This is the second part of a multi-part video series documenting our October 25 pre-conference workshop on visitor comfort at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park, San Diego.
Participants role-played as visitors with either learning differences or physical disabilities. They based their roles on brief, half-page profiles, written by Paul Gabriel (differences) and Beth Katz (disabilities), that described the important characteristics of their personas. Participants did not see their profiles before the day of the workshop. Each was randomly assigned a persona and had about 15 minutes to get familiar with it before going out into Balboa Park and naively visiting the museum in character, from entering the building to leaving.
This segment deals with participants’ experiences with some of the most very basic aspects of visitor comfort: labels, seating, and interactives.
Personally, I’m struck by the depth and seriousness with which the workshop participants experienced the museum from the viewpoints of their characters. They took their rather brief (if detailed) profiles and just ran with them. This gave them some valuable insights into comfort and accessibility issues, I think.
From disease and death to land loss and forced subjugation, native museums often have the daunting task of exploring difficult issues and events. Too often, as museum planners and exhibit designers, we talk around these subjects without fully confronting them. Three museum professionals from the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. and Bishop Museum and ‘Iolani Palace in Honolulu, Hawai’i will share their efforts to shed light on these dark chapters. What problems did they encounter? How did they work with community members? And how did museum visitors respond?
Karen Kosasa, Director, Museum Studies Graduate Certificate Program, Department of American Studies, University of Hawai’i at Manoa handled introductions and then presentations were made by:
Kippen De Alba Chu, Exec Executive Director, Iolani Palace
Alexandra Harris, Editor, National Museum of the American Indian
And Noelle Kahanu, Project Manager, Bishop Museum
Talking about the Tough Stuff at Native Museums #wma09
We owe Noelle our thanks for organizing the panel and soliciting our participation on it. As the moderator, I had the privilege of speaking with Kippen, Alexandra, and Noelle before they had to pare down their presentations from many topics to a few.
What I appreciated most was their willingness to talk about highly sensitive issues with candor and care. Candor because talking about these issues is absolutely critical to our efforts to transform museums, and care because what they discuss is part of an ongoing process they cannot afford to jeopardize. In her panel description Noelle refers to these issues as “the buffalo in the room”—the things that museum planners and exhibit designers talk around and rarely confront.
This panel marks a stage in a journey toward what some are calling the “inclusive” museum. The inclusive museum is notable for its efforts to include diversity, and not just the “feel good” strain, but the type of diversity that museums generally avoid for fear of alienating their audiences or infuriating their staff or board members. Here, diversity often includes the views of a museum’s harshest Native critics as well as the hopes of those who envision the museum as a place for conversations about complexity and controversy.
Bishop Museum was founded in 1889 by Charles Reed Bishop in honor of his late wife, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last descendant of the royal Kamehameha family.
Lakeside, California; the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.; and the Bishop Museum in Honolulu—are presented as Native museums, but they speak to larger issues that concern non-Native institutions and cultural centers. As a non-Native educator, I thank the panelists for allowing us to learn along with their institutions as they tackle the “tough stuff” and transform themselves and their relationship with Native communities and visitors.
I would like to summarize a few things about each of the presentations. (Perhaps in the future we can put together an anthology where we can discuss these issues in more depth.) It is interesting to note that some of the most compelling insights shared by the panelists concerned “internal” debates that took place among museum staff or between staff and board members. At times these internal criticisms weighed more heavily on staff than external criticisms. In certain cases it may have been due to the respect a staff person had for a colleague’s expertise, in others it may have been the result of being outranked, and in still others, of having no means to appeal a decision.
In Kippen’s presentation he described the significance of ‘Iolani Palace as an “emotional symbol” for many Hawaiians. Although it was not the official seat of government for the Kingdom of Hawai‘i, it was the site of the last monarch’s imprisonment, and eventually housed the offices of the territorial and Hawai‘i state governments for many years. In recent years, it has been “taken over” and public access temporarily blocked by different Hawaiian sovereignty or independence organizations seeking to restore the Hawaiian kingdom by bringing attention to a range of issues including the overthrow of the Hawaiian government in 1893 (by white settlers and the U.S. military), the illegal annexation by the United States in 1898, and the illegal process by which statehood was achieved in 1959.
