San Diego Comic Con is something of a mecca for anyone remotely interested in pop culture, and it’s again come and gone, and I’ve again remained firmly nestled in the green crevices of the Hudson Valley. And that’s okay. Crowds give me the screamies.

I skimmed the reports from the safety of a computer in an air conditioned room, which is a far more ideal situation than being undulated against by a tightening, after-lunch-burbling nerd crowd. While newsbits filtered in about upcoming movies and toy lines and comic stories, I was really only interested in one thing : exclusive toys. Those magical and elusive things that can usually only be obtained if you’re in attendance - rewards for making the journey and standing on long lines - and up until recently, there were only three options to get these things : go to the convention, pay a premium on eBay, or have a friend on the inside.

Alas, this collecting hassle resulted in an enormous toy collector upheaval and a surge of complaints. Unable to complete their toy collections with these rare (but important) pieces, collectors would quit their collections. Making something ‘exclusive’ would be certainly special for those who obtained it, but aggravating to those who could not, and with conventions spread across the US, someone was always going to be unsatisfied folks. Toy companies heard the collective moan, and responded using the wonders of the digital age.

There were about 300 different ‘exclusive’ items at this year’s SDCC, from comics to posters to toys and dolls and variations on existing things. Fortunately, almost every ‘exclusive’ toy that I coveted was offered up for sale on the internet by the very companies who were distributing them, and very soon after the convention wound down. Buying company-direct always a more reliable, less expensive option than eBay. Here’s what I scored online from SDCC, and how I got it.

Sideshow Collectibles was offering a miniature, metal Iron Man helmet that I needed to have. Don’t question it. Sideshow has dealt with collector demand by offering a ‘Priority Pre-Order’ system on their website, weeks prior to these events. Comic Con attendees place their orders for the limited items via the Sideshow website and pick them up on the day of the Con. However, Sideshow also opens up online orders to non-attendees at a very specific time and date, and for about five dollars more. The website shuts down except for an order page, people swarm to the site, and orders come in by the hundreds. After a few server crashes and website deaths early on, Sideshow has adjusted their technology to reflect the demand for these items, and the ordering process is a pleasure - just make sure you’re signed up for their newsletter 24 hours ahead of time, or else you’ll be booted from the pre-order line. Sideshow send my helmet, and I’m the proud owner of #100 out of 2000 produced.

Other exclusives offered by Sideshow included a Star Wars Jedi Aayla Secura in 12” scale. No, she’s not original trilogy, but she’s a Jedi AND a Twi’lek - two of my favorite parts of Star Wars, post-Lucas Insanity or not. Also, be sure to check out the Diane Kamahele Memorial Auctions being run by Sideshow this week, which include incredibly rare original sculptures, prototypes, and signed items. As someone who knew the awesome Diane Kamahele from many Toy Fairs, these annual auctions are an excellent thing that Sideshow does to help support her family after her untimely death.

Mezco also offered some exclusives via their website, among them ‘Future Hiro’ from their Heroes series of toys, and a clear, blue version of Hellboy II’s Liz Sherman. These have not yet shipped, but were available through Mezco’s website, with absolutely no ordering hassles at all. NBC’s booth (and website) offered an exclusive ‘Painter’ Sylar figure from Heroes.

The Four Horsemen’s ‘Time Keepers’ mini figures were available at the convention, but have yet to arrive on their website for the ol’ post-SDCC shopping rush. They’re creepy little skull-faced guys, so of course, I’m all up on that.

Of all of the summer toy exclusives, Hasbro’s and Mattel’s were the most coveted. Hasbro offered, among other things, an exclusive My Little Pony, a GI Joe Cobra Commander with a COBRA podium (in both blue and black), Mighty Muggs featuring an Indiana Jones fertility idol and a movie-based Iron Man, and an excellent Marvel Legends set based on The Savage Land, featuring Ka-Zar, Shanna the She-Devil and the tiger Zabu. Also offered was a large boxed set of eight Hulk action figures and the mighty Fin Fang Foom, as well as a small Star Wars diorama of Darth Vader talking to a giant holographic Emperor. There was a lot to take in, and a lot to hunt for, and Hasbro never seemed to give a clear answer about whether or not they’d sell these from their website, post-Con.

