culture

I’ve written quite a bit about museums & their importance to collectors; but, collector or not, museums are just plain important to our communities. As a member of the Mountain-Plains Museums Association (MPMA), I was shocked to discover this through my most recent member newsletter:

Did you know that the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) provided $210.5 million to libraries in 2006, while museums received only $36.5 million? Why the difference? Federal formula grants given from IMLS directly to the states accounted for $163.7 million of IMLS’ library authorization.

Hey, I’m all in favor of the libraries getting money — but I want museums to get funds too.

Chicago Field Museum

August is recess time for elected officials — and that means it’s a great time for you to contact your members of Congress to tell them to support comprehensive reauthorization of IMLS for museums; remaining silent is to communicate complacency.

What we — you & I — have to do is persuade Congress about a new appropriation for museums. We need to convince our Congressional leaders to support a new grant program for museums when IMLS is reauthorized (which could happen as early as this fall). The new grant program, called Federal-State Partnership Grants, would allow IMLS to provide grants to each state which would then distribute funds based on needs determined by individual states.

Milwaukee Art Museum

But museums can’t get these funds until Congress has included the Federal-State Partnership Grants in IMLS’ reauthorization. That’s why it’s important that you tell your Congressional leaders to support IMLS reauthorization and the Federal-State Partnership Grants.

If you ‘get it’ and agree, all you have to do is go here, fill out your information, and then click either “edit/print your letters” or “edit/send email” (editing is optional). Simple! And needed.

If you’re still confused, then keep reading…

I know this post is long; I wish I could just link to all this information, but, possibly because they are grossly under-funded, museums are sorely lacking in text web pages (opting, instead, for PDFs & files most people are too lazy to open & read). So, doing my bit for museums across the USA… Here’s what museums want:

Reauthorization Congress reauthorizes the Office of Museum Services (OMS) at the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) every five years. The Federal-State Partnerships Coalition supports an incremental increase in OMS reauthorization to the level of $95 million (from current $38.6 million) over the next 5-year reauthorization period, scheduled to begin FY 2010. The Office of Museum Services at IMLS is the primary source of federal support for America’s 18,000 museums. With nearly flat growth at OMS over time, attendance has increased and museum services to school and communities are needed and wanted more than ever. The Federal-State Partnerships Coalition supports growth at IMLS through:

• Strengthen Existing National Program to provide a significant increase (minimum of $45 million) for existing programs that have been insufficiently funded for years.
• State Needs Assessments—Once appropriations exceed $45 million, up to $2 million per year appropriated for states to conduct needs assessments with museums. The needs assessments are an important first step toward establishing a federal-state partnership program through federal formula grants to the states.
• Conservation, Traveling Exhibits, and Helping Smaller Museums as appropriations rise above $47 million to $72 million, establishing new grants for conservation and traveling exhibitions, as well as programs that will make it easier for small museums to compete in the national grant pool at IMLS.
• Federal-State Partnership Grants to States, a federal-state partnership to be appropriated once OMS exceeds $72 million. The IMLS Director would have discretion to provide up to $20 million of any annual appropriation in excess of the $72 million mentioned above. Once appropriations reach $92 million, the IMLS Director would have discretion to provide up to 50% of all excess funds toward the federal-state partnership.

Appropriations for FY 2010 – The Federal-State Partnerships Coalition supports the Office of Museum Services at IMLS at the level of $50 million for FY 2010 – a $15 million increase over FY09 and provided through the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill.

For more information, see the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH); the AASLH serves as the Coalition Administrator for a network of state, regional, and national organizations — the Federal-State Partnerships Coalition.

Now, send those letters!

For more on this issue, see also:

Representatives Paul Tonko (NY-21) and Louise Slaughter (NY-28) circulated a “Dear Colleague” letter on this issue, prompting Whoa! A Letter Reveals The Need to Cultivate Congress at ArtsJournal.com.

The IMLS’ Connecting to Collections developed a video to underscore the importance of collections held in museums, libraries and archives throughout the U.S., and to inspire communities to take action.

Image credits: Chicago Field Museum; Milwaukee Art Museum.

