RIT students dive deep into the Albert Paley Collection to curate exhibit

A handwritten note from sculptor and educator Albert Paley caught Emelia McCalla’s eye in the RIT Archives while they were looking for inspiration for a class assignment.

Overwhelmed by the volume of material in the Albert Paley Collection, McCalla and classmate Kaitlyn Kavanaugh tried different angles for developing a proposal for their class, Topics in Museum Studies: Art, Design, and Exhibition Projects, taught by John Monaco. When McCalla noticed a familiar flourish in Paley’s handwriting, they saw echoes of this shape throughout Paley’s work.

“A curve in the top of an ‘F’ looked just like a curve that’s in one of his massive metal gates,” said McCalla, a fourth-year graphic design major from Rutland, Vt. “I pointed it out to Kaitlyn, and we couldn’t stop seeing it.”

With only two weeks before their deadline, McCalla and Kavanagh identified sketches in the archive that connect to Paley’s finished works and curated Inscription: The Process Work of Albert Paley for their class project. The RIT Archives staff selected their proposal as the first exhibit of Paley’s collection.

Paley is internationally renowned for his large-scale architectural works, sculptures, gates, architectural pieces, furniture design, and decorative arts. He has a long association with RIT as a Distinguished Professor and artist-in-residence in the School for American Crafts, and three of his sculptures works can be seen on the campus, most noticeably, the 73-foot-high Sentinel. The artist donated his business records, sketch books, photographs, and other documents to the RIT Archive in 2025. The Paley collection includes 240 boxes of his items.

“Our exhibition is about making visible the hand of the artist is in all that he’s created, and the interconnectedness of every step of Paley’s process,” McCalla said.

The experience led Kavanagh, a fifth-year museum studies and new media design double major from Long Island, N.Y., to connect with and collaborate with different people.

She and McCalla worked with Ella Von Holtum, RIT Archives interim director, and students Michelle Fu and Julian Howland from RIT’s Command+g Design Lab to finalize the material.

“This is my first opportunity to work on a show from start to finish and to work on an installation,” Kavanagh said. “It fills me with a sense of pride, and I can’t wait for the opening.”

Inscription: The Process Work of Albert Paley is a student-curated exhibit, opening with a reception at 4:30 p.m. Feb. 11 to March 6, in the University Gallery’s Grid Space, in Jame E. Booth Hall, room 2700.