When Erica James was earning her BA in Vassar College in 1992, she chose for her senior project the topic of a National Art Gallery of The Bahamas.  Little did she know that eleven years later in 2003 she would be leading such an institution that would drastically change the way Bahamian viewers and artists approach art.

By that time, she had earned her MFA from the University of Chicago and was ABD (all but dissertation, which she completed in Nassau) for her PhD from Duke University.  But that dream of leading an institution that formally preserves the existing history and current trends of Bahamian art through exhibitions, educational programs and public discussions stayed persistent through her love of visual culture and art history.

"That was kind of surreal, really.  It was always something that I had a consciousness about that was necessary for us as a people and just to drive our arts forward.  We needed something to shoot for," she remembers.  "I love art.  I'm not someone who is in it for something that is cute or pretty or needed to decorate your living room;  I actually feel that it's a force of nature, it's a part of our lives, it enriches and makes it amazing if you so choose to engage with it."

This passion and knowledge led the board of the NAGB to contact her for her resume to apply as director of the institution -- an immense honor, as The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas was the first institution of its kind in the nation, its existence through an act of Parliament in 1996 a significant effort by the Bahamian Government to acknowledge how such institutions are important to the development of a nation.  Not only that, but seven years of investment in restoring the old Villa Doyle building into the NAGB illustrated the real effort that went into establishing a modern institution that would be the pride of the local visual arts world.

That Dr. James had been selected to lead this institution out of the gate was indeed a special and yet loaded honor, but she took it in stride and proved herself to be a capable director and curator by successfully launching in 2003 what would be the first of many National Exhibitions in a museum gallery space.

"I had a meeting with the board and I said 'Ok, we're opening on July 7th (2003)', and they said 'Are you sure?'  Because we didn't have airconditioning, we didn't have painting done, we didn't have a lot done, but I just decided that was going to be the day and we would stick to it.  And we got it open," she remembers.

"The longer I stayed, the more we dug in our heels and decided this was going to happen, the greater the weight of the responsibility became, it became clearer what was actually happening and the kind of work that was needed to make that happen," she says.  "So that first year I was working seven days a week in most cases, and really putting in efforts to start to think about running an institution -- not just putting things on the wall, but how do we manage it the day after the pomp and pageantry, after that has passed, what do we do, where do we go after that?"

Many may be surprised to know that Dr. James had only a one-year commitment at first, however inevitably, she found herself becoming both director and curator for many years.
But in that time she feels they have made the most stride in really changing the way Bahamian viewers and artists alike approach the idea of "Bahamian art" -- that the gallery has been a catalyst for the recent explosive expansion in consciousness and landscape of the Bahamian art world.

"Over the years I think I've consciously tried not to direct the gallery in some sort of national or very specific way, except to say that I have thought consciously about making sure that by the time I left, Bahamians would understand that art is about more than just a painting, that there's more than one way to express yourself through art."

Many Bahamians did not understand the concept of a museum gallery space as opposed to commercial gallery space, she explains as an example.  Many people did not understand simply looking at and engaging with a body of work for the work's sake and not for the sake of a nice landscape piece for their living room.  It was a major point of resistance by the public, but with public programming and workshops inviting people into the space to simply be surrounded by the art, forcing them to engage with and discuss it in a thoughtful way, opened up their possibilities as indicators of social and art history.

From there she instituted Issues Forums to open up the public's idea of critical discourse in artwork and to put forward issues faced by artists at that time.  "So from the beginning, and we'd have artists on the staff, I'd call staff meetings and always ask, 'What do we need to talk about as a community?'" Dr. James says.  "For instance I knew we had to have Issues Forums to talk about the things no one was talking about -- lack of criticism, the fact that the work looks all the same, the fact that every second piece in The Bahamas at the time had a head in it, and you know, that artists thought real Bahamian art was only about painting pretty pictures and if you tried to do something else you were out of the conversation and certainly out of the market.  How do you start talking about these things in a safe place? Some of those early conversations were about some of those issues."

