Audience at The Toby

We have a lot to offer at the IMA: permanent galleries, Lilly House, 152 acres of gardens and grounds, exhibitions, public programs, web projects, and community outreach. After a while, it’s easy to take for granted all of the ways that the museum serves its mission. Every week I write ads, print pieces, Facebook updates, and blogs that focus on the opportunities for visitors at the IMA, but I often don’t take advantage of them myself.

Just 30 seconds from where I sit, I have an amazingly impressive collection of the world’s art, and I rarely take the time to see it. I’m not sure if it’s my hectic schedule or laziness, but it’s shameful to me how little time I spend in the galleries or at the IMA’s public programs. As a marketer, I spend my day encouraging others to experience the IMA, but I wouldn’t be doing my job well unless I do it myself. Therefore, I have recently decided to attend two public programs each month and spend at least 30 minutes in the galleries each week. It’s still not enough, but it’s a start.

As part of my personal mission to experience the museum, a week ago Sunday, I attended an event at The Toby. On November 1, the IMA hosted the string quartet Osso, the singer-songwriter DM Stith as well as Sufjan Stevens and his film, The BQE. The eclectic event entertained a sold-out crowd of 600. As I sat in the balcony of the theater next to a 16-year-old hipster in buffalo check plaid, skinny jeans and black framed glasses, my heart swelled. He and his fellow high school friends were completely engaged in the experience. They were giddy with delight. (In a cool, hipster sort of way, of course.)

DM Stith on stage at The Toby

I loved the event, because Osso was the most bad@ss string quartet that I’ve ever seen perform. I loved the event, because DM Stith has a hauntingly gorgeous voice. I loved the event because The BQE was a devastatingly beautiful film. But, most of all, I loved the event because everyone else loved the event.

As a marketer, I often focus on the cause. “What will make a person attend the Museum?” But not often enough do I focus on the effect. “What happens when a person attends the Museum?” Attending public programs, walking through the galleries, and experiencing the IMA as a visitor are all critical to doing my job well. By taking time to enjoy the mission of what I do, I am better able to serve it.

So, with all that said, I have a challenge to my colleagues in the field – not just marketers, but registrars, curators, designers, IT specialists, and accountants. EXPERIENCE YOUR MUSEUM. Don’t take for granted that you work at an amazing place. Be amazed by the place at which you work.

It’s hard, I know. We have all have priorities that pull us away, but I implore you to take the time. For just a little while each week, stop working and start experiencing. I guarantee you, it’s worth it – and I’m not just saying that because I work in marketing.

Ed first witnessed the site decades ago while on a work assignment in Columbus.  He was then only able to peek through the already tall arborvitae hedges guarding the property’s east side, but knew the place was indeed very special.  After all, one of the 20th century’s masters of landscape design, Dan Kiley, had worked his magic here.  For all of us in the field, this is a place for reverence.

Miller House, summer 2009 (Ed Blake and Bradley Brooks on far right)

My own first encounter with Miller House and Garden was very similar, taking place on May 1st of 2007 as part of a charrette involving Miller family members and architects, landscape architects, and preservationists from around the country.  We all assembled to discuss the many attributes of the property and who might be the best stewards of the site in the future.  Part of the weekend’s program was a visit to Miller House with an insider’s tour of both home and landscape with the Miller children.

The weather on that mid-spring day couldn’t have been nicer.  A clear blue sky was the perfect complement to the lush pink blooms of the large saucer magnolias framing each side of the house.  Though some in the group had visited before, many of us knew the site only from photographs, articles, and monographs on the designers involved.  This truly was a special treat – to witness this mid-century marvel and examine it in such detail, with members of the Miller family sharing their own experiences of growing up here.  Quite a privilege, I think, for them to call this home, and for us as well to hear about that experience directly.

Magnolias at Miller House

Over the ensuing months, the IMA continued to conduct further research on the property and its three principal designers – Eero Saarinen, Alexander Girard, and Dan Kiley – to help us better understand how this place came to be and how much influence Mr. & Mrs. Miller had on its outcome.  We were, of course, elated to be the recipient of the Miller family’s generous bequest of the property and funds for an endowment.  And by pure coincidence, the transfer of the property came on May 1st of 2009, exactly two years to the day since we first laid eyes upon it.  Those same magnolias were blooming brightly once again in honor of the event.