As the director of ‘Iolani Palace, Kippen has had to work with many different constituencies to protect the palace and ensure that it remains open to all visitors. He described the continuous challenges he confronts from questions about the historic interpretation of the period rooms, to whether educational programs can be relevant without making references to “politics,” to discussions about acceptable funders/donors, and in 2009, to mediating conflicting views over how the palace grounds should be used to commemorate (not celebrate) the 50th anniversary of Hawai‘i statehood.
It is obvious that Kippen and his staff must carefully negotiate issues of interpretation, collections care, and heritage management that in most institutions are routine matters, but at ‘Iolani Palace, quickly become the subject of media attention for local, national, and international audiences.
Alexandra began by describing the many issues the staff at the Barona Cultural Center & Museum considered in developing a major history exhibit to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Barona Indian Reservation. (To view Alexandra’s slideshow click here.) A significant number of elders wanted to avoid representing the past in a negative way that would depict Indians as victims and make non-Indian visitors feel uncomfortable or guilty. They emphasized the need to portray positive factors. At the National Museum of the American Indian, she explained, everything is “potentially controversial” because it is committed to dismantling myths about Native peoples and replacing them with stories or perspectives that are generally unfamiliar and hence disturbing. In order to assist the museum in this difficult task, it has conducted surveys to find out what visitors know as well as how to encourage them to engage with new information and experiences.
The rock-and-roll innovator Jimi Hendrix often spoke proudly of his Cherokee grandmother. He was one of many African Americans who cite family traditions in claiming Native ancestry.
To illustrate some of the challenges facing NMAI, Alexandra described two upcoming exhibitions, “Indivisible” on African-Native Americans (opening in November 2009), and “Treaties” (opening in 2012/2013). Let me mention a few things she presented about the latter. Although many Native people believe that treaties are “universally bad” and should be discarded, the exhibition developers hope to change these beliefs. Past treaties acknowledged Native sovereignty and can be used to argue for tribal rights in the present. With the help of explanatory texts, displaying a Kiowa pipe can help visitors to understand its function and meaning within treaty negotiations—the telling of truth and the sealing of agreements. A pipe thus stands as a witness to the existence of treaties and the fact that two or more parties consented to them in good faith. What happens, then, when one party violated an agreement after it was sealed? For me, crucial and disturbing topics of conversation open up. For instance, what are the implications when the violator was the United States government and its representatives? What is our ethical obligation to right historical wrongs?
Noelle started her presentation by locating the Bishop Museum within two histories—first, the historic decline of the Hawaiian population since Western contact and the political dispossession of the Hawaiian people in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and second, the history of the museum itself. While Bishop Museum began auspiciously with collections of treasured objects from three Hawaiian royal women, it eventually devolved into portraying Hawaiians from a non-Native perspective and relegating Hawaiian culture to the past. Hence, she emphasized the importance of the museum’s newly re-opened Hawaiian Hall in August 2009, and its efforts to present an Hawaiian worldview.
For many in the Native community, the renovated exhibits are more than beautifully redesigned displays, they are restoring “health, trust, faith, foundation, and a nation.” According to Noelle, most of the “buffalos” in the museum were/are congregating on the third floor of Hawaiian Hall. Here, controversial political issues are directly addressed by Bishop Museum for the first time (e.g., the events leading up to the 1893 overthrow, the 1898 annexation process and its protesters, opposition to statehood in 1959, and the rise of the contemporary Hawaiian “renaissance” and independence movements).
Like Alexandra, Noelle described the concerns of staff and board members that the exhibition team avoid developing negative portrayals of historic events. Because they could not completely avoid this problem, Noelle ended her presentation by noting the presence of an important exhibit on the third floor that includes a large painted mural and a video. Both works refer to a prophecy chant that foretells the rise of the Hawaiian people (“that which was below would rise up…”) after experiencing profound changes. In these two pieces, the museum hopes its uplifting message about the resiliency of the Hawaiian people will resonate with all visitors who have experienced difficulties and grown stronger because of them.
I believe these three presentations have opened an important space for future discussions about topics we have avoided in both Native and non-Native museums. I hope all of us will take the opportunity to join Kippen, Alexandra and Noelle and carry the conversation further.