Sometimes I feel like Oscar — not because I’m grouchy, but because I love trash.

Oh, I love trash!
Anything dirty or dingy or dusty
Anything ragged or rotten or rusty
Yes, I love trash

Antique Card with Lobster

Well, maybe not the truly rotten stuff — but dusty & ragged are the stuff of an excellent day’s hunting for an ephemera collector. And while I certainly don’t want smelly & cold fish, I do want the old newspapers — and magazines, postcards, delightful scrapbooks full of letters & greeting cards, booklets, receipts, etc.

Trouble is, last week’s huge buy-out of an ephemera dealer notwithstanding, it’s getting harder and harder to find ephemera.

It’s not that I mind the hunt, but I’m wondering what’s happening to all the old paper…

Where has all the ephemera gone?
Long time passing.

I’m told that less and less of it makes its way into estate sales, thrift shops and dealers’ hands. Why? It’s not because people have less paper or are more organized — computers may house more documents, but the printer fills our houses, and we all still have those desks and drawers stuffed with paper. And that would only cover the last few decades anyway. Not to be too crass, but as the old folks pass, what has happened to their old paper?

My guess is that it’s a combination of laziness & privacy.

I know that doesn’t sound nice; but it’s an educated guess.

I’ve been at (& helped at) enough estate sales to hear the tales direct from family member’s mouths about how they lugged so much old paper to the trash — and I’ve even seen folks take Hefty bags full of ephemera to dumpsters and curb-side containers too.

Why?

Because family members do not wish to take the time to go through those desk drawers, file cabinets, and cardboard boxes in basements and attics. They throw it all away. Out of fear — not just security issues pertaining to identity theft, but fearing just what family skeletons might be discovered along with those old Halloween cards & decorations. Like the proverbial baby & his bathwater, the good ephemera is tossed-out along with the “maybe this is too private” stuff.

Back of Lobster card - click to read what it says!

Maybe if folks recognized the value of old paper — if paper in the desk drawer was seen as having the same potential as the painting in the attic a la Antiques Roadshow — then people would consider sifting through the piles of paper left behind. Not that most old paper has the big price tag that any painting does… But still, if every now and then “old paper” made the news…

But the truth is, we’ve all heard the stories of how the paper trail was the provenance which doubled the item’s monetary value; yet the paper is still thrown away. And what of all the ephemera which, even without another item, is the tantalizing documentation for some other great story waiting to be revealed?

Like this antique card with a lobster on it… The back (I think) reads:

this card you shall give
Herman Frank
that fr(?) little boy

agnes – 6 years -
he was funny

Old paper is fragile, temporary; but it holds the same tangible thread to humanity & individual human lives as photographs do. Thanks to this old card & those who save it, Agnes & Herman live on.

If more people really knew the thrill it presented the collector, the researcher, the writer, the historian, the hopeless romantic, then maybe more people would make the effort to save the ephemera.

Where has all the ephemera gone?
Long time passing.
Where has all the ephemera gone?
Long time ago.
Where has all the ephemera gone?
The folks have tossed them ev’ry one.
Oh, when will you ever learn?
Oh, when will you ever learn?

Scene from American Splendor

Collectors are often depicted as solitary, selfish creatures — sometimes even, like in scenes from American Splendor and Ghost World, as socially awkward individuals who relate better to ’stuff’ than to other humans. While it may be true that collecting, like many hobbies, is more the sport of introverts than the social spectacle of sports (as team player or fan), that doesn’t mean that all collectors are all the mumbling, shuffling, eye-contact-fearing, social-avoiding kooks they are caricatured to be (however charmingly portrayed).

Some people will say that collecting fills a deep psychological void; be it caused by some deficit of a materialistic culture, a disconnect from our own personal history, or even a wish to disconnect (distract) from our own lives. These people see ’stuff’ as a way for the collector to shy away from the ‘real issues’. Even the related activities of researching are seen as a way for the collector to avoid the here & now, burying noses in books and computer monitors as opposed to seeking social interactions & relationships.

