When Dr. Robert Hagstrom first came to Jamestown Community College in 1966, there were no art faculty at the school and only a couple courses.
Hagstrom knew that had to change.
''It seemed to me that we needed to get some art programming going,'' he said. ''The college was expanding rapidly, and I was interested in that.''
Not only has arts programming at JCC expanded greatly in the 44 years since, but the college's permanent gallery - now known as the Weeks Gallery - has been host to hundreds of exhibitions ranging from the local to the national and the international.
The gallery's next exhibition, Global Vision, will open Oct. 2 and feature selections from an awe-inspiring permanent collection. But the story of how the college even came to be the home of such a gallery in the first place is an intriguing one in its own right.
BUILT FROM SCRATCH
The ''global vision'' of arts at the college began when Hagstrom hired Bill Disbro to be the college's first full-time art faculty member.
Hagstrom says he knew the way to make an impact with arts on the college campus would be to do something physical - and he says that Disbro was the perfect man for that job.
''He came in and, with his own hands, built a huge kiln over in the old building on Second Street,'' Hagstrom said. ''He built all the sinks and all the stuff relative to ceramic art studio space, so that there was a physical presence.''
The next step, Hagstrom said, was to get enrollment up by bringing in an art that would be popular with a great many people. Photography would be the hook, he thought, so his next hire was professor John Hiester. Art enrollment took off, Hagstrom said.
Now armed with studio space and art faculty, the college was ready to have its own exhibition space on campus. But Hagstrom said it only happened because of the interests of off-campus art lovers.
''Gino Micciche, who had a furniture factory in Celoron for some time, and his brother were opera fans, and they had a lot of opera friends in New York,'' Hagstrom said. ''They wanted to have an opera night in Jamestown, and they wanted the college to go in with them and sponsor it.''
The event was held at Jamestown High School and was a great success, Hagstrom said. And when all was said and done, the profits - $800 - were turned over to the college. Hagstrom said he and Hiester knew what to do with the money.
''(We) bought some inexpensive fiberboard panels and stands, took one of the abandoned rooms over on Second Street in the old building, painted the room and opened an exhibition there,'' he said. ''Bill Disbro was interested in getting a number of artists who were traveling the state, under various art grant programs, so we would invite people in who were traveling. That gave us the beginning of a presence.''
And a long history of art exhibition at Jamestown Community College was born.
BRINGING IN SHOWS
After the initial successes of the temporary gallery on Second Street, the college made room for a permanent gallery - called the Forum Gallery - when the building now known as the Carnahan Center was erected.
Mike Campbell, a new faculty member, was given the title of gallery coordinator. He brought in a number of traveling shows and exhibited professors from neighboring colleges. Highlights during Campbell's era included Citizen's Eye, which was a juried countywide photography show that included purchase awards sponsored by local businesses, and the Eastern Lake Erie Regional Scholastic Art Awards exhibition, which drew regional high school students.
When Campbell left to accept a position with Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, William Waite - director of the Chautauqua Art Association Galleries at Chautauqua Institution - took over as gallery director. Waite initiated brown-bag lectures in the gallery that would draw up to 50 lunchtime guests, organized the Print USA Show, and added exhibitions by Bill Stewart and Joseph Picillo, two of Western New York's most distinguished SUNY art professors.
Hagstrom was on the board of the Gallery Association of New York State at the time, and he said that connection helped him to bring a lot of high-quality exhibitions to the gallery.
''SUNY helped us buy a truck, and we would transport art at greatly reduced prices from what the commercial carriers would do it, so we ran a delivery service around New York state,'' he said. ''And to that, we added touring exhibitions. We began to really hang some fine exhibits in that open space in the Carnahan building.''
However, the demands on the part-time gallery coordinator multiplied greatly as the professional exhibitions needed to be organized, grant writing and fundraising were necessary, and collaborations and educational outreach increased. A group of college and community enthusiasts, led by Hagstrom, formed a committee to begin outlining what the college should be looking for in a permanent gallery curator.
NATIONAL ATTENTION
The committee was able to receive funding from the Ralph C. Sheldon Foundation, then led by executive director Miles Lasser, to pay a full-time director for 18 months.
Dan Talley, who was the director of the Nexus Contemporary Art Center in Atlanta, answered the call.
''I think it was the idea that it was a challenge,'' Talley said of why he accepted the job in 1989. ''I was actually at a point where I was wanting to change locations, go to a different part of the country. I just needed a change, inspiration, in a new place that would give me fresh ideas.''
Talley's inaugural exhibition in the Forum Gallery - Aging: The Process, The Perception - wasn't just a fresh idea for him. It was an idea that brought Jamestown Community College regional and national attention.
National news network CNN aired a segment on the exhibition during its Early Prime and Headline News broadcasts. Buffalo PBS affiliate WNED aired and re-aired a 20-minute spot featuring the exhibition as part of its Art Scene series. And as part of the exhibition, television star Ed Asner gave a talk about art and censorship.
''It just felt like, 'Wow, there's such enthusiasm for this type of work here,''' Talley said. ''All throughout our history, artists were pushing to expand and enlarge the envelope, and I wanted to do that in Jamestown.''
By the time Talley's original 18-month contract was up, Hagstrom had made it very clear that they wanted to keep him on board. The Sheldon Foundation came through ''in a big way,'' Talley said, to extend its support of his position and of the arts scene at JCC.
In 1995, it was the JCC Foundation Capital Campaign's turn to come through in a big way, raising funds for the Community Cultural Center complex that included the new Forum Gallery in the Arts and Science Building. Talley said he was quite impressed with the way the college and the project's architects worked with him and the faculty to make the gallery an ideal space for art.
''I really felt that the architects listened really well and we got a really beautiful space out of it,'' said Talley, who remained at JCC until 1997, when he left for a position at Kutztown State University near Philadelphia. ''Most colleges don't have anything like that, even larger universities.''
MOVING TO THE FUTURE
Jim Colby became the Forum Gallery's director in 1997. The gallery was later renamed the Weeks Gallery in honor of longtime college supporters and funders Sarita and Stanley Weeks.
Since Colby has been the gallery's curator, highlights at the gallery have included a program presented by monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery in Atlanta, the founding of the Global Collection of Photography, and the development of the Museum Without Walls ArtReach - extending artwork across more than 2,000 running feet of hallways on JCC's Jamestown and Olean campuses.
Hagstrom said that his goal when he first decided to make arts a priority at JCC was to give students a leg up when they moved on from the college. The experiences that have been provided by the exhibitions brought to campus over the years, he said, have done that and then some.
''It was a grand experiment to see whether this would work or not ... and it does seem to have created a permanence,'' Hagstrom said.
Talley said many of the artists who came to town during his time in Jamestown were astounded that such a space and such a supporting community existed in Jamestown.
''I think that those kinds of things really impress people,'' he said. ''I think sometimes people get blinded to it - but outsiders come in and are like, 'My God, this is so wonderful.'''
Hagstrom said that the way the gallery space has continued to thrive throughout the years, through thick and thin, bodes well for its continued future as a cultural and educational center in Jamestown.
''(Colby) has done a wonderful job of integrating, in very tough financial times, several art forms to the community,'' he said. ''And it is a lovely space. It's fabulous.''
For more information about the Weeks Gallery at JCC, visit weeksgallery.sunyjcc.edu.