At noon, on the day after the convention ended, the items appeared on the website, and hundreds of collectors descended like plastic-hungry locusts. The site was brought to a stuttering crawl, and by the end of it, after many ‘page cannot be found’ notices, I emerged with my Savage Land Set and the two Mighty Muggs. I didn’t suffer the same woes as other collectors, whose items sold out just as they were trying to get the checkout page to function properly. I commend Hasbro for making these things available, but their servers need to be able to handle the frantic refreshing of pages by their fans.

Plus, I kinda need a fertility idol. I’ve been lonely.

Mattel has offered convention exclusives in the past, but has never offered them online until this year. Responding to fan inquiries (and protests, whinings, frothings, and the occasional body part sent through the mail), they whipped up the brand-new MattyCollector.com, announced the launch date and time, and in a Hasbro-esque feat of internet power, collectors converged and pushed the site to a crawl. Mattel offered four exclusives : a He-Man figure of The King of Greyskull, A DC Universe Classics Lobo, a Justice League Unlimited Giganta, and a Pixar’s Cars ‘Lightning McQueen’ car. It seems that everyone who was present at the launch emerged with exactly what they wanted - and MattyCollector only promises to expand. They’ve already announced a site-exclusive set of He-Man toys that’ll be produced at a rate of one per month, and more DC Universe Classics, including Adam Strange and Starfire. For a first effort at a storefront for such a popular company, it looks very exciting.

So, SDCC was just as exciting for us at home, and I’m going to keep on telling myself that. I got the stuff I wanted, got to buy it while wearing nothing but my underpants, and no one was the wiser. They weren’t so thrilled when I tried that at Target.

… or what’s left of it.

Toy Fair begins again this year on February 17th and runs through the 20th. It all happens in NYC, on the far West Side at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, as well as a few showrooms scattered throughout nearby locations. Don’t think of showing up here, though - it’s only for retailers, vendors, and reporters. It’s no secret that I fashioned my own news outlet about five or six years ago to worm my way past the screening process, and it worked. I’ve come back every year since, under more reputable means.

In that first year, it was an overwhelming explosion of everything I’d ever wanted to see and had read about in toy magazines. My fellow writer and I wandered the convention floor wide-eyed and faking our way through it pretty convincingly. Until recently, it was THE PLACE to see everything that your favorite companies were going to release over the next year, and companies reserved their new products and surprises for opening day.

As the years have been progressing, Toy Fair has been shrinking, and it was never more clear than last year’s adventure to the ‘Toy Towers’, a popular location for smaller showrooms. They’d been almost abandoned, with showrooms locked, vacated and falling apart. During this time that Toy Fair was shrinking, companies have also been vanishing and shrinking. Palisades Toys suddenly closed up shop, and ToyBiz-turned-Marvel Toys doesn’t seem to produce anything anymore. I don’t know what this says for the toy industry, as I’m no industry analyst, but the landscape of toys is changing.

This year, don’t expect to see the amazing Sideshow Toys booth reported in photographs, as their Toy Fair attendance will be entirely online, as will SOTA Toys’. Seeing Sideshow Toys’ stuff in person was usually what motivated me to spend exorbitant amounts of money on their stuff for the subsequent year, too. Still, shipping all of their new (and often very heavy) product to New York, renting a crazy-expensive Javits booth, and shipping everything back home is surely a painful expense to have to absorb, especially when there’s no actual money changing hands - just the potential for future sales.

Many of these companies have now taken to holding onto their ‘big reveals’ until one of the two major Comic Cons in New York and San Diego, where the fans can see things in person and the impact on the potential purchaser is more direct and unfiltered. Where Toy Fair in the US is fading, Toy Fairs in the UK and Hong Kong are picking up steam. I’d love to see the amazing Toy Fair in Asia, surely filled with beautiful things that we might not regularly hear about over here. Asia has a very different toy market, which actually acknowledges adult collectors.