Beyond that, she invited foreign regional artists and curators to speak in the gallery space to open up international and regional art to the public, and also to place The Bahamas within a critical art discourse happening on Caribbean and international levels.  One of the first people she invited was Chris Cozier, a Trinidadian artist and curator.

Through such educational programs, Dr. James believes the gallery has been a great facilitator for both artists and the Bahamian viewing public to connect with their art history, their current trends and their relationship to the international art world -- a consciousness that has only really been fully developed in the past few years with more gallery spaces, arts festivals and discussions, residencies for local and international artists and especially a wider range and acceptance of experimental artistic mediums.  For Dr. James, this became especially true to her in one of her last conversations with the late Jackson Burnside of Doongalik Studios about his exhibition "Waste" which opened in April.
"He said, 'Boy, Erica, when I was coming up, you couldn't have an exhibition like this.  But now look at what's happened.  We can now have an exhibition where we can talk about garbage as the main medium.  I mean Bahamians just weren't having that when we was growing up'," she remembers.

"Those sorts of things are exciting to me because I believe in opening up your mind.  So I hope we've been able to open up our expectations about what art can be.  It has to be of its time and think about that, if art is of its time, look at the materials we can use to express ourselves now, the sky's the limit and we have to be open to those aesthetics and ideas in that way, that everything is a material and a media and a way for us to express ourselves, that nothing is off-limits, that art doesn't have to be a painting on a wall but can be a tiny machine in a jar."

Beyond the exhibitions and programs the public sees and attends and engages with are lots of behind the scenes "nuts and bolts" that directors of national institutions deal with when essentially putting an institution together, Dr. James explains.  This ranged from hiring a comprehensive staff (as they started with two staff members), drawing up contracts, sorting out their relationship to the government, coming up with an institutional framework and financials, among many other things that go unnoticed by the public, but which her efforts are going into even to this day, eight years later.

"I believe in institutions," she says.  "I believe you can make institutions work for you.  They're not necessarily fixed structures like people like to imagine them -- they are living structures, living beings, and if you see it that way, you can do some good work with the living thing if you think in terms of what the society needs, but according to international standards.  You want to put on good shows, make sure things are done right, but at the same time you want to tweak things in order for them to fit right into the environment that its serving and feeding from at the same time."

Looking back over the years Dr. James has given to the NAGB, the developments and achievements are enormous and are the result of a dedicated leader.  Indeed, Dr. James may strike many people as a "lead, follow or get out of the way" kind of person, and they may be right.  "I am a workaholic," she laughs.  "That helps.  I don't complain.  I believe 'Thou shalt not whine' should be the eleventh commandment."

This no-nonsense attitude carried over into her belief that those in positions of power like herself need to make great efforts to let go of the personal and recognize their role in the vast history of the institution itself.

"You have to understand it's not all about you.  You have to leave your ego at the door.  You have to think in terms of the institution being here long after you are gone and what can you do to throw your blow, to make your contribution, and to make sure that it continues."

Yet the one thing she is not lacking is determination, the quality of many accomplished leaders.  Only determination could essentially make everything she has out of the little she started with.  And yet like many leaders of such large institutions and with such headstrong beliefs and actions in a public position, she has had her share of criticism.
"I had to decide what kind of leader I wanted to be, and learn how to take criticism, deal with taking knives out of my back, because you can't please everybody," she says.  "The pressure had already built up because a lot of people had expectations, impossible expectations for this place that just couldn't do everything immediately that everybody wanted it to do.  I'm not sure if we've ever been able to give people a sense of the whole picture.  I think in a lot of ways we've made things look easy that were difficult, so what happens is the gallery is still taken for granted."

Maintaining her privacy too has been an ongoing issue, something she wasn't quite prepared for.  But in reality, it became easy when she realized that with her two jobs, she had little personal time or life to invest in.  In fact, it was this very factor that eventually wore her down -- what she calls her "seven-year burn-out".

As luck would have it, an opportunity to recharge in a change of setting came to her in 2009 in the form of a year-long Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellowship in the Department of Art History and Archeology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.  After two separate mentors sent her the information about the position, thinking it would be perfect for her, she applied, and eventually received the position.

