staff Activities and Accomplishments

This semester, Manager of Visitor Experience and Collections Technician Ethan Aronson coordinated a panel presentation, “Embracing Change: Collections Care Through Purposeful Apprenticeships,” which was accepted for presentation at the 2026 Association of Academic Museums and Galleries Annual Conference in June. He also lectured on “Visitorship and Visitor Experience Public Programs” for “Contemporary Perspectives on the Art Museum (MSST 486/586),” a pilot course between UNMAM and UNM’s museum studies program, offered in collaboration with UNM’s museum studies program. In addition, Aronson was sworn in to a two-year term as UNM staff councilor for Precinct 4, representing staff in the College of Fine Arts and Tamarind Institute. 

Associate Director of Operations Devin E. Geraci taught “The Business of Being an Artist (ALBS 2110)” for the third time through the UNM ArtsLeadership and Business (ALBS) program. The class is a “crash course” on a variety of business-related topics for entrepreneurial art professional hopefuls, including finance skills, branding and marketing, among other important business planning and career development strategies.    Additionally this spring, she presented her research proposal poster in the 2026 UNM Organization, Information & Learning Sciences (OILS) Student Research Showcase. Geraci is a doctoral student in the program. Her poster, “The Role of Engaging Leadership in On-Campus Student Employment Experiences,” aligns with her research, identifying how supervisors’ leadership behaviors may influence students’ perceived employability and academic engagement. Geraci also reviewed two cycles of grant applications for the New Mexico Creative Industries Division. 

Curator of Prints & Drawings Angel Jiang, along with Drs. Susanne Anderson Riedel, associate professor of art history, and Loa Traxler, director of the museum studies program, won a Teaching Allocation Grant from the UNM Center for Teaching and Learning to support a new travel seminar in the fall. Titled “Museums and Collections in Context (ARTH 421/529; MSST 429/529),” this first-of-its-kind, co-taught course will conclude with a week-long visit to museums in Los Angeles in January 2027.    Jiang also attended the Renaissance Society of America annual conference in San Francisco, IFPDA and Brooklyn Print Fair in New York, and a study day for the exhibition Gothic By Design: The Dawn of Architectural Craftsmanship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  

Additionally, Jiang’s research was published in the Hispanic Research Journal. The article explores the use and meaning of 16th-century grotesque ornament in Spain. [Citation: Jiang, Angel. “The Meaning of Ornament at the Ayuntamiento of Seville.” Hispanic Research Journal 25, vol. 5 (2025): 359–82.]

Jiang also served as co-curator with Curatorial Assistant Hannah Cerne for our upcoming exhibition Tamarind Goes Global (1985–2020), which they installed this spring and which opens to the public in August.

Collections Associate Joseph McKee delivered two guest lectures for “Contemporary Perspectives on the Art Museum (MSST 486/586).” The first explored the origins of computer art in the UNMAM collection. The second was a case study on the preservation of physical media and digital files using Drum Solo (2000) by Liliana Porter, a Tamarind Institute print that includes a CD, portable CD player and a pair of headphones. McKee also presented “Punchcards to Pixels: Computer Art at UNMAM” at UNM’s Tech Days in April. The presentation used works from the UNMAM collection to examine the origins, techniques and applications of computer-based art.  

UNMAM Collections Manager Andrea Perez-Martinez got her hands dirty during spring break while attending the workshop Taller Internacional de Conservación y Restauración de Arquitectura de Tierra (TICRAT), an adobe restoration workshop in Arizona. Perez-Martinez, a master’s student in UNM’s Architecture, Historic Preservation and Regionalism program, was awarded a scholarship to attend the weeklong workshop, where she gained-hands on experience in the restoration of adobe from many skilled preservationists and networked with other attendees from throughout the region. 

Our UNMAM Collections Apprentices and Assistants have had a busy semester! We are increasingly proud of all their accomplishments and honors. 

Collections Apprentice AJ Calabaza was selected to participate in two student group exhibitions this semester: ¡Basta! at the John Sommers Gallery on the UNM campus and Augmented Spaces at UNM’s ARTSLab, as well as an installation work selected for display in the UNM art building. Calabaza will complete his Master of Arts in museum studies in the Fall 2026 semester. 

Helen Frankenthaler Student Assistant to the Director Christina Cook, also a dual master’s student in museum studies and art history, successfully taught the pilot course, “Contemporary Perspectives on the Art Museum (MSST 486/586).” Cook also participated in the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG) Now and Next student summit, where she presented “The Art Museum as Academic Hub – Curriculum and Community,” focusing on the curriculum development process and how it fits into UNMAM’s philosophy. 

Beaumont Newhall Study Room and Collections Assistant Gianna Ramirez was selected as a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow (MMUF) at the University of New Mexico. A second-year art history major with minors in museum studies and art studio, Ramirez is one of five students selected for this fellowship at UNM this year. Through mentorship, research funding and cohort-based community building, the two-year program prepares students of exceptional promise for Ph.D. study in humanities and related disciplines, and for future careers as university faculty members. Ramirez’s research examines the experiences of Chicano/a/x and Indigenous artists and explores how museums and academic institutions can better support future generations of New Mexico artists. 