This isn’t to say that our Toy Fair still doesn’t have a ton to offer and a lot of crazy, fun things flying around the convention floor. While potentially boring licensing stuff takes up a lot of the floorspace (like, let’s stick Spider-Man’s face on this trampoline, this ice cream scoop and this pair of underoos kind of stuff), inventors make up the rest of it - small ideas gaining momentum, some of them inspired and some of them insipid, but it’s all interesting. There’s still so much to see that I almost find it necessary to narrow my focus to action figure stuff, or else I’d never make it down a single aisle, what with all of the bright colors and flashing lights and samples to play with - which is exactly what moves the toy industry, at its core - so maybe things aren’t so bleak after all. Just for us adults who can’t let their toys go.

So, what does this whole turn mean for action figures? For one, prices are going up. The oil needed to make the toys themselves, and then to deliver them, is more expensive than ever - and it would seem that this weeds out a lot of smaller companies hoping to make limited runs on things, and major companies are absorbing more and more licenses from smaller companies. So, the field is narrowing, but that doesn’t necessarily mean better figures and quality control - just less options. There are a few outstanding action figure lines, like Mattel’s DC Universe Classics, but this quality is usually generated by collector feedback, not plain ol’ marketing research. A certain model of transparency and interactivity is being adopted by these companies, which also explains the increased interest in fan events over media events. Everything is still ridiculous leaps and bounds above what we saw at Toy Fair 15 years ago - which amounted to lines of chunky, static action figures that didn’t do anything and only barely looked like who they were supposed to be, and the idea that a few good companies are working to increase every possible figural quality (instead of just cranking out licensed junk) is enough to keep me positive about collecting.

Now, if we could only get these toys consistently enough into stores to prevent high auction prices when they’re scalped up to be re-sold by that greasy guy who’s banging on the doors of the Toys ‘R’ Us at 9:58, demanding to be let in. I hate that guy - but he doesn’t get to go to ToyFair, so I win. At life. And hygiene.

Stay tuned all week for images & news from Toy Fair 2008.

Unfortunately, that list does not include a ‘hot artist chick’, but it does include a 20 pound stack of beautiful books and comics and signatures.

As with any comic-centric convention that I attend, I brought my Bizarro Comics anthology, which had 7 signatures in it to date - Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer, Stephen DeStephano, Kyle Baker and Liz Glass, Jessica Abel and Nick Bertozzi. I hadn’t really checked out the program to see who I might accost with my funny book, but I quickly found myself in the presence of James Kochalka and Jeff Smith - two writer / artists who had contributed stories to the book, which brought my signature total up to 9, with only about 50 left to go.

While I don’t usually go to these conventions to get anything but the Bizarro book signed, a great deal of the artists were happy to sign, and draw original drawings in, anything that you purchased from them. When you purchase a 40 dollar copy of ‘American Elf’ from James Kochalka, he’ll sure as hell draw you a big ol’ monstery guy on the inside with a note of thanks. And Jeffrey Brown? He mustered up the energy to draw me a bit of a robot inside one of his 30 dollar ‘Incredible Change-bots’ books, even after the fan at the booth before me had him sign about a dozen copies of one of his mini-comics to all of his ex-girlfriends.

More original art came in the form of a stack of original watercolor and ink paintings by Jeff Lemire - all beautiful, bizarre interpretations of the Justice League and other well-known superheroes. To my delight, these carried a very small price tag, and at the top of the stack was an amazing Batman that I quickly grabbed before it escaped me forever. I also bought two paperbacks of Lemire’s trilogy, concerning the goings-on of Essex County, Ontario - which Lemire also sketched and signed for me. The storytelling is slow and magical, and elegantly drawn in stark black and white, with emotive and visible brushstrokes abound - absolutely a recommended read. Thanks to Top Shelf Comics for bringing all of these great guys in!

