County Museum asking public to weigh in
b'The Mendocino County Museum received an outpouring of community support last year, when word spread that the county fiscal team had suggested closing it as a cost-saving measure. That idea was quickly abandoned, and now the museum is rolling out a strategic plan, which includes a survey and public events around the county to find out what community members want from their museum.\\n\\nMuseum Administrator Karen Mattson, a trained curator, is happy to show off the work that\\u2019s gone on behind the scenes to keep track of the collection.\\n\\n\\u201cWe\\u2019ve been working really hard,\\u201d she said. \\u201cIt\\u2019s a huge undertaking, to keep things organized. If you think about the library, everything has a place and a shelf and a number. And a museum is the same way. It\\u2019s really important to stay on top of things.\\u201d In a library of objects, \\u201cOrganization is everything. Except beyond that, every object that you see has a corresponding file that tells us the history and significance of it. So those things have to be kept together, because we\\u2019re not keeping objects, we\\u2019re keeping stories. We\\u2019re keeping history, so documentation is everything.\\u201d \\n\\nSome of those stories are from the past, and some are about current events, placed in a historical context. The newest exhibit, Exploramos Juntos, is a bilingual collaboration with Nuestra Alianza, an educational and outreach organization in Willits. The display includes costumes and photography from a local Spanish-language summer camp, where children learn about Latino cultures. \\n \\n\\u201cAll of the photographs you see were taken by two local photographers from their community events this summer,\\u201d Mattson said, pausing beside a display of masks and other objects, which was accompanied by a photograph of children wearing them as they performed a traditional dance called the Dance of the Iguana. \\u201cWe would have people coming in and recognizing themselves or their friends or their family. They were able to give tours for and with us about what the exhibit was about. So that was really fun. I haven\\u2019t had an experience quite like that, where everything was so current that you know the people.\\u201d Mattson believes we are always making history, and, \\u201cIt\\u2019s important to document what we\\u2019re doing now.\\u201d\\n \\nSome of the stories feel well-known until you come face-to-face with a room full of carefully marked boxes containing the details. Thomas Layton, an archaeologist who researched the story of the sunken Frolic, just donated several boxes of pottery that is contemporaneous with the vessels that were on board the famous shipwreck when it went down off the Mendocino coast in 1850. The museum has permission from the state to be custodians of the collection.\\nThough this particular pottery was not on The Frolic, \\u201cIt would be period appropriate\\u2026so you can actually see some of the pottery and ceramics whole,\\u201d Mattson explained. The museum is in the early phases of planning an exhibit around The Frolic, \\u201cBecause we know that people have requested it, and having these collections will make it a much more dynamic exhibit.\\u201d\\n\\nThe museum has an aquarium containing chunks of pottery still embedded in sea floor strata from around the sunken ship, as well as a wetsuit belonging to one the divers who retrieved the artifacts. Most of those items are not on display. After months of meeting in committee with volunteers and advisors, Mattson says it\\u2019s time to figure out how to tell which of the carefully cataloged stories.\\n\\n\\u201cRight now what we\\u2019re having is a conversation about three things,\\u201d she said. One is how to make better use of the physical space in the museum for more exhibits. Another is improving the research arm, possibly by cultivating volunteers, including docents. Infrastructure is another focus. The survey right now includes a list of themes that potential visitors would be most interested in. \\u201cWe will be using that data to find out, hey, what is it people really want?\\u201d Mattson promised. \\u201cDo they want to prioritize shipwrecks over something else? And we will definitely try to use that feedback to prioritize what we do, time-wise.\\u201d\\n\\nThe main hall with Nuestra Alianza display is a huge rambling space, which Mattson thinks can be divided up to showcase a wider variety of smaller exhibits. \\u201cWe\\u2019re really trying to find a better balance, and making smaller spaces,\\u201d she said. \\u201cSo one of the challenges we have with this huge hall is, it\\u2019s not sustainable. What we know is, maybe if we have some smaller cases, we can still tell those themed stories, and maybe satisfy the community better, because we\\u2019ll have more stories out. Then we could rotate the contents of those cases, but the themes would still be addressing more of our collection\\u2026But we don\\u2019t really want to go further before we find out what people want.\\u201d\\n\\nThe survey is available on the museum\\u2019s website, and asks about use of the museum, demographic information, and what kinds of exhibits and programming respondents are interested in. Community forums will start next month at the county museum, and travel around the county libraries until the end of April.\\n\\nStanding next to a new display of an historically prominent Little River couple in a deep-red wedding dress and tailored tuxedo, Mattson reflected that, \\u201cNot only do we want to find out what they would like to see, but we also want it to be the process of having all the communities in Mendocino County know that we actually have collections that pertain to the history in their area. Sometimes it\\u2019s not known that we have collections from Point Arena or Little River\\u2026the people are the heartbeat of this museum. So in order for us to be relevant, all of our collections have to be used.\\u201d'