Blake Millard used to drive his teachers in high school crazy with his artwork. It wasn’t because the drawings were crude or lacked effort. It’s because they were scrawled on the surface of his desk — during class.
Millard has been into art as long as he can remember. He is now the museum preparator for the Naples Museum of Art.
In an afternoon inside the museum, Millard is balancing on scaffolding, helping install the latest exhibit from Dale Chihuly, a world renowned glass sculptor. Chihuly was one of the original artists on display when the museum first opened its doors in 2000.
Millard stands on the balls of his feet, extending his arm with a spotlight cupped in his palm directly above a mirrored glass piece sitting on a white table. Any error could end in catastrophe. But Millard by this point has installed thousands of lights and he gently snaps the track fixture into place. With the help of Chihuly art handlers, the light is angled onto the sculpture, and it comes to life with detail. Millard’s years of experience has helped him be quick yet careful in his work.
“You’re going to start to feel comfortable even with handling Chihulys after you handled you know, a hundred of them,” Millard said. “You get comfortable you don’t think about breaking it.”
Millard has overseen hundreds of exhibits in the Naples Museum, he’s hung more than 20,000 prints on the walls of the galleries, but Millard says the last thing he wants when someone comes to an exhibit is to be thinking about what he did.
“I just want to make a nice presentation, I want people to experience the artwork,” Millard said. “I want people to come in and see the art, I don’t want them to notice the lighting.”
In an adjoining room, Scott Leen, the lead photographer for Chihuly, has a pair of white gloves on and is busy finishing dusting a room full of towering and intricate glass sculptures. He steadies the sculpture with one hand and lightly guides a cloth over the work. Leen says daily maintenance of glass sculptures is necessary because of how they interact with light.
“The sole purpose of glass is to collect and transmit light,” Leen said. “In lighting something that is a receptive to light, it makes it very unique. You don’t get light that is just reflected off of the surface, it also transmits the light.”
For Millard, that means getting the lighting right for the glass exhibit is the most important part.
“It’s all about presentation,” Millard said. “Because you’re showing this art to the public, and you want to knock their socks off.”
Back on the ground, and now also wearing white gloves, Millard runs his hand along the top ridge of a frame, clearing it of dust. Using only tape measure and a pencil, Millard marks the spot where the charcoal sketch will hang. In less than a minute, the artwork is ready for display and Millard is already measuring the next piece.
“You just try to make these look as good as you can,” Millard said.