On Sunday, October 25 WMA held a pre-conference workshop at San Diego’s Museum of Photographic Arts called “Getting Comfortable with Visitor Comfort.” The goal of the workshop was to help participants and the museum assess how the museum’s experience met visitors’ comfort needs, and therefore was an experience they might want to repeat. The facilitators (in alpha order) were Paul Gabriel, Vivian Haga, Beth Katz, Steve Tokar, and myself. We were extremely fortunate to have Kenshi Westover with us, an amazing videographer and editor, as well as Joaquin Ortiz from the museum staff. During the workshop they shot a total of 6 hours of video, which Kenshi is editing down into segments.
This first segment is about entrances and exits. The workshop participants were each given cards with roles to play, and sent out into the museum with very little priming to see how the museum experience worked for them in this role. Roles varied from temporary physical conditions, like pregnancy, to learning differences like dyslexia.
In the video, you’ll see the participants identified by name and then the role they were playing.
First, I want to thank everyone involved for making the annual WMA Conference in San Diego such a successful event. Special thanks go to Elida Zelaya and Valerie Huaco who worked tirelessly to welcome our arrival in San Diego. I also want to thank the Program Committee and the Host Committee, both of whom corralled the collective wit and experience of colleagues and volunteers to present an excellent series of sessions, workshops and social events – many of which concentrated on issues of sustainability – a topic that is on everyone’s mind. Finally, I would like to thank the vendors and sponsors who supported the Conference, including our lead sponsor, the Barona Cultural Center and Museum.
WMA San Diego 2009
As you may have heard at the Conference, the Western Museum Association is undergoing a restructuring process to ensure that our 74 year old organization continues to thrive. Despite careful monitoring of the budget by the Board of Directors, WMA revenue is far below target, an unfortunate result of the strain felt by all not-for-profits during the current recession.
The goals of the restructure are to create a business model that cuts overhead costs and thus streamlines administrative activities. The new model includes eliminating the positions of Executive Director and Publications and Media Manager, closing the physical office located in Berkeley, CA, and investing in digital communications vs. printed materials, among other administrative cost reductions.
In the next few weeks, the Executive Committee and Task Force will create various business models that will consider 1.) maintaining the organization at a base level 2.) estimating costs and overhead associated with the 2010 Annual Meeting in Portland and 3.)possibly suspending the 2010 Annual Conference in Portland to invest resources in the 2011 Annual Meeting in Hawaii. Each of these business models will take the best interests of the membership as our first priority.
We will also investigate innovative ways to keep the membership involved and networking throughout the next three years. We have discussed developing a series of regional events, sessions, webinars and partnerships with like professional organizations in an effort to serve you better. We welcome your ideas as we explore more ways to network throughout the region.
Each of our institutions have been faced with making difficult decisions in the last year and no decision is harder than that which involves talented and devoted employees. Please join me in thanking Elida Zelaya and Valerie Huaco for their hard work and dedication in serving the WMA. On behalf of the Board and membership, I would like to thank each of them for their valued professional service and their heartfelt commitment to the organization.
We will continue to keep our members up to date on the progress of the objectives mentioned here. Together with the Board, I am committed to the health and well being of this spectacular organization. I am gratified that so many members and friends have already stepped forward to volunteer their help and I look forward to many more doing so. Together we will thrive and celebrate happily the 75th anniversary of WMA in 2010!
I welcome your comments and invite you to contact me with any questions, concerns or ideas you would like to share. My direct e-mail address and phone number are aldona@jonaitis.net and (907) 978-1903.
Margaret Kadoyama's thirty years in the museum profession embrace extensive experience in audience development, community involvement and education strategic planning.
I was fortunate enough to attend the recent WMA conference in San Diego. The conference provided at least one significant outcome for me — the discovery of a new report on engaging diverse audiences from the Japanese American National Museum, published in August 2009.
I attended a session on programming for Latino audiences. The session, Museum Mission and Audience: Tips from Collaborations with Latino Communities, was moderated by Elizabeth Morin from Youth Arts and Education for the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
The presenters were Lisa Sasaki from the Japanese American National Museum, Lorraine Yglesias from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and David J. de la Torre from La Plaza de Cultura y Artes. The session provided many great tools and tips for engaging Latino audiences, from David de la Torre’s articulate and compelling list of strategic issues (focus on mission, diversification of board and staff, marginalization, and cultural insensitivity, among others) to Lorraine Yglesias’s focus on marketing.
