Witter Gallery’s First Director Returns For Keynote Talk
Linge, a 1972 Buena Vista graduate from New Orleans, has designed and produced exhibits across the country
Gordon Linge laughs when asked to sum up his career as a designer, producer, and director of museum exhibitions across the United States.
“When asked years ago what I’d do for my career, my response was: ‘I’ll make it up,’” Linge said. “If my story sounds like I made it up…that’s because I have!”
Linge, who co-owns WELLDONE Museum Exhibition & Experiential Design & Production with his wife, Jill Jeskin, has been designing and producing museum exhibitions since the early 1970s when, as a Buena Vista student, he created Storm Lake’s popular Santa’s Workshop, an effort he would strengthen and make more popular as the endeavor moved into Storm Lake’s old Carnegie Library and blossomed as a wintertime attraction, Santa’s Castle.
Linge graduated from Buena Vista in 1972, majoring in art. After working for the Storm Lake Register & Pilot-Tribune and at numerous part-time jobs, he became the first director of the Witter Gallery in Storm Lake. He returned to Storm Lake on Sept. 30 to deliver a talk as part of Witter Gallery’s Crawl & Brawl fundraiser and a meet-and-greet at Santa’s Castle.
“The easy part is opening a new gallery or exhibit space, everyone comes to the ribbon cutting,” he said. “The tough part is maintaining a museum or art center and keeping it fresh for people to keep coming back as they bring their friends.”
Witter Gallery and Santa’s Castle have succeeded at doing just that, and Linge offered his congratulations to all who have made it happen over the past half-century.
Linge created an exhibit on puppetry for Witter Gallery in 1975, after learning more about Storm Lake native Margo Rose, a puppeteer and sister of BVU Professor of Art Dorothy Skewis. The effort attracted national attention and soon Linge was solicited to direct a national touring exhibition entitled, “PUPPETS: Art & Entertainment.” The once-in-a-lifetime museum exhibit was a long-time dream of Muppets Creator Jim Henson. An international Smithsonian puppetry festival in Washington, D.C. provided funding opportunities for him to produce the display showcasing 800 years of puppetry, from pre-Columbian eras to the Muppets.
More than 1 million visitors viewed the collection at 11 major museums, from Washington, D.C., in 1980, to Seattle, Wash., in 1983. Linge learned to operate puppets, including marionette string puppets as part of the exhibit in Dallas, Texas. In 1987, he pulled Howdy Doody’s strings for Bob Smith as part of the 40th anniversary celebrating the famous television show.
As the tour ended, Linge and Jeskin relocated to her hometown of New Orleans and were contracted to create the “Louisiana Folklife Pavilion” exhibits for the 1984 World’s Fair.
Fans of the New Orleans Saints tabbed Linge to design a hall of fame for the National Football League team. After Hurricane Katrina, the Saints Hall of Fame moved from a suburban site to the Superdome, site of the Saints’ home games.
When the Saints Hall of Fame opened in 1988, Linge was invited to be a guest on New Orleans’ WWL Radio’s live sports talk program. During the program, he was asked about his participation on a football team. He quickly answered, “I never was a player. I was 17 years old before I was taught how to hold a football.” The show’s host was shocked, leading Linge to state that he created museum exhibits on all different topics, and it was better he knew little about his subjects. It forced him to rely on the experts for whom he worked.
“I’m like a visitor who knows nothing when entering,” he said. “I ask all the dumb questions, so the guest doesn’t have to.”
The exhibit includes the handmade shoe Saints kicker Tom Dempsey wore when he executed a then-NFL record 63-yard field goal. Dempsey was born without toes, which made the accomplishment even more impressive. The kick came in the closing seconds of a contest, which gave the Saints a rare victory. It remained the team’s signature highlight until it won Super Bowl XLIV in 2010.
“We have Archie Manning artifacts and a typewriter used by a Times-Picayune sports columnist to write the first story about the team in 1967,” Linge said.
Linge, who painted during his time as a BV student, returned to painting during the COVID-19 pandemic. He found a piece of driftwood along the Mississippi River, burned it, then painted it. He soon had 25 walking sticks, a collection that grew to 700. He plans to add another 200 by the time he features an exhibit this summer back at the Witter Gallery, in his hometown.
“I’ll call the exhibit, ‘FUTUREISTICKS,’ spelled with a letter K,” he said. “I’ll bring a supply of cut-and-whittled sticks and people will be able to sit by the lake and work along with me. We’ll paint and talk about the futuristics of ‘Storm Lake—A Model Small Town of the Future.’”