volunteer at CAM

Coos Art Museum recently honored Carol Oelke, Suzanne Goodman and Jean Macy for their significant contributions of time, talent and dedication to the museum for many years. Keynote speech delivered by James Fritz, Professor of Art at Southwestern

The importance of an art museum in the community

I want to thank you for inviting me here this evening to honor these fine people for their years of service to the museum and the community. To Carol Oelke, Suzanne Goodman, and Jean Macy, I want to offer my personal gratitude for your contribution of time and effort on behalf of the museum.

The topic I was asked to speak about tonight is “the importance of an art museum in the community”. Don’t worry; I will stick to my topic. But critical to this discussion is the reflexive idea that is “The importance of the community in the art museum”. Whether they know it or not, this is the fundamental question that MJ Koreiva, Karen Hammer and all of the volunteers, docents, various committee members, and the Board of Directors face in the daily operation of this place.

A museum isn’t a reliquary or funerary monument to a past greatness of art and culture. It’s easy to think of a golden age of 20th century investment in progressive community-building and creation of cultural assets as an era that has passed. It’s easy to worry that community members have less use for a museum as they pursue their own eclectic and electronic individual pleasures. Have we as a society of individuals become so plugged-in and turned-on to satellite, cable and internet to satisfy our every whim as to lose sight of our own flesh and blood, brick and mortar community assets?

My answer this evening is a resounding no. After all, the museum is a place where the muse lives. It is a place of inspiration and wonder and awe. We have constant challenges to deal with. And we have to respond to these new challenges with new solutions. But the vitality and value of a cultural landmark such as an art museum in a small, isolated community such as ours is a rare and wonderful resource. It can change and enrich many lives, sometimes in surprising and not readily apparent ways Coos Art Museum remains as an important cultural legacy for our community.

Tonight I want to talk about 3 things that all have a bearing on the future success and relevance of an art museum in the community. The first is the challenge for us, the cultural elite, to provide cultural enrichment for the community in a time when populism and politics create false divisions in our society and make our work even harder. Second, the real value of “community” in the many partnerships we have formed as a coalition of arts and education institutions and the possibility for strengthening and extending theses relationships in the future. Third, the under appreciated but absolutely significant impact the experience of a community art museum has on the residents of our community.

In the early 20th century, industrial leaders –turned philanthropists created some of the greatest cultural legacies of America. Andrew Carnegie created hundreds of Carnegie Libraries in small towns across the country. Gifts and endowments from the top 100 most powerful families in America started, or strengthened many of the cultural landmarks we take for granted today. Names like Rockefeller, Guggenheim, Morgan, Hill, Pew, Annenburg, Pillsbury, and Ford dot the landscape with museums, opera houses, performing arts centers, and foundations with endowments that continue to fund cultural development.

Today, Cultural Enrichment is becoming more of a dicey issue. The election of two weeks ago showed the precarious position that we, the cultural elites occupy in the cultural of our own country. Look around you. Take a good look at the people in this room. You are the cultural elite of Coos Bay. You probably never thought of yourselves as the cultural elite. But you are.

We are the cultural elite. We want to bring cultural enrichment to our community. We want to create and support the visual and performing arts in our community because we value these things deeply. Many of us have invested in higher education for ourselves and our family members that have included the beauty, poignancy, and thought-provoking profundity of the arts. We’ve traveled far and wide to experience the art of western civilization and other world cultures. We value all of these experiences as a fundamental and foundational part of being an educated person. The arts help to create and sharpen the faculties necessary for critical and analytical thought, for engaging in participatory democracy in a meaningful, enlightened and progressive way. Cultural enrichment demonstrates that in the diversity seen from Greek tragedy to Shakespeare, from Sam Sheppard to Samuel Beckett; indeed, from Native American –inspired spirit masks to abstract and academic painting, we gain a better perspective to contribute to our community, to become better engaged as responsible citizens, and to live more fully actualized lives.

So, how do we challenge and engage the community without pushing some of its more sensitive members over the edge? Sometimes you can’t. The director and the exhibition committee deal with this every time they meet. But there is an important fact allows us to succeed in the face of adversity. We are not only the cultural elite, but we’re also engaged, contributing members of our community. Membership in and volunteering at an art museum demonstrates a dual role to both celebrate the arts and share them with our own community.

Over the years community has been a guiding principle in the development of exhibitions, the funding that supports them, and the engagement of a wide variety of community groups that partner together with the museum on exhibitions.

Instead of engaging in mounting controversial exhibits that antagonize and alienate part of our community, this museum has made a concerted effort to partner with local groups and institutions to promote exhibits of a distinctly regional character. Coos Art Museum is a showcase for local and unique culture: Exhibits over the years have celebrated the homegrown culture of the Southern Oregon Coast including views of the Maritime, Fishing, Timber, Native American, and European Immigrant experience.

There is an intrinsic value to having an art museum in the community. The idea of an art museum still occupies a special place in the public’s mind. It classes up the joint, adding an air of sophistication and panache that few other communities can match. It bestows bragging rights. How many art museums are there in the state of Oregon? Portland has one. Eugene has one at the university. Salem has one at Willamette University, Southern Oregon University in Ashland just built one in conjunction with the construction of a whole new art department. And there’s Coos Art Museum. Roseburg? Florence? Lincoln City? Newport? Bend? Corvallis? They may have art centers and other amenities, but few others have a dedicated art museum.

