“Yet a museum is much more than its objects”

Mark Gold has a piece on deaccessioning in the latest issue of the Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies (portions of which appeared in a 2009 article he did for Museum magazine).

He runs through the real-life example of the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Mass. (about 90,000 visitors per year), which recently deaccessioned “three Russian paintings that had no relevance to the collection and had never been exhibited in more than 50 years of ownership” (my emphasis). The museum netted $7 million from the sale — “a very big day in the life of an institution with a $2 million operating budget.” The museum has recently had to reduce staff to meet budget shortfalls, and planned capital improvements have been put on hold. “The collection on the other hand is well cared for, and there is no interest in expanding in a new direction.” Despite all that, “the ethical rule prevents the museum from accessing those funds to support its present operating and capital needs and to sustain its programs.” That, he says, “is the tragedy of the rule.”

He concludes with a call for a “balancing of priorities”: “placing the viability of the museum and its programs on at least an equal footing with the collection. Why not make it ethical for a museum to weigh priorities and make difficult choices without fear of condemnation and ostracism?”

It’s a good question.

Despite the rain, about one hundred creatives came together last night to share their ideas, projects, and resources. Presentation topics ranged from Cultural Development in Lee, Copyright Myths and Crowd Source funding to Bringing Art into Your Everyday Life and Designing For The Web.

BeCreative BarCamp is the only event of its kind in Berkshire County. It is an opportunity for individuals to share information via short, informal, often tech supported presentations. Click here to watch videos of Barbara Bonner’s presentation on the Generosity Projecy, Paul Rapp’s presentation on Copyright, Jim Benson’s presentation on Minc House!

Click here to learn more about the BeCreative BarCamp!

Special thanks to Studio Two, The Berkshire Museum and our featured businesses

Berkshares, Compuworks, Graymatter Technologies, iberkshires, Rural Intelligence and Winstanley Partners!

Were you part of BarCamp? Click here to take a 2 minute survery and let us know what you thought of the event!

Do you have an item you would like to share about the creative economy? Suggest a Post to Berkshire Creative!

Below are just a handful of presentations that will be part of the BeCreative BarCamp!

Click here to see the full sneak preview of BeCreative BarCamp presentations!

Barbara Bonner
“The Generosity Project”

Chris Collins, Lee Cultural Development
Cultural Development in Lee and potential collaboration with other community organizations and individuals

Claudia Gere, Claudia Gere & Co. LLC
For Aspiring Authors: Establish your authority as an author and a clear path for writing/publishing your nonfiction book

Phyllis Kornfeld, Inside/Outside Envelope Project
Incarcerated Men and Women Making Art for a Cause

Kit Latham, Kit Latham Search Marketing
Search Engine Marketing – SEO – SEM – leveraging the power of Social Networks (Facebook – Twitter – Flickr – EvE Online)

Kipp Lynch
Start Making Sense: Visualizing Data

Carrie Saldo, Mission Inc.
Dr MincLove: Or how we learned to stop sucking and love the Berkshires

Click here to RSVP to attend the BeCreative BarCamp or here to volunteer!

]]> http://berkshirecreative.org/2009/10/22/becreative-barcamp-sneak-peek/feed/ 0 http://berkshirecreative.org/2009/09/30/join-us-at-the-becreative-barcamp/ http://berkshirecreative.org/2009/09/30/join-us-at-the-becreative-barcamp/#comments Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:50:24 +0000 fruscior http://berkshirecreative.org/?p=5672 The BeCreative BarCamp is ideas and creativity!

A chance for Berkshire Creatives to have an open conversation about their businesses, ideas, projects, and creative visions!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

5:30-9:30pm

Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA

Free

Click here for directions to the museum!

RSVP DEADLINES

TO PRESENT: OCTOBER 21,2009 /TO ATTEND: OCTOBER 26, 2009

Click here to present @ BeCreative BarCamp or click here to RSVP to attend!

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE BECREATIVE BARCAMP ONLINE AND LEARN MORE!

The BeCreative BarCamp is about creating conversation and opportunity. It’s about creating connections between people and their interests in a dynamic new way that we hope will catch on in the Berkshires. It’s about bringing out the creativity all around us and hearing new voices. It’s about what you make of it!

“I wish we could do 10 time as much,” Olver said.

Locally, the NEA awarded $50,000 grants to the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art Foundation in North Adams, and the Rockwell Museum.

The Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) awarded $10,000 stimulus grants to The Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge and Shakespeare & Company in Lenox. The Colonial Theatre Association in Pittsfield received a $4,500 grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts.

Click here to read the full Berkshire Eagle article!

Click here to view the full list  of recipients!

Do you have an item you would like to share about the creative economy? Suggest a Post to Berkshire Creative!

