MORE SPACE MEANS MORE STAFF AT ART MUSEUM

A bigger museum naturally means a bigger museum staff.

When the County Museum of Art opened its Robert O. Anderson Building last month, the museum’s gallery space for 20th-Century art increased threefold--and, in preparation for the opening, an army of curators, conservators, art handlers and volunteers joined the museum to bring the new wing to life.

Stephanie Barron, who organized the Anderson’s inaugural installation, has been working on the project for three years.

“It’s exciting,” she said recently, walking through the Anderson. “Many museum staff members have actually never seen our entire collection. Even Rusty Powell, the director, has walked through and said, ‘I never knew we had that. ‘ “

Howard N. Fox’s 1985 appointment as curator of contemporary art was the museum’s most conspicuous addition to a staff totaling about 400.

“We’re installing a wing the size of many a museum,” said Fox, who was associate curator of exhibitions at Washington’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. “So we need a lot of skilled technical people who know how to handle and install works of art.”

One of those technicians is Louis Fuller, 62. He retired 18 months ago but came back to help out as a volunteer with the installation crew and wound up with a salaried job supervising art handlers.

“You can see smiles around my house everywhere,” said Fuller, “and that’s because I’m smiling.”

Among other staff additions are 23 new workers including art handlers, carpenters, painters, electricians, custodians, an architect and a crew of more than 50 unarmed security guards, who will strengthen a current museum-wide battalion of about 100.

Pieter Meyers, who heads the museum’s conservation center, has had his hands full finding workers to deal with modern artworks made of odd materials like flour and honey.

“My favorite case involved Claes Oldenburg’s ‘Giant Pool Balls,’ ” Meyers said. “Six weeks ago we discovered that the balls, each two feet in diameter, had to be repainted. But we realized to get the perfect finish we’d have to go outside of traditional museum expertise. We wound up at an auto body shop, one for luxury cars, for Corvettes.”

The museum’s docents have been learning about 20th-Century art for the new tours they’ll lead through the Anderson beginning in January. For the past two years, the 474-person volunteer brigade has been studying everything from late 19th-Century works to “what’s wet on the walls,” said docent council chairman Shan Carico.

As part of the museum’s master expansion plan, artworks and offices that occupied old office and display spaces were moved into the Anderson, spaces were freed for new or expanding curatorial departments and exhibition areas, and more art experts are needed.

“We’ve felt the strain only in that we have hardly the capacity to deal with the increased personnel in terms of office space,” said museum director Powell.

Both seasoned and new staff members had to find temporary quarters during construction of the Anderson, some moving outdoors to trailers. They expect to be nestled into larger, permanent offices by the end of the year, however, said museum press officer Pamela Levitt.

“We’ll be happy as clams to leave our temporary offices, which are about the size of clams,” said Fox, grinning at the thought.