Fashion in Unexpected Places

A few weeks ago I was at a concert at an old church in Seattle. They had rented a small organ from St. James (Catholic cathedral up the hill) for some pieces that needed more of a small continuo sound rather than the big pipe organ. At the intermission my Dad, ever the organ nerd, went up to check it out. He came back excitedly saying that I had to see something. I expected that I was going to have to muster up some enthusiasm for the keyboard or the style of pipes, but instead this is what he was pointing to:

In case you can't read it, the little plaque says:

In Memory Of

JOHN DOYLE BISHOP

Dedicated Advent I 1986

John follows me everywhere!!

Hay Girl Hay

Since JDB passed away in 1980, this would probably have been purchased with money he left to St. James after his death. (As opposed to the green carpet he bought for the church while he was still around to enjoy it.) I always find it meaningful to discover some new, tangible mark left by someone from the past.  John left money for St. James to use for the arts, and 30 years later it is still being used and enjoyed by the people of Seattle.

Speaking of lasting marks left by people of the past, I had the joy this week of visiting the Leary Mansion again, aka the HQ for the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia. It was with a group of other registrars and collections managers and we got a full tour.

No one seemed to be in that day so the archivist took us everywhere, even the Bishop's office.

I'M IN UR OFFICE CHECKING OUT UR CROZIER

But the best part was the fireplace in the bedroom of the original owner, Mrs. Leary. 

What have we here?

I thought it was sort of funny that in this pseudo-classical scene of nymphs and cherubs, this lady was wearing a 1920s bathing suit. But then the archivist explained that she was originally painted naked and that at some point someone decided she needed to be covered up. And apparently it wasn't the church people who did it! It happened before the church bought the building, so either Mrs. Leary didn't like people leering at it, or it was the Red Cross workers who used the house during WWII.

Also, this time I snapped a picture of one of those Ted Rand bishop paintings:

Ted Rand who also created images like this: 

So there it is. John Doyle Bishop sneaking into 21st century choir concerts, vintage bathings suits making appearances in pastoral fire places, and fashion illustration entwined with church portraiture. Wherever you are, fashion will find you. 

Abducted by the Internet

This week I did something that was potentially a big mistake. I was doing research about some hats in our collection and so did a google search of the designer's name.  I found that there was a Pinterest page of their work but I couldn't see the whole thing unless I signed up.

So I signed up for Pinterest!

For those of you who don't know, Pinterest is basically a digital bulletin board. You can pin things you are interested in from around the internet. Some people use it for recipes, or how-to guides, but a lot of it is just creating a group of images that one finds appealing. I avoided it until now because I was worried I would love it and it would turn into a giant time suck.

Turns out, I was right!

As soon as I joined I knew I was about to watch my life drain away.  Right off the bat there was a page where I was supposed to select topics that I was interested in. They included big, general interest categories like "History," "Food," "Inspirational Quotes," and "Tom Hiddleston."

Seriously. Tom Hiddleston was up there in popularity with "Food" and all genres of history.   

I resisted the temptation to make a board of attractive British men, and instead started with images from my new Seattle fashion obsession-- illustrations by Ted Rand

Who? Me?

...and a MOHAI favorites board and general Seattle fashion one...

Fabulousness for Days

...and one for John Doyle Bishop

DUH

I think what appeals to me about it is that it is a very visual way to answer haters who say things like "Is there any fashion in Seattle?" or "Wasn't everyone just wearing plaid shirts and rain boots until [insert name of non-local store] came to town?". Now, instead of convulsing with rage I can instead say cheerfully "Oh! You should follow me on Pinterest!"

So come join me on Pinterest and we can watch our lives melt away together!

http://www.pinterest.com/johndoylebishop/

Deaccessioning: Everyone Remain Calm

This past month I've been spending a lot of time on one of the most complicated, stressful and controversial things that collections departments do: Deaccessioning.

Now, if you type "deaccession" or "deaccessioning" into Word you will get an immediate red squiggle because no one outside the museum world knows what it is. Basically, to "accession" something into a museum is to make it part of the collection. So to "deaccession" is to remove it from the collection. 

It is controversial and misunderstood because the public tends to FREAK OUT when they hear a museum is getting rid of something. The immediate assumption is either 1) We are tossing priceless cultural artifacts into the dumpster or 2) We are selling off the collection so that the whole staff can get yachts.

Our actual intentions are much less nefarious. To begin with, people don't realize how large museum collections are. Most museums have only about 5-10% of their collection on display at any given time. With 100,000 artifacts and about 2,000 on display, MOHAI clocks in at 2%. So you shouldn't picture beloved artifacts disappearing from display--it is usually stuff you never knew about is departing from deep corners of storage. 