Indie publisher Fantagraphics also had a significant presence, and are responsible for some of the higher-end hardcover collections out there. I purchased two books by Paul Hornschemeier, who was unfortunately not present for signings, but whose work I’ve admired in Mome for quite some time. Hornschemeier’s style is so clean and varied that each book almost reads like a compilation between a variety of artists, but true to indie tradition, he tells delicately sad and humorous stories. ‘Let Us Be Perfectly Clear’ and ‘The Three Paradoxes’ also come through as great reads.

Oni Press had a set of tables near the middle of the floor, and I was finally able to replace a set of ‘Courtney Crumrin’ comics that my ex-girlfriend had somehow won during breakup negotiations.

Artist Gia-Bao Tran also had an attractive table set up, and was selling copies of ‘Awesome : The Indie Spinner Rack Anthology’ by Evil Twin Comics. In addition to his story in page 195, he signed my copy and drew an picture of a cute chick inside the back cover. And speaking of things with ‘awesome’ in the title (my favorite word of all time), I also found myself buying a copy of ‘Carl is the Awesome’ by Marcos Perez - a tale of a dinosaur-beaver lookin’ guy who in just so inherently awesome that he excels at everything he does, and don’t question it. It’s just so weirdly and energetically drawn that I was wholly convinced of Carl’s awesomeness within but a few pages.

I read Robert Ullman’s ‘Lunch Hour Comix’ during the car ride home. It’s always interesting to read these succinct diary comics, because each artist-slash-writer always has such a unique take on which details to capture during a given day - large events like car crashes and pregnancies, or simply finding something on the street during a walk. I’m in love with these bizarre daily subtleties that we uniquely experience, and it’s always refreshing to know that I’m not the only one. A lot of artists draw these out, and it adds something to the resonance of them. I think I want to start my own.

Corinne Mucha had a table full of charming autobiographical comics too, hand-stapled and Xeroxed. I ended up buying ‘I Lived in Alaska’ because, well, I lived in Alaska as a small child, and ‘I Hate My Mom’s Cat’, because (as I explained to her, like a babbling moron), I hate my grandmother’s dog. I can’t help but be highly sympathetic, and be compelled to spend a few dollars, on sympathetic situations - which is what moves a lot of these great indie books. We can relate to Peter Parker, but we can’t really relate to Spider-Man, as human as he is. The indie rack has a tendency to be completely relatable, and since a vast expanse of indie fans and artists are grossly alienated from the universe in some fundamental way, I tend to latch onto anything recognizable.

Another stand-out work was ‘20 Questions’ by WD Kirkby, which was a compilation of 20 short strips in response to questions asked to him via his LiveJournal. Not only is it always fun to speak to someone with an English accent, but Kirkby’s art style is really unique and beautiful. Check out his LJ for a great selection of art and interactivity. And, you know, you can check out mine too.

So, in summation, if you’re into comic artists, or the DIY scene, or even just good storytelling and people livin’ the dream, SPX is a great event to seek inspiration, find the otherwise unfindable in terms of obscure graphic fiction, and meet artists to discuss tips and tricks of the trade. And Bethesda isn’t too far away from our nation’s capital, so you can plan some sightseeing or picketing while you’re in town.

And please check out tomorrow’s bloggings for an appropriate visual recap of the event.

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Joan Loughridge of Dry Creek Gold Leaf, Inc taught a room full of curators a lesson on proper archival framing at the Mountain-Plains Museum Convention here in Fargo last week. I could not have imagined a more informative presentation for a collecting amateur, so I checked with Loughridge that I wouldn’t be giving away ‘trade secrets’ to write up a summary of what she taught us — her response was, the more people that know how to frame properly, the better. You see, museums get their art from somebody (they rarely produce it from scratch), so the artwork they receive already framed may or may not be properly cared for. It turns out that even the professional framer in your area may not be doing a museum-quality job. While this might be OK for a quick matting of a family photo to last on the wall for twenty years, museums are looking at centuries in terms of preservation — but if you’re so short-sighted as to expect to outlive your framed family photos, you’re really doing your great-great-grandkids a disservice. Everyone who puts care into framing artwork and wants their current collection to last should take some advice here and step up their preservation techniques, and recognize at what point a conservator like Loughridge is necessary.