Check out the many creative economy businesses, vendors  and performers that bring 3rd to life , including:

BerkshireMade Artisans, a cooperative effort by a select group of Berkshire artisans to promote their high quality, locally made  creative work; DJ BFG, an alum of Run DMC’s Jam Master Jay’s Scratch DJ Academy,  spinning at Jae’s Spice; Barrington Stage Company; offering two different productions: the thriller, Sleuth, and the musical, High School Musical 2; Berkshire Filmaker Meryl Joseph, screening her recent film City Farmers at the Alchemy Initiative and much, much more!

Click here for a map of events or  here for more information on  all 3rd Thursday happenings and creatives!

Do you have an item you would like to share about the creative economy? Suggest a Post to Berkshire Creative!

Mailer will paint from two to four days a week in the museum galleries. Two public programs, including a tour of highlights with Executive Director Stuart A. Chase and a discussion of the work Mailer produces, will take place in August and September. Mailer, one of the most established of the younger generation of contemporary artists working in the Berkshires, is also known as one of the original forces behind the revitalization of Pittsfield.

Mailer, the founder of Storefront Artist Project in 2002 established public working environments for artists in unoccupied spaces in Pittsfield. The working environment of the museum residency will be similar to Mailer’s own former studio setting which was located in a street-level space on North Street, currently the location of Jae’s Spice.

The idea for this residency came from a weekly artist “copying” program at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City which Mailer participated in during the winter of 2009 with painter Ben Tritt. During the program, in which Mailer painted in the museum’s galleries, she focused on creating a “copy” of Grainfields, by Jacob van Ruisdael (Dutch, 1628/29–1682). Mailer was attracted to the idea of painting in the museum following her 2008 solo show at Ferrin Gallery, The Volcano Sitters, which drew inspiration from master paintings reproduced in art history books and photographs.

Ferrin Gallery applied for support funding for a series of “field trips” with artists. With the support of the Massachusetts Cultural Council through the Pittsfield Cultural Council, a seed grant allowed Ferrin Gallery to ask Mailer if she would be interested in creating a “field trip” to the Berkshire Museum and the concept of a month- long residency, tour and talk was developed.

Mailer states, “In the past year, I’ve used the 19th-century romantic landscape as a screen for ideas in my paintings about beauty, presence, and danger. I’m now planning to explore these themes further by developing a sustained relationship with the Berkshire Museum’s collection of 18th- and 19th-century landscape and portraiture. I’m interested in exploring the wings of the museum like an itinerant naturalist, setting up camp within the galleries, and examining the contents to find the raw materials of new paintings. By working directly from the collection, I’m hoping to distill a series of works exploring landscape and utopia.”

Berkshire Museum has recently put European artworks from its vast, 30,000-object collection on view. The paintings, dating from the 17th to the 19th centuries, have not been exhibited for more than 30 years.

Click here for more information and associated events!

Do you have an item you would like to share about the creative economy? Suggest a Post to Berkshire Creative!

Pittsfield’s second Big Read project will focus on the acclaimed Vietnam War novel, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, during the month of April 2010, the 35th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, the culmination of the Vietnam War. A finalist for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Things They Carried is considered one of the best novels ever written about combat and the Vietnam War.

Pittsfield Mayor James M. Ruberto stated, “We are thrilled to once again host a Big Read community book project in the City of Pittsfield, and especially pleased to focus attention, through the acclaimed novel The Things They Carried, on the brave members of our community who served in the Vietnam War. I look forward to another successful project encouraging communitywide conversations and creative programs serving students, veterans, artists, readers, writers and more.”

The Big Read project in Pittsfield will be a collaborative effort involving many community partners, including Barrington Stage Company; Chapters Bookstore; Pittsfield’s four high schools; the Berkshire Museum; Soldier On, a non-profit organization which represents and assists homeless veterans; the City of Pittsfield’s Veterans Services Office; the Berkshire Historical Society; the Berkshire Athenaeum, the local chapters of the Vietnam Veterans of America, and others.

Click here to learn more about Cultural Pittsfield!

Do you have an item you would like to share about the creative economy? Suggest a Post to Berkshire Creative!

Hula hoops, Morris Men, the Berkshire Bateria, locally grown foods and much much more!

A flyer with a map, full schedule of events, and list of open shops, cultural hotspots, and restaurants will be available for free throughout downtown on 3rd.Thursdays and also as a downloadable PDF at culturalpittsfield.com.

Upcoming 3rd.Thursdays downtown celebrations will be held on July 17, August 21, September 18, and October 16, 2008 from 5pm to 8pm (and beyond) in downtown Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

See you tonight!

Do you have an item you would like to share about the creative economy? Suggest a Post to Berkshire Creative!

Springfield city leaders visited Pittsfield to tour the downtown and learn how Mayor Ruberto, along his cultural development team, have leveraged cultural revitalization to benefit their city.

Click here to read more coverage at masslive.com or ABC 40 Springfield!

Do you have an item you would like to share about the creative economy? Suggest a Post to Berkshire Creative!