“What’s that you’ve got there?”

Way back in my early career as an organizer of museum-held stuff, I trolled through boxes of one museum's permanent collection looking for objects appropriate to include in an exhibition. I had a truly wonderful time, because there were tags saying things like, "blades of grass taken from Stonewall Jackson's grave." My thought then was, "Wow, those folks were serious about Stonewall Jackson..." my thought now is, "are you SURE this is what it claims it is?"

I'm not cynical - much :) - but do feel it is important to double-check the true history of the works in your collection. The simplest reason to do so is that truth about an object is what your visitors expect to hear from you, and what your donor has told you may not be the actual truth. Case in point from our collection: We received a be-grimed portrait which was reputed to be painted by Rembrandt or Charles Wilson Peale. In fact, this was written on a label, attached to the back of the work, by the great-aunt of the donor. While the work was being conserved, it became pretty evident that not all of the painting was expertly painted, and that the technique was not all that Peale-ish. So, back to Square One. We called the painter of this work "Unknown American," hung it in storage, and started checking in with our colleagues who were expert in early 19th-century painting. The eventual concensus was that the painting was in the style of Jeremiah Paul, an itinerant painter who worked in the mid-Atlantic region. So we say on the label, "Attributed to Jeremiah Paul" when we exhibit it.

I do not think the great-aunt was a liar, but I do think a story passed down several generations can work awfully like a message-passing game. Have you ever played one? You start out whispering a phrase into someone's ear, they whisper it to someone else, and so on around a group. The end person then repeats the message they got... which is often ridiculously different from the original. I guess we're lucky that the main confusion was "Peale" for "Paul" and we could sort it out.

Now, that example of grass from Stonewall Jackson's grave -- that's a toughie. How could you determine the real origin of that grass? For instance, has the cemetery documented the species growing there in the mid-1860s? I'm not betting on that... but you've still got the story of someone thinking that blades of grass which could possibly have come from Stonewall Jackson's grave are sufficiently significant to give a Civil War repository, and for the late 19th- early 20th-century caretakers of that collection to accept the donation. That says a great deal about the culture of the time. However, if you were offered those blades of grass today, how would you feel about accepting them? Do you think there's a strong enough story there to counter-balance the uncertainty of the grass's origin? Just asking... and you should as well.

Mary LaGue
Collections Manager

Taubman Museum of Art

Very Funky Holiday Wishes, from Your Friends at VAM

We hope that this holiday season provides you with peace, laughter, and good times. Here's a little somthing to get it started off on the right (platform-shoed) foot:

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

The Lights Are Much Brighter There; or, “These are a few of my favorite things…”

In my memory, the holidays and downtown are inseparably entwined. Every trip downtown, whatever time of year, brings the song “Silver Bells” to mind:

For me, Petula Clark’s “Downtown” will always be a Christmas carol:

My grandfather drove a Yellow Cab, and I began riding with him as a preschooler. During the holidays, Papa (known to some as “Corn Willie”) and I would make the rounds together to share holiday cheer with his many friends of all classes and colors (and sometimes deliver a little bootleg liquor). The entire city was decorated inside and out; crowds were bustling everywhere from the train and bus stations to the downtown stores and restaurants. On cabstands and in his (numerous) favorite neighborhood bars, I’d sing Christmas carols in return for loose change, Cokes, and sweets.

My mother ran (was!) the back office for the big flagship store of the Raylass Department Store chain on East Broad Street until just before I went away to college. For many of those years, my brothers and I watched from the store’s fourth floor windows to see The Real Santa Claus arrive downtown at the end of the Christmas Parade. Later, as a Boy Scout, I marched in the parade dressed as a holiday clown, carrying one end of a big banner announcing the next float or band. My favorite Christmas movie will always be (the 1947 original) “Miracle on 34th Street.”

At age thirteen, I became a weekend “change runner” between Raylass and the other stores during the Christmas rush, leaving our store with my coat pockets stuffed with big bills and returning weighed down with rolls of coins and much fatter due to bundles of small bills as we all helped each other out on Saturdays when the banks were closed. The first presents purchased with “my own money” for family and friends came from Broad Street’s five-and-dimes.

At fifteen, I got my first “management job,” running Raylass’s toy department. That year, and for the next three, I waited on Christmas Eve with the store manager until long after all the stores were closed, hoping that every last toy and gift layaway would be picked up, then nearly cried as I walked to my car because some never were.

The department stores and movie theaters are gone now, but after some sad years, the arts and entertainment are bringing downtown alive again. Holiday lights twinkle from outlined office buildings to apartment windows above the old storefronts.

In the midst of your busy holiday schedule, treat yourself with a trip downtown. Visit with the reindeer at the James Center, take in a play, shop the galleries, have a great meal, or just stroll the streets listen for the sounds of the season. “The lights are much brighter there…”

Thomas Singleton Driscoll


Wanderer, Wonderer
4200 Stuart Avenue
Richmond, Virginia, USA 23221-1943
804-353-0810
Tom@Chleire.com
http://www.chleire.com/

Making the Case for a Conference

Take ONE Minute to Be Counted: Act Now for Advocacy

From time to time, I get calls from members wanting up-to-date economic impact information for the museum industry in Virginia. I also get these requests from news reporters, state and federal agencies, and others trying to get a handle on just how important museums might be in the scheme of things.


The truth is, I have nothing to give them. The last reliable survey on museum economic impact and visitation was published in December 2000 – the “The Economic Impact of Arts and Cultural Organizations in Virginia” prepared by the Wessex Group, and commissioned by Virginians for the Arts in collaboration with VAM. Prior to that, VAM had surveyed its members and published its own economic impact study roughly every three years.