Lorraine shared some great resources, including the tip to subscribe to email reports from www.mediapost.com, which provides current information on marketing for different audience segments, including Latino audiences.
Lisa Sasaki shared tips from the JANM’s Boyle Heights project, and included information on museum attendance before, during and after the project. Lisa also shared information about a white paper that JANM recently published called The Cultural Museum 2.0: Engaging Diverse Audiences in America. It is available to download at http://www.janm.org/projects/innovation/.
The white paper is the result of a three year project, funded by The James Irvine Foundation, in which JANM was able to holistically reassess itself and its relationship with its audiences. I read through it and found it articulate and very timely, focusing on the issues that culturally specific museums are grappling with right now.
The section on essential questions was particularly significant. During the course of the project, the Museum began looking closely at the interests, wants and needs of its potential audiences. According to the report (pages 12-13), the Museum addressed questions such as:
To what extent is the visitor experience influenced by cultural or ethnic self-identification?
What is the relevance of the Museum to younger, multi-ethnic audiences?
How can the Museum develop programming to engage and sustain these audiences?
How can the Museum engage new audiences while sustaining and satisfying its current constituency?
What impact does engaging these audiences have on the ability for the Museum to sustain itself in the future?
These essential questions mirror concerns voiced by many museums, and the report goes on to include the results of the project’s research and recommendations to address these issues. It is timely and relevant. I teach the JFKU Museums and Communities course, and this will definitely be required reading for the spring M&C class!
On Tuesday, I was lucky enough to be invited to be a part of a session entitled Sustainable Work Practices: Keeping the Staff Afloat at #wma09 organized by Rosalind Bedell, Human Resources and Volunteer Director, Nevada Museum of Art and Program Committee Co-chair for WMA, San Diego.
In difficult economic times how do you keep the staff sustained and on board? This session looks at alternative staffing models including part-time work, job sharing, working from home, as well as the problem of burn out. In addition, staff spends time texting, on the internet and cell phones. Should this multitasking be incorporated into the work day? When and how much is acceptable? Are these ways of working models for the future?
I started the session off talking about the new work model — weisure — 24/7, total interconnectedness and the impact of the use of social media as part of a plan for institutional enhancement and the impact of organizational horizontilization.
Increasingly, it’s not clear what constitutes work and what constitutes fun [be it]…in an office or at home or out in the street…all of these worlds that were once very distinct are now blurring together.
In the non-profit sphere we have all been doing the work of three people for a long time, and now with new technology we can do the work of five or more. But this might not be good.
Regina A. Petty , Esq of Fisher & Phillips
I purposefully made an effort to “fill the room with joy,” to quote one of the other panelists and to help, in that way, to prepare for the presentations to follow by Valerie Nelson, Director, Human Resources, Autry National Center; and Regina A. Petty, Attorney, Fisher & Phillips LLP.
Valerie Nelson talked about how the Autry has navigated these difficult times and Regina Petty spoke about in a focused and detailed manner about the issues every organization is presently dealing with:
Hiring freeze and pay freeze
Compensation reductions and furloughs
Voluntary programs
Reductions in force
Petty’s presentation was incredibly helpful and really well received. Her presentation can be viewed on SlideShare here. She presented daunting facts like, “People furloughed or working part-time rose from 3.7 million in June 2008 to 6.5 million in June 2009.”
Valerie Nelson and Rosalind Bedell during Regina Petty's presentation
Petty also drew particular attention to the legal issues around furloughs, noting that employees are strictly prohibited from performing any work during the furlough period. This includes checking work-related email and voice mail. Regarding social networks, and their impact now, Petty cautioned that an employer’s Social Networking Policy:
Prohibit unlawful harassment/ discrimination
Prohibit use of Company’s Proprietary, Confidential Information without express authorization
Confirm no expectation of privacy where Company-provided system or e-mail
Prohibit use of employee work e-mail address for social networking account
Thanks, Rosalind. It was a great session.
Were you there? What was your take-away? How do we continue that sense of dialogue — finding encouragement and constructive advice during the challenging financial time in the industry, indeed most every industry in the United States? Share your thoughts, please.
