When enrolled as an Honors College student at the University of Central Arkansas, Jessica Harden ’03 began unraveling what she understood about the world. She challenged her beliefs, became exposed to different philosophies and followed her curiosity. As head of design for the J. Paul Getty Museum, she facilitates visual experiences that help others do the same.
In her role at the esteemed museum, Harden oversees a team that designs exhibition and gallery interiors, finishes, signage and didactic materials at Getty’s two campuses in Los Angeles: the Getty Center and the Getty Villa.
Harden was always drawn to the way museums provide teaching and learning experiences, something that museum design enables.
“What I really loved about the arts and museums is they were really thinking about how people learn … tactile, mechanical, kinesthetic and different ways of learning,” said Harden, who began her role in September 2020. “Some of it is auditory, some of it is reading, some of it’s video. So really thinking about many different mediums and what mediums best suit the activity or the learning that needs to happen.”
Though she’s worked in museum design for about two decades, Harden didn’t always see herself in an arts career. Growing up in East Texas’ Bowie County, Harden was always creative and mechanically inclined; she was raised on a farm, so she knew how to repair and build, and she designed her own prom dress. She even played around with her grandmother’s craft of painting but ultimately viewed art as more of a hobby than a career path — until she attended UCA.
At UCA, Harden’s academic strengths were in mathematics and the sciences, but she struggled with testing. A math professor advised her to take courses that sounded fun, and something clicked.
“He was like, ‘Who do you like being around? Because that’s who you need to surround yourself with,’” she said. “For me, that was just such a mind-blowing insight. I was like, ‘I really like these art people,’ and he was like, ‘Go take some more art classes, spend some time in there, see what happens.’”
Through her various art classes, Harden discovered a relationship between the arts and science. She explored chemistry through photography and ceramics. She identified physics and geometry when building furniture for her 3D design class. It was a connection that the Honors College’s interdisciplinary focus helped to bridge. “There were always things where I suddenly [saw] real-life applications for the abstract concepts that I had learned in math and science,” she said.
Harden also took part in real-life experiences in the museum space. She completed a work-study job at the UCA Baum Gallery, where she realized her love for art installation. She even landed an internship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where her knack for exhibition design solidified.
After earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts from UCA, Harden received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and began work at Staples & Charles in the Washington, D.C., area, a renowned design firm that worked with Yale University Art Gallery and the Delaware Art Museum’s Pre-Raphaelite galleries. There, Harden spent about four years sinking her teeth into the firm’s work on the renovation of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
“You never have the same challenge twice,” she said. “Every show that you’re designing, you’re learning a new story. You’re learning about a new artist. You’re learning about new artwork. You’re researching a different time period, different design cues and typography and material resources. It’s a new, interesting challenge every single time.”
Following the opening of the Detroit Institute of Art project, Harden decided to move closer to home and joined the Dallas Museum of Art, where she served for 12 and a half years, gradually building an exhibition design team that included graphic design, gallery technology and carpentry, and eventually grew to include interpretation, editing and translation. She worked on about 18 to 22 exhibitions a year, including 2019’s “Dior: From Paris to the World,” a profile on the impact of fashion designer Christian Dior. For the exhibition, Harden approved designs and structural plans and oversaw the production of event materials. She has called the exhibition “the most challenging and ambitious” project she’s worked on at the museum.
After Harden learned of the opening as head of design at the Getty, she felt it was a perfect fit: Its prestige was a draw, and it boasts a design department of eight full-time designers, more than her previous employment. Plus, she could explore Southern California and hike the Santa Monica Mountains in her down time.
“One thing that has become really interesting and apparent to me is that, even though I may not be designing anymore, I’m still using a creative mindset in relationship to leadership and also to life,” she said. “I think that started with the Honors College and continued through art and museums.”