For The Love Of Art

William (Rod) Faulds watched quietly as people examined his abstract photo-art at Art Boca Raton in 2016. Many of them probably thought he was simply an artist, but they would have been wrong. 

 Not only is he a gifted artist, he’s been the dynamic director of Florida Atlantic University’s University Galleries since 1997, transforming the Schmidt Center Gallery and the Ritter Art Gallery into a leading cultural powerhouse in Palm Beach County.

“I have reveled in the work I do at FAU,” he explains. “It gave me the opportunity to use the multidisciplinary resources of the university to engage a wider range of both university and community audiences. In that way, I was able to create a richer dialogue starting in the visual arts.” 

Although Faulds enjoys his creative career at the university, the 67- year-old is looking forward to working fulltime on his photo-art after retiring from FAU in May 2021.  

The opportunity to enhance art at FAU was perfect for Faulds, who has a master’s degree in exhibition design, experience in community arts, and years of museum experience from the Williams College Art Museum to the Guggenheim and Brooklyn Museum. 

The FAU position called for all those skills: setting up student showcases, teaching Museum Studies and Gallery Practices, and ensuring art venues were used to their fullest potential.  

He decided to put the emphasis of the galleries on contemporary art projects that complement the focus of the Boca Raton Museum of Art and The Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. Two of the most popular exhibits during his tenure were William Wegman’s early Polaroids and the 2016 exhibition “A.E. Backus and Florida’s Highwaymen: History, Commerce and Art.” 

 Faulds, who is originally from Southern California, also played a major role in the launch of “southXeast,” a series of exhibitions that provided visibility for innovative art created by artists in southeastern states.  

He also expanded the Galleries educational reach through interdisciplinary exhibitions such as “Community Justice: The Black Panther Party & Other Civil Rights Movements,” which included a sold-out talk by 1960s political activist Angela Davis. The latest of these hybrids is the Galleries first exclusively online experience; titled “University Galleries Presents: A Four Exhibition Look At Our Past, Present, and Future Politics,” on view through Jan. 15.

 For now, Faulds is committed to Boca Raton, even after retirement. But his wife Terri W. Watson, an adjunct professor at City College of New York, and their daughter Taylor Faulds, a recent graduate of Tufts College, certainly exert a northeastern pull upon him. His two older children by previous marriage, Travis, 40, and Courtney, 36, live in western states.

 But whatever he decides, it is certain that photographic art will be at the heart of his next journey.