Ramirez was also selected as one of 12 students to attend a study abroad trip in Japan as part of the UNM Honors College “Arts and Culture of Japan” course. Prior to traveling, Ramirez took an eight-week course that focused on learning ways in which culture, religion/spiritual practices, traditions and arts are interrelated and expressed by both historical and contemporary artists. She spent two weeks in Kyoto, where she visited historical sites and museums, and collaborated with a professor and students at Kyoto University of the Arts.  

Collections Apprentice and master’s student Rebecca Shalliker attended the College Art Association (CAA) conference in Chicago, Illinois, with members of her cohort, including Marketing Assistant and Collections Apprentice Chloe Cecil. Shalliker and Cecil were also selected for graduate assistantships in the Department of Art. 

Cecil also kicked off her summer with a trip to Juneau, Alaska, to attend Celebration 2026. Celebration is a multi-day dance-and-culture festival put on biannually by the Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI)  to celebrate the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. Cecil, along with five other members of the UNM Graduate Art Association, was privileged to attend this year’s festival, where they were able to attend performances, visit local museums and develop relationships with local artists and professionals. 

Marketing Assistant Lauren Thomson, a museum studies graduate student, attended the American Alliance of Museums Annual Meeting in Philadelphia in May, attending sessions on historic house museums, pollinator corridors and outdoor public art. She then conducted field research at institutions including Longwood Gardens, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, Brandywine Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the University of Pennsylvania. Her research explores the university as an open-air museum, the role of living collections in institutional missions, placemaking, visitor experience and museum branding.

Graduating Graduate Students

UNMAM said goodbye to two of our wonderful graduate student assistants, Hannah Cerne and Rebecca Shalliker, this semester. 

Hannah Cerne, a graduate student double-majoring in art history and museum studies (the first student to earn double master’s degrees in these disciplines), worked at UNMAM since the fall of 2023, when she joined as a museum assistant, later moving into the roles of study room and curatorial assistant. Cerne’s research focuses on modern and contemporary printmaking, specifically from Tamarind Institute lithographic publications. This interest led to a two-year internship at Tamarind Institute, as well as the topics of her theses. Cerne’s research culminated in her co-curation of the upcoming UNMAM exhibition Tamarind Goes Global (1985-2020), which explores several collaborations Tamarind Institute conducted with artists worldwide. 

This semester, Cerne completed three extensive research trips to support her museum studies and art history master’s theses. She traveled to Santa Fe, N.M., where she interviewed Tamarind Institute master printers and visited the Institute of American Indian Arts; in Taos, N.M., she visited the Harwood Museum; and in Washington, D.C., she conducted research at the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art. To support her work, she was awarded the UNM Graduate and Professional Student Association’s New Mexico Research High Priority Grant. Cerne has since successfully defended her theses and graduated from UNM. 

Rebecca Shalliker, one of our collections apprentices who has been at UNMAM since fall 2025, graduated this semester with a master’s degree in art history. Shalliker is interested in 19th-century European and American painting and how social and cultural shifts fueled a growing interest in mysticism. In her thesis, “Symbolists Beyond the Magic: Appropriation in the Art of Elihu Vedder and Gustave Moreau,” Shalliker explored Symbolist painters and their participation in cultural appropriation as representative of the occult. 

Congratulations, Hannah and Rebecca, on your graduation! UNMAM will miss you, but we can’t wait to see what you do with your very bright futures!

Graduating Undergraduate Students

Three of our undergraduate students, Cruz Davis-Martinez, Blaise Padilla and Misti Starkey, also graduated from UNM this semester. 

Cruz Davis-Martinez has worked at UNMAM since the fall of 2023 as a museum assistant and collections apprentice. They graduated with dual bachelor’s degrees in studio art, where they focused on the iconography of New Mexico landscapes through drawing and painting, and psychology, as well as minoring in forensic science. In the future, Davis-Martinez hopes to attend graduate school and pursue a career in atypical forms of psychotherapy. 

Davis-Martinez was also selected to participate in Cacophony, an exhibition for Professor John Abbott’s Advanced Painting and Drawing students and participated in the Rural Student Project (RSP) at UNM, where they completed more than 40 hours of community service work in the Albuquerque community. Davis-Martinez has been accepted into the UNM Master of Arts in Counseling program. 

Collections Apprentice Blaise Padilla has been at UNMAM for only one semester, but she has made quite an impact. Padilla earned her BFA in studio art, concentrating on ceramics, with a minor in museum studies. Her practice focuses on ideas of nature, the human form and feelings of comfort through both functional and sculptural forms.  

Misti Starkey, a collections apprentice who has worked at UNMAM since fall of 2024, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Art, focused on museum studies and costume design. This semester, Starkey has focused on working in the Raymond Jonson Archive at UNMAM. Luckily, we aren’t saying goodbye to Misti just yet. In the fall, Starkey will also begin her master’s in museum studies here at UNM.  

Congratulations to Cruz, Blaise, and Misti!