A Few No-Nos

First, never get power tools near a piece of art. It’s much too easy for a tool to get away from you, even an electric screwdriver. Loughridge recommended a ratcheting screwdriver as a compromise. Also, when working on a framed work, always turn the side you’re working on towards you — never lean across any part of the art, front or back, when you’re working, lest you drop a screwdriver through it. And, lastly, if you’re screwing into wood, don’t be tempted to re-use old screw or nail-holes. The wood is already weakened at that point, and the screw is more likely to pull out. Loughridge wasn’t concerned about reduction in value of a antique frame caused by extra holes in the back, but the frame’s value would definitely be diminished by hitting the floor.

Canvas Paintings

First, before you start pulling anything apart, make sure you save any labels on the rear of the frame that might get pulled off during the process. Those labels are important for proving the age of the artwork, any provenance that comes with the work, or identify the frame itself. If this is the first time the canvas has been checked, the back of the painting is probably covered with a nice paper dustcover — it should probably be removed, so save any labels that are attached to it.

There are a few major ways that regular hanging of a canvas painting causes damage:

1. The wire fails;
2. The frame causes damage;
3. dust and bugs get in the back.

The first is the most dramatic damage — the painting comes free of the wall, free from any resistance to gravity, and free to hit the floor at a high speed. Needless to say, that’s not very good for the art, whether a painting or a framed photo. First of all, overkill is only bad at absurd degrees: Don’t trust a 10lb painting to a 20lb wire — go to 50lb and you’ll have nothing to worry about. The ‘kink’ where the wire meets the nail is the greatest point of stress, and regular ’straightening’ slowly breaks the individual wires in the braided cable. If a couple broken threads reduces the 20lb wire to 10lb quickly, you’re going to have failure quicker than you’d like. The other points of stress, where the wire attaches to the frame, is the next place to check. Eye-screws should be avoided: they tend to work themselves out of the wood due to temperature changes and the diagonal strain the wire puts on the eye. Use stronger D-ring hangers, with appropriate sized screws (if the head of the screw shears off at 20lb, a 50lb wire ain’t going to save it). This distributes the strain of the weight more to the frame than the attachment point. And, finally, two nails in the wall are better than one: more distribution of weight. If you can, avoid wire completely, and hang the D-rings directly on the nails. This might not always be useful, as getting two nails even and properly anchored is a tough task, but heavy works may require it.

Frame damage comes from the contact between the art and the frame. The simplest way this happens is the various vibrations and flexing due to people walking by or temperature and humidity changes. Most framed works have the painted edge of the stretched canvas right against the ‘rabbet’ lip of the frame. If you’ve ever found a peeling spot of paint on your bedroom wall or the hood of your car, you know how easy chipped and cracked paint spreads to the rest of the surface. If you let the hidden edge of a painting chip away, it will eventually migrate to the visible surface of the painting. The first step is to pull the art away from the frame. This CAN be dangerous, though: by being framed before the paint was completely dry or due to later moisture, the painted surface of a canvas might have become ‘glued’ to the frame. Check for this very carefully before you pull anything apart — if they are stuck together, only conservator’s care can part the two. If the canvas is properly loose, remove it from the frame (and use this time to replace the hanging wire: the stuff’s cheap, there’s no reason to reuse the old wire). As with most paintings, the canvas was probably nailed to the frame — and that’s bad. If the problem is the firm contact between painting and frame, it needs to be minimized as much as possible.

Two things are needed to reduce that contact: fuzzy tape and offsets. The fuzzy tape — either an acrylic felt tape with a glued-back or a strip of velveteen ribbon — needs to be glued into the rabbeted edge where the painting would touch the frame as a buffer from direct contact. While Loughridge didn’t mention it, I’d recommend first a colorfastness test of any tape you try: while acrylics shouldn’t be a problem, it won’t be very helpful if the tape bleeds on to the painting (thus requiring a conservator). Offsets are z-shaped pieces of metal which attach to the back of the frame as ‘clips’ to hold the painting in, without being screwed in to the canvas’ stretcher. This allows the canvas to be mounted securely in the frame, while allowing as bit of movement between the two without causing damage.