As part of TechLab at #wma09, the Gross brothers of Gross Brothers Media presented on their amazing virtual recreations of real-world spaces, places, objects and paintings.
Here’s what they have to say:
We are very excited to be here in San Diego with the Western Museum Association. For the past few years we have been shifting our focus a bit from historic architecture to museum and gallery spaces.
We are participating in a very exciting project with the Samuel H. Kress Foundation to digitally bring the Kress Collection – about 3000 works distributed among almost 100 museums across the United States – together on the Kress website. Visitors can view the Collection by repository or artist, and in a dozen museums that hold the largest sets of the Collection, visitors can view high-resolution spherical (360×180) panoramas with “hot-spots” that link to zoomable high-resolution scans of the artwork. Sculpture is also viewable as “object files” that allow the viewer to rotate the pieces around as if they were on a virtual lazy susan.
One of the most intriguing features of the panoramic presentation is that it preserves the intent and logical sequence of the exhibition, and allows side-by-side comparisons. The intellectual and aesthetic intent of the curator is preserved, which is especially useful for scholars and students.
Please visit our website for links to some of our latest projects, and feel free to contact us with any questions you may have or if you are interested in creating a virtual museum of your own. Also, we wanted to thank our colleague Forrest Wittenmeier at Sweet and Baker Insurance Brokers in San Francisco for introducing us to the WMA community.
To view the Gross Brothers walking tour of Al-Haram Al-Sharif click here. The Gross Brothers also worked on a Best Practices Guide to Digital Panoramic Photography — [pdf] for the Institute of Advanced Technology in the Arts and Humanities (IATH), University of Virginia, Charlottesville Society of Architectural Historians (SAH)
The Gross brothers have served as Co-Directors of the Williams College Virtual Architecture Project since its inception in 2002, under the direction of Professor Eugene J. Johnson, Amos Lawrence Professor of Art. The result of this project is a unique collection of over 1400 high-resolution spherical panoramas that represent many of the greatest monuments of Western and Islamic architecture.
Michael and Barry have been working with digital panoramic photography since the 1990’s. Their photography of art and architecture has been published or displayed at Williams College, Williams College Museum of Art, University of Virginia, University of California, Los Angeles, Saudi Aramco World Magazine, University of South Africa Johannesburg, University of Vienna, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Princeton School of Architecture, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, ARTstor, and others. They have presented their work at Texas A&M University (Fall 2005) and Williams College (Summer 2007).
In 2006, both Michael and Barry were Visiting Fellows at the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia under the direction of Professor Bernard Frischer, where they served as project coordinators and editors of the IATH Best Practices Guide to Spherical Panorama Photography – a guide to the creation of photographic virtual reality documentation of World Cultural Heritage Sites, commissioned by ARTstor and the Society of Architectural Historians. Gross Brothers Media LLC was founded by Michael and Barry Gross in July, 2006.
How do we make it through these challenging times with museums and historical societies closing their doors or implementing hiring freezes after a sustained period of expansion? One approach is to join forces.
To quote from one of the underlying themes of the work occurring in the San Francisco Bay Area as part of the National Arts Marketing Program:
As more and more advertisements try to capture your prospective patron’s attention, it‘s becoming clear that it is no longer enough to just do more. We have to start marketing smarter because, honestly, there’s only so much that an arts organization can do by itself to gain a foothold. We have to collaborate.
On Monday, October 26, 2009 the afternoon session of the first full day on the Western Museums Association meeting in San Diego will include a session to discuss the formation and strategic planning of the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership (BPCP) and describe its activities including the Balboa Park Learning Institute, business services, advocacy, sustainability, marketing, public relations, governance, parking and on-line collaborative.
Gail Anderson
Presenters: David A. Lang, Executive Director, Balboa Park Cultural Partnership; Paige Simpson, Director, Balboa Park Learning Institute; and Rory Ruppert, Collective Business Operations Manager and Director of the Balboa Park Sustainability Program will be joined by Gail Anderson, President, Gail Anderson and Associates as moderator.
