Asked about how she felt about her time at the MJMAG, her response immediately went to the folks who worked at the local facility and their dedication to their craft.
Nothing about herself. All about everyone else.
“The team that’s here is just amazing, they’re a wonderful group of people and they work so hard,” Maier said. “I don’t think the community really knows because when they come in and everything is already set up for the opening of events, they don’t realize the amount of work that has gone into it. That’s because they’re so good at what they do they make it look easy, and it’s far from easy.
“They’ve been doing it so long, too. You couldn’t work with a better group of people.”
That kind of selfless attitude is one of the reasons why the gallery was filled with well-wishers and supporters on Thursday night, with dozens taking part in the celebration of Maier’s 14 years with the organization.
Of course, Maier did get around to chatting about her time there when pressed, and interestingly enough, she wasn’t even sure if she wanted the job when it first came up all those years ago.
“I’ve enjoyed it, I started out as an administrative assistant as a part-time job, which turned into full time, then after 10 years our director retired and they asked me if I would take on the job,” Maier explained. “So I was thinking ‘I don’t know if I can do it’, but my husband said ‘you can, I believe in you, go ahead’ and I just thought if I could make it through five years, I would be successful. And now it’s been 14.”
With that in mind, Maier felt it was time to step back and let some new faces take over the day-to-day operations, and she’s looking forward to seeing what happens with the foundation she and her team have built over the years.
“That is a kind of exciting feel to it, it’s nice to know what’s here and the security is there to come in and build on,’ she said. “But they’ll also come up with even better ideas, things to get people excited about like purchasing (the Joe Fafard colt statue) Peggy and things like that. It’s going to be wonderful, I so want to see this all succeed and I’m sure the people will be in place to do that.”
As one might expect, Maier admitted she’ll miss many aspects of the job, especially the most obvious one.
“The people,” she said matter-of-factly. “They’re like family to me and they’re an amazing bunch. And I’ll miss some of my works, they’ve brought me a lot of joy. Some of the stress I’m not going to miss, like where we’re going to get funds from and doing all those kind of things, like every non-profit. And the volunteers. If you took all those resources and the work so many people do away from the non-profits, we’d collapse.”
So what’s she going to do next?
“What I want whenever I want, but it’s like someone said, there are laws,” she laughed. “But my grandkids mean a lot to me, and my great-granddaughter. Plus we live on a farm, so I’m sure my husband will have me doing things… it’s that time of year where there’s gardening and things like that. There’s always something to do and it’ll be nice to have time to do some of those things.”