But this just begins our serious work on the property, bringing the home, its interiors and furnishings, and its landscape into a form approximating their earlier condition.  We have a goal of opening the estate to the public two years from now.  Research in Columbus and at repositories of archived material at sites around the country will occupy the time of Bradley, Craig Miller, and me, as well as many others as we further the process of understanding this important treasure.  We’re so grateful to be able to add Miller House and Garden as another National Historic Landmark (Oldfields being the other) to the IMA’s array of historic offerings.  I invite you to stay tuned for more details on our progress.

Lilly House at the IMA

Interior view of Lilly House

The Miller House and Garden crept into my awareness at some time while Oldfields had my full attention.  I don’t remember when I first learned of it, but I remember distinctly two things about the impression I had.  It was an extraordinarily beautiful and important property, and it was difficult to gain access to it.  Visiting lecturers or groups might sometimes make requests to see the property, but it was rare that we could accommodate them.  The Miller House and Garden seemed remote and mysterious.  In the meantime, I still had plenty to occupy me with Oldfields.  I rarely thought about the home in Columbus.

When I first saw the Miller House and Garden in April of 2007, the situation was entirely different from seeing Oldfields in 2000.  The Lilly family had been gone from Oldfields for over 30 years, during which the IMA changed and adapted its use of the house, the interiors drifting away from their domestic appearance all the while.  By 2000, it conveyed little impression of being a home.  By contrast, Mrs. Miller was still living in her home when I visited for the first time.  Having been the Millers’ home for almost exactly 50 years at that time, it possessed all the communicative power that came from being the undisturbed repository of family possessions.  A sizeable group made the visit that day, so the conditions for viewing were less than ideal.  Even with the distractions of people milling about and chattering, the house’s impact was striking.  Striking for the qualities of light and space, for the luxurious materials modestly used, for the kinds of objects in the house, but perhaps most of all for the owners’ personalities that the objects hinted at.

At Miller House, looking over floor plans

The landscape, designed by Dan Kiley, was another revelation.   Nothing I had seen prepared me for it, for its beautifully direct use of formal design elements – line, mass, and color – and for its elegant contrasts between the most basic of landscape elements:  light and shade, stone and turf, enclosure and openness, higher and lower elevation, close and distant perspectives.

Miller House in Columbus, IN

Two years later, I am still processing my response the property.  I’m not sure how much the property is continuing to reveal itself to me and how much may be due to a growing ability to apprehend and appreciate.  Now we are planning for the approach we will take to interpret the Miller House and Garden.  Once again, an experience to savor.

Rather instead, we got out in the Ravine Garden to do some pruning on everything from junipers to shrub roses to crabapples. It was still a bit on the cold side when kneeling in snow. And we had to be careful about walking up and down the steps as they are still snow and ice covered. All in all though, it was nice to be able to get outside and do some gardening. Not that I have all my “inside” work finished.

I have spent time finalizing my picks for the cutting garden this week. I grow a good many of the annuals myself. It’s just not feasible for our suppliers to grow one or two flats of some plant or another. And it would cost considerably more than our budget would allow even when times were good. And if I don’t plant them myself how will I learn the proper methods involved in starting the plants? I shouldn’t keep saying “my” and “I” so much. It’s usually a cooperative effort. But the cutting garden is mine and if we have crop failure it really is my responsibility to correct things. This year Geoff will have a wide range of vegetables he will be starting from seed for the Orchard. It will be good to have vegetables growing here again. We will talk about that more later.