MOHAI has one hundred thousand artifacts. Let that sink in a little. Are you picturing the final scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark? That is what it feels like sometimes. We have thousands of square feet of storage space and some of it is packed full. In order to be good stewards of the collection (and have space to keep collecting new things) we have make sure we are using our resources to care for things that are actually relevant to our mission. 

So, say for example that we decide to deaccession a typewriter. "NO!" the public cries, "Typewriters were an essential writing tool before personal computers. How will our children know about typewriters if the museum doesn't teach them?" 

Usually said with some combination of hand wringing and/or pearl clutching

What if then I tell you we have 84 typewriters in the collection. The one we are deaccessioning is one of thirty that have no connection to Seattle, one of twenty that are broken, and one of six from the exact same year. Once it is deaccessioned there will still be 83 typewriters in the collection. 

Starting to get it? 

But the real panic sets in about what we do with things we deaccession. Does it all go in the dumpster? Does it end up in the curator's home? Do we sell it in some back alley transaction, get the money in singles, and then ask an intern to "make it rain"?

Sounds ethical to me!

Ok, I keep making fun of the "the public" but they do have a point about all this. Museums shouldn't have free rein to get rid of things that we have been entrusted to care for. Which is why there are a lot of ethical rules that govern deaccessioning. Like, a lot. I started writing a list but it turned this already long post into a short novel.

Here is the abbreviated, abbreviated version:
-The process is long, involves doing research, and a committee that has to vote unanimously on the decision.
-Once deaccessioned, it is preferable to transfer items to other institutions while sale is a second choice. Not all museums make that priority but MOHAI does and we are lucky that the board members on our collections committee really uphold it (sometimes it is board members who can get dollar signs in their eyes and want to sell, sell, sell).
-If things are sold, no one associated with the museum can buy them (huge conflict of interest) and the money earned can only go back into improving the care of the collection (so artifacts can't be sold off to solve a museum's finical woes and/or facilitate yacht buying).

Hopefully at this point you aren't lighting your torches and heading off to rescue all the artifacts since clearly we can't be trusted with this "deaccessioning" business.

Anyway, I've been having a lot of fun working on deaccession proposals. As part of the process we research the artifact, the donor, the maker, and any other shred of information in case we uncover some reason why the object is worth keeping. Sometimes when I go down a rabbit hole of society intrigue in early 20th century Louisiana or family trees in Minnesota I'll feel like I'm going overboard, but deaccessioning really should be about doing our due diligence.

Because of these stockings I learned that "Bowbells" is the 106th largest town in North Dakota

The research also helps with transferring items. The more you know, the easier it is to find another institution that might be a better fit. When stuff clearly has no Puget Sound connection, it is fun to poke around on the internet, find some potentially relevant museum or historical society, and then send an email and make a connection with a colleague in some other corner of the country.

But sometimes stuff stays close to home. Last month we deaccessioned a surplice (which is your liturgical vocabulary word of the day!) that had belonged to Bishop Stephen Bayne, third Bishop of the Diocese of Olympia.

also known as a church caftan

Despite its name, the Diocese of Olympia is headquartered in Seattle, and Bishop Bayne is one of the predecessors of my oil-dumping friend Greg. BUT this particular surplice was made by for his ordination in New York (made by his mother! awwww) and so doesn't really tell the story of his ministry in Washington.

Bishop Bayne donated it to MOHAI about twenty years before the Diocese of Olympia set up their own archive. So we deaccessioned it and transferred it there, so it could hang out with other vestments and the personal papers of Bishop Bayne.  I got to take it personally to archive, which is held in the top floor of the beautiful Diocesan House on Capitol Hill. The archivist showed me around and told me about the house, the portraits of all the Bishops, and the contents of the archives. She kept apologizing for "probably telling you more than you wanted to know" and I was like ARE YOU KIDDING I'M EATING THIS UP!!!

Kids in Candy Stores = Museum People in Old Mansions

The most exciting thing was that two of the Bishop portraits were painted by Ted Rand, a Seattle-area painter and illustrator who also did ads for Frederick & Nelson in the 1950s.

Ted Rand: Illustrator of Fashion, Painter of Bishops

See, deaccessioning isn't scary and evil! It finds happy homes for neglected artifacts, creates connections between organizations, and somehow led us into a world were you can talk about local church history and fashion advertising in the same sentence. EVERYONE WINS.