Foundational work in the creation of the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership has occurred with two studies:
David A. Lang, Executive Director, Balboa Park Cultural Partnership
As an overview Executive Director David A. Lang summarizes BPCP’s history:
Established as a nonprofit organization in 2003, the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership is the collaborative body and collective voice for 24 diverse arts, science and cultural institutions in Balboa Park whose 500 trustees, 7,000 volunteers, and 3,500 staff serve more than 6.5 million members and visitors annually. Our mission is to enrich the cultural life in and beyond San Diego by facilitating collaboration among Balboa Park’s cultural institutions and with the community; to enable the cultural institutions to achieve their full individual and collective potential; and, to preserve, enhance, and make accessible the arts, science, and cultural assets of Balboa Park for present and future generations. The Partnership facilitates collaboration in areas such as education, operations, governance and advocacy, marketing and PR, and sharing and communication.
While neither part of the session, nor really a part of the Western Museums Association, per se, another amazing aspect of the collaborative work at play in San Diego, Rich Cherry heads up the Balboa Park Online Collaborative (BPOC).
Cherry is more focused on the Museum Computer Network (MCN), amongst other professional organizations. In fact the upcoming 37th Annnual MCN conference later this year has the working theme of “Museum Information, Museum Efficiency: Doing More with Less!” And Rich Cherry and the Balboa Park Online Collaborative helped bring together the #sfmetrix session WMA co presented last August at the SFMOMA.
Legler Benbough, Philanthropist (1909-1998)
The Balboa Park Online Collaborative is made possible in large part by the The Legler Benbough Foundation. For many decades, the Benbough family helped shape the City of San Diego. Legler Benbough’s father, Percy Benbough, founded the Benbough Mortuary and was mayor of San Diego from 1935 until his death in 1942. Legler Benbough, as a businessman, civic leader, philanthropist and rancher was an important contributor to the civic and cultural life of the City throughout his lifetime. He expanded the mortuary business after his father’s death to become owner of the largest group of mortuaries in the United States. With no direct heirs, Mr. Benbough made a decision in 1985 to establish a charitable Foundation that would promote his interest in helping improve the quality of life for San Diegans.
The Foundation was initially funded with proceeds of business operations. In 1987, the Benbough ranch in Rancho Santa Fe was transferred to the Foundation and sold. In 1999, the principal funding of the Foundation occurred on the settlement of Mr. Benbough’s estate. As of December 31, 2008, the grants from the Foundation to date totalled Twenty Million Eight Hundred one Thousand three Hundred thirteen Dollars ($20,801,313) and the assets on hand net of liabilities were Twenty Nine Million Eight Hundred Fifty Four Thousand Three Hundred and Forty Eight Dollars ($29,854,348). (source: The Legler Benbough Foundation)
San Diego is lucky. And as many of us know, the best way to cultivate, engage and encourage extraordinary support is to keep friends and donors informed. But what do you do if there are limited resources? An extremely important part of the ongoing collaborative experiment is underway in San Francisco — the Bay Area Big List.
According to those who are running the Big List:
In many cities across the country, arts groups have started new experiments in collaborative marketing designed to harness the collective energy of the community. These have helped increase both first-time and return attendance levels for the community at large — essentially raising the tide by working together instead of working against each other.
Later this week in the San Francisco Bay Area there will be free workshops that will focus on how 112 arts organizations of all types have collaborated to form one of the largest “Big List” list cooperatives in the country. The Bay Area Big List, which currently holds information for over 430,000 unique arts-going households, is fast becoming one of the largest list co-op programs in the country.
This collaborative model, in which companies gather their mailing lists together in a centralized pool to be cross-referenced, checked for accuracy and tagged with demographic information, allows arts organizations to market smarter, reach new arts-hungry patrons and get a higher return on investment.
Each convening will feature a panel of local arts organizations and Big List administrative staff discussing the impetus of the Big List, the other collaborative efforts that have emerged in conjunction with that program, and the future of collaborative marketing in the Bay Area. Panelists will include representatives from SFMOMA, ACT, Berkeley Rep, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Oakland East Bay Symphony, and more. A full description and the RSVP form (required) can be found at www.theatrebayarea.org/tide.
