with the Office of University Architects as they planned the expansion and renovation. She describes those meetings with fondness, saying “everyone just wanted a successful project and wanted to work for it.” Mondi over- saw every aspect of the renovated building, but the Jane and Harry Will- son Sculpture Garden was a particularly important place for her. She had gotten to know Mrs. Willson while in Albany, and the idea of the garden being reserved for woman sculptors was appealing to her. She also, as usual, enjoyed the logistics of planning out site placement for 3-D objects and working with shippers and riggers to move large, heavy, complicated works into the garden. Every time a new exhibition opened there, Mondi was in the thick of it, usually with a sun hat and a big smile as she talked to truck drivers and artists’ assistants. Dale Couch, the museum’s curator emeritus of decorative arts, pointed out that Mondi’s role in the exhibition “Crafting History: Textiles, Metals and Ceramics at the University of Georgia” (2018) as well as many other curatorial areas was crucial. He said, “Her connoisseurship in modern craft was a crucial tool to the decorative arts program since its inception and I constantly relied on it. Her contributions are foundational for much of our collection and understanding of 20th-century craft in Georgia.” The list of exhibitions on which Mondi has served as an uncredited curator or critical contributor is a lengthy one. Always eager to attack a large and thankless task, Mondi has been respon- sible for too many things to mention in her time here: every byzantine exhibition contract, so many international loans, penny pinching to make sure the budget could encompass ambitions beyond our means, knowing the name and priorities of every staff member, making time for students, preserving Athens art and history, nailing down recycling agreements with UGA’s Office of Sustainability.
We cannot possibly list everything, but her work is present in everything we do. Her name might not be on much, but her spirit is in all of it.
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