"It just sort of worked out.  I didn't know how it was going to work out, I just sort of worked on faith," Dr. James remembers.  "I'm not somebody who needs all of the answers to take a step, I just believe in stepping and everything falling into place.  So that's what I started to do.  I decided I was going and that I would apply for leave from the gallery and things worked out."

And so after ensuring a guest director and curator would take over her job for 2010, she left and enjoyed her time at Washington University, lecturing on the Harlem Renaissance and African Art and holding seminars about Caribbean Art and on the topic of Violence and Modernity.

"I got to have a life for a year, and I got to learn, I love to soak up arts and culture and especially things about visual representation.  I felt great.  But I was fully committed to coming home because then I felt fully revived," Dr. James says.  "But I was facing a lot of other things at that time."

In fact, her time at the NAGB since her return in January 2011 has certainly been difficult.
"It's been a quick year.  I've had a lot I've had to do this year.  We've had to restructure the gallery in terms of what works and what doesn't work and put in some safeguards.  We had a budget issue, we were operating in the red a little bit so we had to tighten our belts," she says.  "It was just one thing after the next."

But this experience has helped her really finalize an institutional framework that she hopes the next director and curator -- as separate people in separate positions -- starting sometime in the next month, can operate within and build upon to ensure the institution continues on its same trailblazing path.  She has great hopes for the future of the NAGB based on the pool of international and local applicants she received for these positions.
"I was worried.  But the people that I had dreamt about coming have applied.  The frontrunners are people that I admire greatly," Dr. James says.  "I think it really speaks to what is happening in The Bahamas -- not necessarily just the gallery but in terms of the arts and what Bahamian artists are doing internationally -- that the caliber of the individuals willing to come here were so high.  I think it's amazing.  They're going to be amazing.  My heart was rested when they showed interest in coming.  I think we're going to be fine."

As for Dr. James herself, she is off to that famous Ivy League school Yale in another teaching position -- Assistant Professor in The History of Art and African American Studies -- another opportunity which landed in her lap quite by chance.  Barely moved to St. Louis for her Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellowship, she received a push from her mentor again to apply to the Assistant Professor position at Yale even though the deadline had passed.
After thinking about it, she did what she had done before -- taken that "why not" step -- and applied in a day-long process.  After an interview and a lecture, she received the position, and begins the four-year tenure-track position this Fall semester.  For Dr. James, the change is one which she is happy to make, glad to move onto developing specific critical discourses that have interested her for years.

"I think I'm a scholar at heart.  I like to curate, but I like researching, I like writing, and I think there's a need for writing on the Caribbean, on the African Diaspora," she says.  "I had a special interest in certain things and one of them I'm teaching at Yale is on Violence and Modernity.  I didn't have time to do this sort of stuff, and I needed time to do that stuff and to sort of work out all the stuff that's in my head."

"I'm going in there with the hopes that I can work on my projects that I've had on the backburner for years because of the work that I've been able to do here -- which I don't regret," she continues.  "I don't regret anything that happened here, I don't think it was a sacrifice or anything."

As she finishes her final few days at the NAGB with the launch of a major retrospective on Kendal Hanna's work, she's satisfied in both her future and the future of the institution, which have increasingly diverged.  Yet her major influence on the institution's infancy stages means her work will always be felt in its gallery spaces and framework long after she's cleaned out her office space.

"People are surprised I'm leaving such a position, but for me, life is about growth.  I have a personal hunger where I need to grow and do things. I've had a list since I was about ten years old of things I've wanted to do and I believe that life is organic," she says.
"It's not that this has ceased to be a challenge, but I think the time is right that we stop thinking in terms of these leaders for a hundred years, that we nurture new generations of people to take over and to be in charge, and to foster a new system of leadership where you aren't depending on one person to do certain things," she continues.  "I've been charting a little bit -- not necessarily having a hand in the future but making sure that we have good leadership in the future.  That was important to me."

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