The free sessions will be
Thursday, October 22 (San Francisco), 10AM-12PM (SFMOMA, Wattis Theatre)
Thursday, October 22 (South Bay), 3PM-5PM (San Jose Repertory Theatre)
Friday, October 23 (East Bay), 10AM-12PM (Aurora Theatre, Berkeley)
Friday, October 23 (North Bay), 2PM-4PM (Cinnabar Theatre, Petaluma)
It is programs such as these above that help the big arts organizatiosn equal as much as they do the small ones. Everybody benefits. And what’s this year’s theme for #WMA09? “A Rising Tide,” right. All boats, people. All boats.
And these sessions in the San Francisco Bay Area about the Bay Area Big List? Their theme/title? Raising the Tide. All boats, people. All boats.
See you in San Diego!
(Raising the Tide is part of the NAMP/Wallace Marketing Workshops series. The National Arts Marketing Project (NAMP) is a program of Americans for the Arts and is sponsored nationally by American Express. In the Bay Area, these free workshops are further supported and developed with a grant from The Wallace Foundation in partnership with The San Francisco Foundation, Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund and Theatre Bay Area.)
Coachella Valley Preserve looking NE (click photo for link)
The desert splendor of the Coachella Valley has been created, in part, by an unusual geological feature: the periodic movement of the San Andreas Fault.
To address the ever- present threat of earthquakes, 15 months ago local museums and historical societies of the valley formed a group called the Coachella Valley Emergency Preparedness Network (CVEPN). Members from 14 organizations met to develop an emergency plan, obtain cargo containers, and write grants to protect collections and structures in the event of any natural disaster. The group’s monthly meetings have been informative, encouraging, and well attended.
Our museum, Cabot’s Pueblo Museum in Desert Hot Springs, is relatively new. We have little professional infrastructure in place, and no professional museum personnel on our staff or board. We have yet to produce a proper inventory of our collection- in fact, we are still going through boxes to determine what our collection consists of. For us, CVEPN has proven invaluable.
Cabot's Pueblo Museum
CVEPN has provided us with a venue for talking through ideas with seasoned museum professionals and it has given us valuable learning opportunities, such as a class about light offered at the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum by staff from the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Asking the professionals we meet at CVEPN what they recommend as a “next step” for our institution has also led to illuminating discussions.
The passion for heritage, nature, art and architecture shared by members of CVEPN offers promise that alliances and agreements among our institutions will develop to support our shared missions. Now we are all excited to join others at the WMA Conference and share our concerns and aspirations for the future.
[Note: Ms. Maron's post is a preview of #WMA09 Session E2 "When Natural Disasters Hit - Safeguarding Culture through Sharing Resources" on Tuesday, October 27th from 10:55 am - 12:15 pm. Her session will also include presentations by Barbara Keedy Eastes, Vice President, Palm Desert Historical Society; and Mario Juarez, Representative, Palm Springs Air Museum. The discussion will be moderated by Ginger Ridgway, Curator/Director of Programs, Agua Caliente Cultural Museum.]
A recent contact called some of the planners at WMA “the Funky Bunch” LOL. I love the name, it does fit, BUT we are still professionals designing a professional program for you. When asked what I am most looking forward to offering at this year’s conference in San Diego, I have to say the hands-on Resource Clinics first.
On Tuesday October 27 from 5:45 pm – 7:45 pm, the Resource Clinics offer delegates an opportunity for brainstorming, immersion learning, or direct advice from industry experts in one-on-one, small group, or hands-on formats.
In each of these amazing sessions, not only will you get to work with experts, but also to brainstorm with your peers and to learn form those around you. It’s these kind of meet-up groups that can really make all the difference at the conference.
H4 Resource Clinic: Creative Education, Facilitator: Melanie Fales, Executive Director, Boise Art Museum
H5 Resource Clinic: Grant Writing, Facilitator: Norma Gurba, AV Grantwriting and Consulting
I encourage you to sign up for one or more of these clinics (sign-up sheets will be at the registration desk). Looking forward to sharing a few more highlights as the dates for San Diego near…
How do we make it through these challenging times with museums and historical societies closing their doors or implementing hiring freezes after a sustained period of expansion? One approach is to join forces.
James G. Leventhal
allysonlazar
vhuaco
Susan Spero
cherylhinton
aldonajonaitis
lyndak
rick31252
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Moving too Quickly
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California Association of Museums
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