I order most of my seed from wholesale sources which helps to keep the cost down. That also means I get fairly large quantities at times which isn’t a problem. It’s important to remember most seed can be held for 2 or 3 years without any serious loss of germination percentages. Yes, I know some are very short-lived and some are viable for a thousand years, but please, I’m talking in general terms here. Go get your own damn soapbox. Now where was I? Oh yea, seeds. When you have leftover seed just do your best to store them dry and cool. I don’t go so far as refrigeration. But I do think it is a good idea to put them in a container you can seal pretty tight. It can me glass, metal, or plastic. Keep it out of the sun and somewhere the temperatures don’t swing wildly. It’s really not complicated. Some seeds will always be good and some won’t. No big deal.

I’m trying a new dahlia from seed this year called ‘Black Beauty’. I really like the very dark flowers. They look great with bright colors and especially, green flowers. I think an arrangement of ‘Black Beauty’ with yellow-green Zinnia elegans ‘Envy’ and the hot orange of the plumed cockscomb Celosia argentea ‘Fresh Look Orange’ would be great.

It would also look great with pinks like Celosia ‘Cramer’s Rose’.

Amaranths are another staple of my cutting garden here at the IMA. New this year will be Amaranthus ‘Cramer’s Amazon’ (Ralph Cramer has done a lot for cut flowers). This one has hot magenta flowers and just as important, purple/burgundy and green leaves. I never seem to have enough foliage for the arrangers and this looks like a good candidate. I can start using it even before it flowers. I’m a little concerned that the one image I found on the web isn’t quite as nice as the one in the catalogue. Imagine that.

The cutting garden is somewhat time-consuming. It takes awhile to get everything planted then there is all the usual weeding and watering and general maintenance plus the several hours a week spent cutting. But I love the experimenting with new species and cultivars (some move out of the cutting garden into the landscape). And it’s so rewarding when we can pick a whole Toro bed-full to take to the Lilly House.

Ah Summer, I miss you so in winter.

Developed for IMA's American Galleries in 2005

Rewind a few years.  Does anyone remember the American Gallery handheld project – ArtXplore – that the IMA piloted in 2005?  It was a short-lived project that helped (indirectly)shape much of the current technology strategies at IMA.  It was a difficult project, with some victories, lessons learned and a big part of the technology, evolutionary process at our museum.  Since 2005, we have re-focused our efforts to create digital content that visitors in any location can access. Although we do offer audio tours at the Lilly House, a cell phone tour for the Gardens and Grounds – our primary strategy has to increase the reputation of IMA globally, and share our stories about art with a much larger online audience.  It’s an approach I support, but with the opening of the Art and Nature Park next year, should we try another attempt with some sort of handheld device?  Perhaps.
Information on From Audiotours to iPhones Workshop, case studies, speaker bios, flickr images, you name it, can be found HERE.  It is an amazing basket of information, applicable to anyone interested in the ways museums operate.  The conference represented some of the most innovation and brightest minds working in museums today – excluding myself of course.

You really should visit this wiki!

The workshop featured tales of success, failure and the in between.  It highlighted the brilliant tours created with Antenna Audio/Discovery Communications at Tate Modern and SFMoMA.  It showcased the many devices possible – custom devices, iPod’s, iPhones, PSP’s, Nintendo DS and more.  It delved into the ways information is sent to a device – GPS, infrared, WAP, RFID and OTHER options.  It showed what the biggest and smallest museums are capable of creating, innovating and overcoming.  And it brought out the personalities of these museums – a paleontologist experimenting with different approaches to the visitor experience, a one-person department from the San Jose Museum of Art, and many of the up and coming museums that will soon be influencing and leading the arena of museum technology.

I was honored to be at the Tate Modern, sit on one of the panel discussions, rub elbows with insightful and brilliant colleagues, but most importantly, eager and motivated to create something new at the IMA.

You’ll have to wait and see.

From the outset, there was a lot to consider for this show. Start for example with the fact that we don’t usually put artwork on the museum’s floor (well, unless it is a floor, like Do-Ho Suh’s, then we do). And I don’t think we’ve ever exhibited any contemporary art in the dining room of the Lilly House. Adrian installed one of his paintings right next to the dinning room table. Taking inspiration from the Kalm Report I made this video to show you how to find it (mind you, I had the artist’s permission to do this).