Coos Art Museum is a community asset. Along with good schools, good healthcare, a variety of activities for sportsmen, restaurants, healthy business climate, a museum is a quality of life indicator. It is attractive to businesses that may want to locate to the area. It is important to those that are already here (especially those who are active members and contributors)

Partnerships and working together is a vital part of community. Coos Art Museum has created partnerships with several local institutions to support the arts and foster community at the same time. Southwestern Oregon Community College has been a valuable partner in this area. The college wanted to support local high school art programs, and promote Southwestern as an attractive college choice for students interested in a higher education and career in the visual arts. Southwestern’s President Steve Kridelbaugh, together with the director of the Southwestern Foundation and Dean of College Advancement, Mike Gaudette, have worked with Coos Art Museum and high schools throughout Southwestern’s service district of Coos and Curry county to create and promote the annual Visions competition and exhibition. Co-sponsored by Southwestern and the Museum, high school art students compete each year for scholarships to Southwestern.

Another example of this partnership is the Expressions West regional juried competition of painting and 2-dimensional artwork. Southwestern participates as a sponsor of this exhibition and offers support and annual purchase awards. This gives the college an opportunity to support the arts in the community while slowly creating its own collection of regional art and artists.

The Bay Area Artists Association has likewise formed an important set of relationships with the museum. The Bay Areas Artists use the museum classroom for their meetings on the first Thursday of each month in which they conduct the organizational business of the club and have a speaker or guest artist make a presentation of a unique interest or artistic technique. Each month a Featured Artist of the Month is chosen to display examples of his or her work in the lobby showcase. And the biennial BAAA Regional Juried Show is exhibited every other year at the museum.

I’ve been a member of this community for 4 years now and there are entire areas of museum operation I know little or nothing about. Museum Educational programs reach out to area K-12 schools and also offer classes for both children and adults at the museum. The museum receives the support of private foundations in the form of grants for public outreach and individual exhibits. It also enjoys the support of the business community with many prominent businesses as long time members of the museum. And it enjoys the support of individual members.

But it is the support of volunteers that we honor tonight. It is a rare and special person who has the capacity to volunteer. In our busy lives time and dedication to worthy causes is always in short supply. The long-term commitment of volunteers to museum operations, exhibit planning and installation, and fundraising is a great gift that you give to the community.

This brings me to my third point, the under appreciated impact of the museum experience on our residents. In a rural, isolated community this is the first and sometimes only museum experience some residents have. That means that the museum experience isn’t only a cultural one, but that there is also a Didactic function: the museum provides a teaching/learning experience whether in association with an area school or not.

Let me give some examples. Melanie Schwartz and the local theater group the Dolphin Players have used the museum space in the past to put on a play for the community. Alternative uses of the space to bring in a different audience than otherwise might come to the museum. The audience came to see a play, but they were also introduced to the museum a new way. For some it was the first time they had been to the museum or even been aware that Coos Bay had an art museum. Every alternative use of the museum builds community and brings new people in.

One of my adult sculpture students, Suzanne Adams, told me a story about her first visit to the museum. In the mid 1970s, her eleventh grade class came to an exhibit at the museum and Maggie Karl showed them around the exhibits, giving the museum tour and explaining the work to them. Suzanne remembers this vividly as a significant mind-blowing, life-changing experience. She cherishes the memory 30 years later. Now, if you asked her as a teenager 30 years ago whether it was a significant experience, you might not have gotten the same answer. Sometimes an experience takes time to become significant.

Another example was Phillip Charette’s visits with local school children, including a visit to Southwestern to speak to and inspire students and community members about art. Mr. Charette demonstrated quite vividly that art that has a positive, life-affirming message and when presented with passion and enthusiasm can reach, awaken, and energize many segments of the community

After his talk at the community college the other night a couple of Native American students stayed behind to talk with him. He spent half an hour with them and discovered that one had an interest in woodcarving. By the end of their conversation, he had drawn on a piece of paper and described how to make a Native carving knife. The student was absolutely enraptured and grateful for the assistance and the connection he had made.

I believe in the idea of the community art museum. Community leaders must continue to be committed to its success for the enrichment it provides. Coos Art museum is a great value to the community, both in its intrinsic value and the way that it creates community by bringing together so many areas and groups of the community. We must remember how easy it is to underestimate or appreciate the impact of the museum experience. It always requires some effort. Effort is required on the part of museum staff and membership to make the programs and exhibits possible. It also requires some effort on the part of the community to get out and enjoy and appreciate this unique cultural asset. A visit to Coos Art Museum always gives a certain satisfaction, enrichment, and enlightenment. It always pays dividends later on in ways that are surprising and that you cannot often predict.

James Fritz, Professor of Art
Southwestern Oregon Community College

Honoring Suzanne Goodman, Jena Macy, Carol Oelke
For their years of Volunteer Service and Commitment to the Coos Art Museum
November 11, 2004