Draft:Karen Loveland Adey

Karen Adey Loveland (June 15, 1942 - December 29, 2018) was an American filmmaker. She worked as an audiovisual producer and director at the Smithsonian Institution from 1964 to 2015.

Career
As a 1964 graduate of American University, Loveland apprenticed creating short films and documentaries under designer-filmmakers Ray and Charles Eames and NBC producer Charles Fisher. After assisting with production on the Smithsonian-commissioned half-hour documentary, Smithsonian Institution (1964), Charles Eames recommended Loveland be hired as a production assistant for “film and broadcasting projects of the Office of Public Information/Office of Public Affairs.”

When William C. Grayson was appointed Chief of the Smithsonian’s film and broadcasting in spring 1966, Loveland became Audio Visual Production Specialist and Grayson’s second-in-command. One of the early productions Grayson and Loveland worked with NBC Television on was a program called, "The Enormous Egg," a children's story of a dinosaur based on a book by Oliver Butterworth, which was broadcast in 1968. The hour-long television program was "a children's drama about a boy who "hatches" a triceratops and takes it to the Smithsonian zoo [...] filmed at locations throughout Washington, including the zoo and the National Museum of Natural History." The program broadcast of April 18, 1968 was directed by June Reig and sponsored by the Sinclair Oil company, which used a dinosaur as its logo.

Exhibits Motion Picture Unit
By January 1968 the Smithsonian created an autonomous ‘Exhibits Motion Picture Unit’ with Loveland and cinematographer John Hiller working in close collaboration as its two core staffers. According to the Smithsonian annual report to Congress, Smithsonian Year 1969, Loveland "heads the Exhibits film unit."

Office of Telecommunications
Upon creation of SI Secretary S. Dillon Ripley’s formalized film, television, and radio production unit Office of Telecommunications in 1976, Loveland was already a prolific producer and director and would ultimately assume the position of Deputy Director of Smithsonian Productions until retiring from the position in 1998.

Through the Office of Telecommunications, Loveland and Smithsonian exhibitions designer Benjamin Lawless helmed the documentary film, 1876: Celebrating a Century, which featured a cameo by Charles Eames. The film was directed by Loveland and produced to accompany the Smithsonian's American bicentennial exhibition, 1876.

Publications
Together with her partner, National Museum of Natural History marine biologist Walter H. Adey, Loveland co-authored, Dynamic Aquaria: Building and Restoring Living Ecosystems, first published in 1991 and now in its fourth edition as of 2024.