September, 2026
A Note from the Director
Weston Ambrose, our 2025 intern from Stonehill College, spent last summer counting trees. The final tally: more than 400 plants and over a hundred varieties growing across this campus — some planted a century ago, some that arrived on their own.
On August 11th, that inventory earned the Art Complex accreditation as a Level I arboretum through ArbNet, the program founded and led by The Morton Arboretum. Craig Bloodgood, our deputy director and contemporary curator, led the effort. It makes us one of only two art museums in Massachusetts that is also an accredited arboretum — the other being the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. Good company to keep.
What stays with me is the idea underneath it. A collection doesn’t stop at the gallery door. The trees out there are a living collection, and they deserve the same standard of documentation and care we give a painting or a piece of Shaker furniture. We always knew the grounds were beautiful. Now we have a record of them, and a framework for tending it — and a new reason for people to find us. Arboretum visitors are their own kind of traveler, and we look forward to welcoming them to the galleries as well as the grounds and sending them out to discover our beautiful community afterward.
Weston’s work is one piece of something larger. Last year we rebuilt our internship program around a simple premise: give a student a real project with a real deadline, and the museum gets something it couldn’t have made otherwise. This summer proved it out again. Serena, from RISD, built our New Voices artist professional development program from the ground up. Claire, from Connecticut College, led our Bloomberg Connects app initiative, which will put the collection in visitors’ hands. Áine, from Berklee College of Music, gave our social media a pulse. And Zhihuan, from Duke, spent the summer with our collections staff and curators, doing important work in the parts of the museum visitors never see. Four students, one summer, and a museum measurably better than it was in May.
A few invitations to close.
On Sunday, September 20th, from 1 to 4 PM, we’ll celebrate four exhibitions with a reception: Quilted Visions: Ann Brauer & Marge Tucker; Interpreting the Natural: Contemporary Visions of Scholars Rocks, Why We LOVE It: Staff Picks from the ACM Collection and Poets & Painters. Come but take the long way in. The sculptures of Under Construction: America at 250 are still out there, sharing the grounds with a collection that’s been growing here for a century.
Finally, on Saturday, September 26th, we host the inaugural Oyster + Art Shuckfest with the Duxbury Oyster Company. Oysters from our own bay, art from our community, on grounds that are now an accredited arboretum. How great is that! Bring your neighbors!
In community and creativity,
Peter A. Mello
