Museums display rare art

Katelyn Wyszynski / staff photographer Seniors Katie Rauhier, foreground, and Julia LaBianco examine a display of ancient coins in Carrier Library.

The JMU Mineral Museum features an extensive collection of more than 500 crystals from around the world. The collection began in 1976 with the support of Lance Kearns, who serves as its curator today.

According to Kearns, the rhondite and spinel crystals found in rock formations in New York are over 1 billion years old.

A few of the displays in the museum outshine minerals in other highly prestigious collections, Kearns said.

The recently acquired turquoise and garnett crystals "are superior to the ones the Smithsonian Institute has on display," he said.

Junior Rachel Posner said, "Being in such a small major as geology … it’s so cool to be able to go upstairs and look up close at the minerals you just spent hours memorizing."

Kearns keeps the museum open to the public every Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

JMU also owns a meteorite collection, housed near the Mineral Museum in Miller Hall. The display showcases 16 different meteorites from around the world. There is a tektite meteor found in the Czech Republic, and another that was picked up in the Sahara Desert in 2001.

The oldest meteorite in the display, "Gideon," was found in 1836 in Nambia, Africa.

The museum also displays a meteor of lunar origin that was uncovered in Morocco in 1999.
Although this collection may seem much smaller in comparison, its presence is just as important. "I think most people don’t even realize that JMU has these amazing collections," junior Erin Barocca said.

While JMU students eat at Festival, most have no idea that the room directly below them houses a gallery of art that spans from 4000 B.C. to the present.

The Madison Art Collection represents nearly every era and part of the globe, with pieces from the ancient Near-East, classical Greece and Rome, West Africa, medieval Asia and even a few modern art acquisitions.

"We have woodblocks and manuscripts from the fourteenth century, as well as one of the largest Russian Iconography collections in the area," collection coordinator Kathryn Monger said.

"We’ve even got Florence Nightingale’s autograph, and a letter by Victor Hugo."

The Madison Art Collection is open to the public every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 2 to 5 p.m.

Monger also maintains a rotating exhibit in the Leeolou Alumni Center Great Room that is always open for viewing by the public.

In addition, there is a display in the main lobby of Carrier Library of Ancient Greek and Roman coins that are provided by the Madison Art Collection.