While you have the canvas out of the frame, you should at least check that the frame is in solid shape — regardless of how well the frame is wired to the wall or the canvas mounted gently, a collapsed frame won’t protect your art. About the only repair or conservation an amateur can do is to secure the corners from separating. Any corners that might be separating (or just for safety’s sake on a large or heavy work), screw an ‘L’ bracket across the corner. This gives extra strength to the corner, and reduces the likelihood of it coming apart. It might not be as pretty as the original joint, but do not get glue-happy: if glue were to seep out the front of the joint, the frame might look worse, and if its a historic frame then its value may be decreased.

To keep dust and critters away from the canvas, you need to cover up the back. That paper back you removed? First, it probably has a certain degree of acidity, which should be kept to a minimum — the wood in the stretcher and the frame are bad enough without adding more. Second, the nasty critters that will nibble at the canvas are also those that eat the wood pulp and glue in the dustcover. Loughridge recommends going high-tech: Coroplast, a corrugated plastic used in signmaking and packaging, is acid-free, doesn’t ‘outgas’ chemicals like foamcore (which may have acidic paper backing, too), is plenty strong to prevent damage to the back of the painting, and will act as a buffer between the canvas stretcher and the wall. It even comes in ‘clear’ versions that will let you see labels on the back of the canvas, or watch for infestations inside. The Coroplast is cut to size and screwed to the back of the stretcher (use washers so the screws don’t pull through). Don’t screw directly at the corners — the screw will drive into the stretcher’s mitre and pull the canvas apart! That, as you might guess, will need an art conservator in the picture.

If you’re handy with a screwdriver, these steps shouldn’t take very long at all, but they will have an immense improvement on the lifespan of your paintings. Remember, though, if you find any significant damage to the painted surface, you’ll need the help of a conservator. Don’t try to repair it yourself. Don’t try and clean a painting, don’t try to adjust the stretcher, and don’t gerry-rig anything.

Supply examples (these are not recommendations):

• Coroplast - manufacturer’s website
• Offset Clips
• Felt Tape
• D-Ring Hangers
• L-Brackets: In all honesty, I couldn’t find a good picture of these online. Any hardware store should have them; take my picture with.

Tomorrow: Paper and Photos!

This week, Fargo, ND has been the host of the Mountain-Plains Museum Association’s annual convention. This association of western museums, established in 1953, works to bring together the various art museums, historical museums, and specialized museum collections in ten states to exchange ideas, information, cooperate on projects and exhibits, and generally show support for others in their industry. The Wifey and I, upon finding out such a resource was coming to Fargo, decided we should go see what they’re up to. Most collectors ultimate goal is the Ultimate Collection: the inclusive, cared-for accumulation of neat, beautiful, historic, and emotionally-imbued items. It turns out that museums — casting off the stuffy ’skulls on shelves’ stereotype — have the same interests and desires as private collectors. On behalf of CollectorsQuest.com, D and I were given access to visit with, learn from, and hob-nob with experts and scholars of the museum world. We’ll be writing more this weekend, after the convention ends on Friday.

We are interested in finding out what museum curators can offer to collectors like ourselves and our readers, and to understand what a museum means to a collection. It turns out that the line between a collector and a museum is a blurry gray line: depending on the situation, a collection changes from private ownership to public display easily, provided everyone understand the value in the collection. Monta Lee Dakin, Executive Director of the MPMA, explained that museums can provide valuable education to collectors, from preservation to providing history and context to an item. While museums aren’t exactly appraisers a’la Antiques Roadshow, they can help collectors by identifying fakes, teach where the value lies in an item, and make sure the collection will survive in the best of conditions, whether the collection remains in private hands or is passed to a museum. Monta Lee added, “the museum might be the future depository for that collection, however small, big or small — even small collections like postcards could be very important to a museum because its typically subject matters that interest the museum.”

