VREPS is thrilled to continue this conference tradition, Stories from the Start, an informal conversation with three experienced visual resource professionals about their career beginnings and the road that led them to where they are today. Have questions about starting out in the Visual Resources field? Interested in hearing other VRA members’ backstories? Speakers will share stories from the beginning years of their career and discuss the difficulties they faced. An open discussion will follow, allowing all attendees to ask questions.
This year's speakers include:
Jenni Rodda - Manager, Digital Media and Computer Services - Institute of Fine Arts, NYU
Jenni Rodda started her career as a humble slide binder while an art history graduate student at Brown University, under the tutelage of the legendary Norine Duncan. She then took on management of the slide library at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston before being named the Assistant Curator of Photographs at the Valentine Museum in Richmond, Virginia. After brief periods working in banking and selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door, she has been at the Institute of Fine Arts/NYU since 1986. She holds an AB in Fine Arts/Art History from Wilson College (Chambersburg, PA), an MA in art history from Brown University, and an MSIS in information science from Drexel University. Her current job responsibilities include management of the Institute's image collections (both analog and digital), coordination of classroom services (video recording, captioning and archiving; classroom hybridization, hardware, software, network services, applications, digital accessibility services), administration of imaging services (image creation and storage for classroom use, research, publications, and headshots), compilation of the Institute's Annual, and advocating for the Institute on a variety of University-wide committees, including the University Council of Information Officers. She has served the Association on committees (Publications Advisory, Awards, Education, SEI Implementation, and Nominating, among others), and on the Board (Vice President 1993-1995, President-elect, President, past-President, 1997-2001); she has served as Chair of the Association's Greater New York Chapter three times (most recently 2009-2010), and is one of that Chapter's founding members. Jenni has been guest editor of the VRA Bulletin twice, and has been presenting at conferences since 1991. She has been on the conference planning committee for SECAC, been the Vice Moderator and Moderator of the ARLIS/NA Visual Resources Division; and served as the Board liaison between VRA and ARLIS. She was awarded the Association's Distinguished Service Award in 2004.
Molly Schoen - Visual Resources Curator - Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY
Molly Schoen is the Visual Resources Curator at the Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY) and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Pratt Institute School of Information. Her professional career began while pursuing her Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science from Wayne State University. During grad school, she interned at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the Motown Museum. Her first professional position was Registrar at the Mott-Warsh Collection, a collection of modern and contemporary art of the African diaspora based in Flint, MI. Following that, she worked in the Visual Resources Collections of the History of Art Department at the University in Michigan. In 2015, she began her current full-time role at FIT. She has taught a class on Visual Resources Management at the Pratt Institute since 2018. For almost ten years, she has been very active within the VRA, having served in the past as co-chair of VREPS and chair of the Greater New York chapter.
John Taormina- Curator of Visual Resources and Head, Visual Media Lab - Duke University
John Taormina began his career in the visual resources/image management professionin 1982. He has a B.A. and M.A. in art history as well as formal training in art collections management. He has directed the image collections at George Washington University, Oberlin College, The Ohio State University, and the University of Michigan. Since 2000 he has been the Curator of Visual Resources at Duke University. Asthe Curator of Visual Resources at Duke, he oversees all aspects of the departmental digital and analog visual media collections, and also manages the department’s online and print communications programs and exhibition spaces. John served for ten years (1996-2005, 2009-10) as the editor of the VRA Bulletin. From 1996-2003, John also served on four successive VRA Executive Boards. In 2005 he received both the VRA Distinguished Service Award and the VRA Nancy DeLaurier Award, for his contributions and leadership in publications and educational programs inthe VRA and in the visual resources profession. John has been a core member of the Duke Digital Art History & Visual Culture Research Lab (formerly Wired! Lab) since 2013. He has been the metadata and image consultant to the Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database project since its inception in 2011. John published his 150-page Digital Humanities Bibliography in 2019. He is currently researching the history of Ohio's art museums.
