When first developing his skills in exhibition design, Anderson not only took a training course at the Smithsonian; he also visited many museums to study their approach to design issues.

"It's a terrific advantage when you're getting an exhibition to see the same objects someplace else before they come to you," said Anderson. "You can see what works, what other designers are doing, what great ideas you can steal, and also what doesn't work that you want to avoid."

According to Anderson, there are only a certain number of things you can do when designing an exhibit. "You can move the walls around to influence how people move through the space, controlling what they see at different moments. You can set a mood by changing the color of the walls and the character of the lighting, and you can decide how objects, labels and other educational materials will be placed. In some cases you can add architectural details that suggest a historical environment. That's about it. That's what you've got to work with. But if you can bring all of these things together, the result can be breathxtaking."

In the museum's last major exhibition, "Empire of the Sultans: Ottoman Art from the Khalili Collection," Anderson worked with Diana Turnbow, a curator at the MOA, who had really mastered the information on all the exhibit's objects. The two of them ended up rearranging the show from how it looked in other venues to get a more dramatic entrance. "Where the other venues had shown the parts of the armor separately," said Anderson, "we put them together — breastplates, helmets shields, and swords — like two ghostly warriors dressed in armor guarding the entrance." They also created a mosquelike room surrounded by colorful arches where some of the best religious manuscripts were displayed.

Anderson does a lot of thinking about what the long vista will be and where the exhibit's surprises will emerge. "Before we did the China exhibit ("Imperial Tombs of China, 1995-96"), I saw it on display in Memphis, where the Wonders group had a beautiful installation. But there was one particular piece that I loved — a bronze horse from the 1st century. It could have been a Picasso; it was a fabulous piece. And it was kind of lost among a lot of other items."

He wanted the people who visited the show at BYU to really see this horse. "So I designed a setting where it was in a display case by itself in the middle of the room with plain light-colored textured walls — you saw through the case and there was nothing distracting behind so you saw the powerful silhouette of the horse."

In June of 2004, the MOA will host another major exhibition, "Art of the Ancient Mediterranean World," and Anderson has been busily preparing sketches, designs and models.