Museums tend to hang artworks on walls or put them on pedestals or risers, so this show required some extra thought and a lot of trust that you, the IMA patron, wouldn’t just go and walk all over the panels and do serious damage. Thanks, by the way, for not doing that; I would know, too, because I’m the guy that goes around every week or so to dust and look after these pieces. (On a side note, I do know that people occasionally like to cough and sneeze when standing over Adrian’s paintings; I’ll let you put the rest of that puzzle together, but rest assured I gently remove this “residue”).

It would be simplistic to say that Adrian just came here and put his paintings in the galleries, had an engaging conversation with Claire Schneider, and then left. No, he too had to work pretty hard to precisely install each one of his panels into the specific locations.

If you haven’t done so already, you should go through the exhibition with the free audio tour and hear the discussion about the decisions that came into play during each installation location; or check out Rebecca’s on-line essay; or better yet buy the IMA exhibition catalogue, “Elusive,” in the gift shop, which through some irony I don’t really understand is also available at Wal*Mart.com. Also, Scott Grow over at onthecusp.org completed an in-depth interview with Adrian.

In addition to making sure we got the works installed in a way that fit Adrian’s ideas, we also took the time to consider the long-term preservation concerns related to these pieces, in the event the IMA were to make an acquisition (you never know).

Here are a few of the larger concepts that we discussed with Adrian, and then later recorded by video in an “Artist Interview,” which will be stored in the IMA’s historical files. First, though, it helps if you play out this scenario: It’s 100 years from now and nobody is around that was here during this installation (sure, it’s a bit morbid, but it helps). So,

• How would we successfully re-install these artworks “correctly”?
• Who would be making the decisions about their installation and positioning?
• Which ones could be leaned against a wall, and which ones must remain flat.
• Could we exhibit them at the Lilly House again?
• What happens if one gets damaged?
• How could it be repaired?

While it’s rather difficult to quantify all of the subjective decisions that went into installing these artworks, both Rebecca and I are confident that the documents that we created would help future IMA employees install these work in a way that correctly fits Adrian’s intentions.

If you want to see the Adrian Schiess before it closes, you’d better hurry. It ends on May 4, and then we’ll de-install the paintings from the gallery, pack them up, and then ship them back to Switzerland.

Though we’re constantly doing projects that are engaging and important to the museum and to the community, not much about what we do is out there on the IMA’s web site (yet!). Well that is to say except for the two projects that have excellent companion web components: Sebastiano Mainardi: The Science of Art and Bellini: Creating & Re-creating. As an objects conservator I work on a wide variety of art: from ethnographic objects, to outdoor sculpture, to contemporary and time-based media, to the Lilly House Collections (and many things in between). I work with Hélène Gillette-Woodard, who is the senior conservator of objects and also works on the same variety of objects. Here’s a couple pictures of our lab as it is today. I would prefer if you didn’t call it “cluttered,” it’s just that we often have a lot of projects going on at once.

The two small angels you see are on Hélène’s table. She’s currently researching and cleaning them.

On my work table you’ll see a variety of objects I’m either actively working on or researching. The elaborately decorated African sculpture is a Songye power figure that I recently radiographed as part of an ongoing research project (there are two smaller ones in those boxes there, and you can see two others on view in the African galleries). There’s also an Igbira head piece in one of those storage boxes, and beyond that are two, 19^th century French opaline vases that will soon be on display at the Lilly House. In case you’re wondering, the blue tubes are not our tribute to Mr. Snuffleupagus , but are a type of vacuum hose that evacuates noxious chemicals that we occasionally work with while treating objects.

Here’s another picture of one of those opaline vases that I dissembled so that I could clean the glass vase and clean and polish the gilt coppery-alloy support structure. For this project, I documented the condition of the vases as they were before I began working. I took a number of pictures of them and then wrote a report that describes their structure and condition. In this report I then wrote a treatment proposal of how I planned to clean them and then discussed this report with the curator of that collection, Bradley Brooks. When I’m finished with the “treatment” of these objects I will write a report of how I did the work and then take more pictures of how they look after I’m done. And then they’ll be transported over to the Lilly House to be put on view in the Great Hall.