Museums are limited by the same problems private collectors have: space and money. Once upon a time, a collector’s will could award their entire collection to a museum, or people could trust a museum to accept ‘all-or-nothing’ offers of miscellaneous collectibles. Today, however, museums have become more picky in their acquisitions, to remain true to their collection’s mission and on the understanding that the time, space, and money devoted to an unnecessary item might be better devoted to a more important asset. Deciding what is ‘museum-quality’ or not is best left to the curator or collections manager, Monta Lee said. “[A curator] never knows what’s going to walk in the door,” she said, “so you never say, ‘it’s not significant’. You always say, ‘I’d like to see it.’” Monta Lee encouraged that all collectors who suspect that their collection might have value to a museum should talk to the museum long before they have any interest in parting with their items. Preparation gives a museum a chance to consider the value (not necessarily monetary) of the collection, figure out what is needed or not needed, and possibly direct the collector to another museum if the collection isn’t a good fit.

This issue of folks saying, “You have to take it all,” was made quite real over lunch. Sitting on Wifey’s left was Sarah Allen, Museum Technician for the Knife River Indian Village National Historic Site, who told a story of coming into work one day to a donated cow-pie. “Why do we have a cow-pie?” she asked. “It was part of donation,” was the reply. Allen told Wifey that there already was a bison-pie in her exhibit (half solid, half powder to illustrate the powdered-bison-poo’s use as talcum powder for baby bottoms) so she had no use for the ‘typical’ cow-pie. Now it was up to the museum to find away to dispose of the cow-pie, along with other unwanted items — a tricky obstacle, because once items are owned by a museum they cannot be deaccessioned without a specific protocol followed, if at all.

The issue of museum assets exceeding the abilities of a museum was the subject of a Wednesday morning seminar called “The Sustainability of Historic Places,” focusing on the preservation of historical locations that may be neglected due to lack of funding, public support, or poor financing. Various curators and preservationists met in 2002 at the Kykuit historical site to discuss how to sustain historical locations in the most cost-effective, yet efficient within the goals of the museum, to avoid a historic building being damaged, torn down, or otherwise abandoned by the museum community. As you might expect, preserving one historical building is far more resource-devouring than maintaining an one painting or artifact, moreso if the building itself doubles as a small museum with a collection of its own. A large part of the Kykuit solutions involve turning to the private sector for assistance, including antique collectors and restorers. If a historical building cannot sustain itself as a run-of-the-mill museum, these curators and experts recommend — under supervision — historical buildings be turned over to the care of individuals or businesses who may repurpose the building from a purely exhibit status to alternative uses, ranging from a livable home to a convention center. Many historical places, like the Richland Center City Auditorium we visited earlier this summer, can be a historical place, managed with attention to the historical value of the building, without making it completely a museum’s responsibility through the help of other interested groups.

If having an entire historical building in your care sounds a bit overwhelming, Steve Friesen of the Buffalo Bill Memorial Museum in Golden, CO, told us how collectors are often of great value to a museum as experts and resources. While a curator can do their best, he explained, to know as much as possible about the collections they manage, they are unable to know everything. When in need of help, a museum appreciates the help of a specialist — often a private collector — who can offer their knowledge to the benefit of the museum’s collection. One example Friesen described is an exhibit of classic old-west firearms, owned by a private collector. While this exhibit has obvious value to the Museum, Friesen recognized that he and his crew couldn’t provide the care for the collection that the owner, himself, could. Also, as we learned in the ’sustainability’ session, many small museums are run and managed almost entirely by volunteers, people from the community who have seen the benefit of their work and knowledge to assist a museum in providing the most value to its community.

The more we’ve listened, questioned, and chatted with these professionals, the more it has cemented the fact that museums call their contents a collection for a reason — it’s not really that different from how any of us build our own collections. In upcoming articles, we’ll cover more specifics on what the general collecting community can learn from the experts, the collectors who’ve made collecting an art and a profession.