Since that time, VAM has tried three times to conduct another economic impact survey: 2003, 2005 and 2007. In each case, we received only 60-75 responses – way too few to make a study valid (there are over 1,000 museums in Virginia).

Why the lack of response? It is commonly acknowledged that such studies are important information and vital ammunition in an advocate’s arsenal. Are people just too busy? Don’t care? Think someone else will surely do it? Or – reluctant to reveal that information for fear of comparisons?

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I do know this: Virginia museums have got to get over it and get counted. Yesterday, VAM sent out a trimmed-down, easy to complete economic and visitation survey to the directors of all Virginia museums. The deadline for submission of input is December 15, but late responses will be welcomed (they may not make it into the official printed report if received TOO late).

The results of this survey will be distributed to the Virginia General Assembly at Virginia Museum Advocacy Day on January 20, 2011. It is absolutely imperative that we make the case for Virginia’s museums – certainly no one else is going to do it for us. And we have recent examples of what can happen when museums are undervalued – think of the Coeburn amendment and the attempt to specifically exclude museums from the economic stimulus.

Has your museum responded to the survey? Ask your director – offer to fill it out if he or she doesn’t have time. If you have your visitation figures for the past year and your operating budget, it will take you less than 2 minutes – I filled it out as a test in 52 seconds.

Need a link to the survey? HERE IT IS! You can always email me at mcarlock@vamuseums.org if you have any questions or concerns. Please help us to make the case for museums – it is time for Virginia museums to stand up and be counted!



Sincerely,

Margo Carlock
Executive Director
Virginia Association of Museums

A Mission to High River - A MEST Story

I had the privilege and pleasure of sitting down last week with Louis Bowman. Louis is an active member of the Richmond MEST (Museum Emergency Support Team) and holds a CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and amateur radio operator license. As a retired professional who spent years of his career at Morgan Stanley, Louis now has some time and flexibility to help out as a MEST member. But more importantly - he cares.

So much so that when the Museum of the Highwood, in High River, experienced a devastating fire, Louis showed up to help. He spent several days organizing and cataloging items in boxes that had been saved from the fire. Refrigerated 18 wheelers and a school auditorium had been enlisted to help house the items that had been damaged by smoke, flame, and water. Without volunteers who make themselves available quickly and act fast, those items would have been lost forever. Items of local importance ranging from a Superman II VHS tape to an 8x10 photograph of the Duchess of Windsor w/ a local class of students.

That there are people who care enough about others to make the time to get trained on what to do in various emergencies, and then who actually put the knowledge to use is heartwarming. I failed to mention one fact - if the name of the museum and the town don't ring a bell - Mr. Bowman traveled from Richmond, VA to Calgary (that's Alberta, Canada) to pitch in what he could. Think about that. An airline ticket, a rental car, several nights in a hotel room - for folks he had never met in a town he didn't know.

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Why did he help? Mr. Bowman relayed a story to me from the month after the World Trade Center bombings on 9/11, when he was in New York City. He stopped in to a nearby fire station to thank the firefighters who had lived through so much horror and given so selflessly. The first man he spoke with was a firefighter who had done just what Mr. Bowman would do nearly nine years later - he had flown out from Los Angeles to help in any way he could. The staff of that small fire station in New York City had lost 15 of their own. Louis never forgot his visit, his gratitude, or the firefighter from L.A.

Similarly, the folks from the Museum of the Highwood in High River will never forget Louis Bowman. At first, when they found out he was coming they asked, "What does he want?" But they came to realize that the trip was selfless and borne of a sincere desire to help and a heart full of gratitude - one that they now share. Says Louis, "There will always be a soft spot in my heart for the town of High River." We learn so much about ourselves - and gain so much - when we give of ourselves.

*If you are interested in joining a MEST team in Virginia, Contact VAM.


Heather Widener
Communications Director
Virginia Association of Museums

Connections from the Past Nurture Ties for the Future

VAM and its members continue to reach beyond Virginia to make connections and connect common threads. As you may have seen in the news, a group of African-Nova Scotians visited Virginia last month to attend the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Nova Scotia Best Practices Trade Mission Forum and to visit sites in Virginia that interpret African American and American slave history. The group was hosted by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities in partnership with Nova Scotia's Black Business Initiative, which seeks to foster the growth of business and cultural sites owned by Nova Scotia's black community.

The trip was the first in what will likely be an ongoing exchange and dialogue between Virginia and Nova Scotia on the challenging subject of interpreting African history in the Americas. In fact, Virginia museum professionals have already been invited to Nova Scotia for a follow up exchange program based on African history.

Most people do not realize the links between black history in Virginia and that in Nova Scotia, where Halifax has been called the “birthplace” of the black Canadian population. Whether they were loyalist refugees at the time of the American revolution or escaped slaves on fugitive ships, many of Nova Scotia's African-Nova Scotian community have ancestral ties to Virginia.

In addition to the VFH, VAM took an active role in the VFH Forum (ED Margo Carlock gave a presentation on Best Practices and Standards in Museums). Several of its member museums were highlighted in the Canadian group’s tour around sites in Virginia that interpret African American history (museums involved, included Monticello, Colonial Williamsburg, the Robert Russa Moton Museum, Legacy Museum of African American History, Alexandria Black History Museum, Black History Museum and Cultural Center in Richmond, Virginia Historical Society, and the Christiansburg Institute). We all look forward to a developing dialogue and relationship with our Nova Scotian colleagues. Planning for a reciprocal exchange visit to Nova Scotia by VAM members is just beginning – let us know if you would like to be involved!