Bellefonte Art Museum to launch new photo gallery

On a Sunday in early January, nearly 300 people crowded into the Bellefonte Art Museum to pay their respects to one of the great American institutions of the last century — the diner.

The booths, the swiveling stools — even the bathrooms — were all eulogized appropriately in local photographer Chuck Fong’s “Dinor Bleu: The Vanishing American Diner,” a gallery of almost 40 still images featuring an era’s worth of eateries from across the northeast.

Hung in an average sized room just to the right of the main entrance, the gallery was equal parts appetizer and entrée. Photographs typically aren’t featured on the first floor of the museum. In fact, until recently, photos had no designated piece of real estate at all.

It was one of the harsher realities of sharing a space with more demand than supply, where in some cases art was literally hanging from the ceiling.

“Dinor Bleu,” aside from being a satisfying meal in its own right, helped whet appetites for the museum’s latest addition, a photo gallery on the building’s upper level that will feature the work of a different artist every month for the rest of the year.

“There’s such a variety of work as well as a variety of emotion,” Patricia House, the museum’s president and executive director, said.

Beauty, after all, is in the eye of the beholder. It’s rare that two people will ever see one thing the same way — just a lone example of the many reasons why the manufacturers of inkblots enjoy such a lucrative profession.

It’s not bad for photographers either. Paintings are more subjective works of art, inviting the viewer to impose their own interpretations onto the canvas.

House believes that photography functions on a more level playing field — the closest humans may ever come to ever truly seeing the world through another person’s eyes.

“I think photos draw people into us,” House said.

As an example, she pointed to photographer Daniel Weiss, an associate professor of psychology and linguistics at Penn State. Weiss’ work will be the first to complement the new gallery in February.

“When I was a child I used to believe that I could save the memory of a precious moment by blinking my eyes and seeing the afterimage. As an adult, I have adopted more conventional means — and this collection of images represents those moments,” Weiss said.

The gallery space itself is currently a series of barren walls, a barrage of white intermittently broken by the occasional bookshelf and a large fireplace that, even while unlit, still brings an undeniable warmth to the proceedings.

House said that the shelves will eventually be filled with art books donated from local collections, tomes to be read in one of the comfortable chairs that will eventually adorn the room — perhaps while sipping a coffee from the service located just outside the door.

“I would like to see it become its own separate, important space,” House said.

This story was originally published January 8, 2016 at 11:50 AM with the headline "Bellefonte Art Museum to launch new photo gallery."