In Canada’s The Gazette, Susan Schwartz reports on a new book by William Davis King which depicts collecting in such a negative light:

In Collections of Nothing, as much a memoir as it is a treatise on collecting, King recalls his divorce a decade or so back, when he was 43. His ex-wife was, like him, full of self-doubt, he writes, wrestling “with a sense of nothingness. Both wanted something deeper than the companionship they had, he writes. “That clinging impulse, that relentless searching, that drive to fill an emptiness” went, for her, into reading fiction. For him, it went into collecting.

His suspicion is that collecting is, for many, a way of retreating from relationship rather than engaging,” he writes, “like the turn to a woodshop in the basement or a late-night blog session.”

Sheesh! By that token, no relationship is safe from the dreaded “hobby”.

As for the hobby of collecting, hunting (shopping) and networking (be it in organized collecting groups or the ‘usual gang’ at tag sales), are vital parts which require interaction with humans. Ditto researching. Even the most hermetic collector will have social interactions, as Schwartz herself acknowledges, saying, “I think of collecting as kind of a social pursuit: I love meeting people in the flea markets and antique shops I haunt.”

But of course Susan & I would agree — we’re both writers, no doubt equally familiar (and comfortable) in our solitary late-night writing sessions, ‘retreating from human contact’.

However, both King and Schwartz have omitted other points in their discussion of collecting.

Scene from Ghost World

One is the fact that many collectors are not alone in their hobby. Hubby and I are virtually joined-at-the-hip, only separating — one to the left, the other to the right — to cover more ground, or when one sits with the pile of stuff while the other runs to the ATM. Collecting is something we do together — that brings us closer together. That’s compatibility, kiddos.

We share collecting with our family too, to build our relationships. We go with the kids and with our parents — sometimes there are three generations of us at an auction. And we aren’t the only ones. We also see pairs of pals, goggles of giggling girls, and other assorted groups hunting in packs as a social event.

Yet, I think the best proof that collecting is a social activity can easily be shown to you anytime, anywhere.

Just ask a collector to tell you about their collection. Then stand back and let the evidence pour in as they yack yer ears off. They’ll give you more details on the items & how they were obtained than you can absorb without a stenographer present — and offer to take you ’round town to see all the best spots too.

That’s pretty social.

We collectors still might be a bit kooky; but we’re not necessarily alone or lonely, using ’stuff’ to fill some void.

Sunday I gave you a (perhaps not-too) brief over-view of the history of paint by numbers. Today, I bring you the reasons why such paintings were created in overwhelming numbers and are collected today.

Many will spout-off the notion that paint by numbers have always been the kitschy works of silly suburban conformists, but that’s simply not the case. Postwar life left the average person with more leisure time than ever before — and more money too. While passive spectator opportunities, like television, were a-plenty, the old “idle hands” mantra left many people equating leisure with laziness and wishing for something to do.

Karal Ann Marling, Professor of Art History and American Studies at the University of Minnesota, has written several books about the sensibilities of the 1950s. In As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s she paints the PBN trend as an outgrowth of World War II hobby-ism rather than an a sign of conformity:

National surveys taken in the 1930s, when the Depression curtailed spending on equipment and travel, disclosed a sedentary pattern of recreation: respondents were reading magazines and listening to the radio and visiting with friends. What they really wanted to do, however, was to play tennis and golf, plant a garden, go swimming or skating. In the 1940s, wish became reality. Between 1947 and 1953, revenues for spectator sports and amusements showed a marked dip, despite increases in population and income and the insatiable demand for TV sets. …Market research proved that it was the heaviest TV-watchers who were liable to be most interested in painting a still life or reupholstering the living room sofa. Power tools and other do-it-yourself accessories were a $12 billion industry by the end of the decade; $30 million more went for amateur art supplies. “There seems to be a major trend away from passive, crowd amusements toward active pursuits that people can carry on independently,” concluded a highly regarded study of this “Changed America” with plenty of time on its hands.

More than other pastimes which grew during this time (such as collecting!), the do-it-yourself spirit was also a way for man, woman and child to find his or her way in this new world. It was non-conformist:

Do-it-yourselfism, in particular, was the last refuge for the exercise of control and competence in a world run by the bosses and the bureaucrats. It was a throwback, a rebuke to a buy-it-in-a-box world of TV dinners and ready-made everything.

As Michael Kimmelman wrote in Art View; Painting by Numbers: How Bad Was It?, “Paint-by-numbers enthusiasts and Abstract Expressionists alike were affected by the same 50’s Zeitgeist: the tension between social strictures and personal freedom.”

And Klein knew it too. He was very selective in choosing the designs for Craft Master paint by number kits. Dan Robbins, Craft Master’s head designer, said this to The New York Times in 2001:

“Mr. Klein placed his bets instead on the postcard scenes and calendar art of barns in Maine, and fair-faced collies, pigtailed Indian princesses and coolies in China-the pictures that America saw and smiled at when it closed its eyes to the realities of a nuclear age, urban sprawl and a growing multiculturalism. And masterpieces: though 90 percent of the art was original, reproductions likeda Vinci’s “Last Supper” were best-sellers.

Painting now could be an enjoyable pastime, a therapeutic outlet; not only reserved for the trained and talented.

However, painting by a kit was a very American idea.

Marling says paint by numbers were, “the most American thing you can imagine in that you package up everything you need in a box instead of going through lengthy instruction in how to paint or how to mix colors. It was a personal experience for the painter.” She continued, “You could almost call it supermarket Freudianism.”

But you don’t have to take our word for it; in 2001, the Smithsonian had an exhibit on paint by numbers.

While PBN collecting began in the 80’s, the Smithsonian exhibit has given quite a boost to PBN collector cred — and to the prices of paintings themselves.

Naturally, the original designs of Dan Robbins are the most valuable. Printed on canvas (actually material made for window shades), these 36 designs are gaining respectability in the fine art world. But other works by artists such as Adam Grant can fetch hundreds of dollars too. Paint by numbers can also be collected by theme, with nudes, ballerinas, French scenes & celebrity paintings typically bringing the highest dollars.

Some collectors are in love with paint by numbers for the historical reason; others for the artistic ones.

Yes, artistic.

Does the fast rate automatically negate the possibility of first rate? Pletan collectors would have to say, “No.” And as Marling said, “It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference if they made a million of these sets; each person had an individual experience painting them.” And it shows.

While some object to the stamped boards of sameness which are to be painted according to ordained rules, we PBN collectors know that many did paint outside the lines, adding images, painting over what they didn’t like, or otherwise personalizing their works. And even when folks didn’t, they still produced unique folk art pieces. The kits may have been mass produced, but individuals created each painted piece.

Some of us PBN fans collect for both the history and the art itself. Which is why I’m not certain of the fate of this 1963 Craft Master paint by number we scored at a garage sale earlier this summer. We might paint it; we might not.

Many say that the paint by number hey-day is long over. They claim the it’s-not-art-it’s-conformism of the 60’s marks the official time of death for paint by numbers; yet the kits continue to be painted — and continue to be made. Check out kits by Bubbles The Artist (additional kits at Bubbles & Cheesecake), and the personalized paint-by-number kits from your photos, available at 1-2-3 ART. Paint by numbers even inspired fabric design.

And we collect them with a passion. We don’t hide them either. Why would we?

Can’t get enough of paint by numbers?

Along with the links here and in part one, check out the following resources:

• Le Salon de Paint By Numbers
• The new Paint By Number Museum
• Paint By Number: The How-To Craze that Swept the Nation by William L. Bird, Jr., curator at the National Museum of American History and organizer of the 2001 Smithsonian exhibition of paint by numbers.
• Larry Rubin is PBN collector who puts out a quarterly newsletter called Paint-by-numbers. An annual subscription is $20. For more information, contact him at: Larry Rubin, 2100 N.E. 52 Court, Ft.Lauderdale. FL 33308; 954-267-0408: E-mail: rubin@pstcomputers. com

And if you are a PBN collector, why not show them off in the Collectors’ Quest Community? I’d love to see ‘em!

All images are photos from my small collection — I’ll be adding more, soon.