Interview by Jim Carlucci
jcarlucci@mercerspace.com

For the next in our series of interviews co-produced with Kevin Moriarty’s Sky Dog Media, I sat down with Trenton Museum Society Board President Bob Cunningham and long-time board member, Carolyn Stetson to discuss the state of the City Museum after last September’s layoff of the city paid, full-time museum director.

Trenton Downtowner: For those who don’t know about the Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie, can you tell our audience a little bit about the mission of the Trenton Museum Society and its relationship with the Trenton City Museum?

Carolyn Stetson: I think it would be easiest to go all the way back to the beginning, which would be about 1973, when the Museum Society was first established to collect and conserve the collection. So our primary function has to do with the collection. When the museum opened in 1978, the city provided the building; it provides the heat, the electricity, and we had a director.

The Museum Society developed so that it provided all of the programming. Up to last year, the city provided a full-time director, a full-time custodian, a couple of gallery greeters that came from money earned by the museum itself, and an assistant. But all of those people were laid off. We now have somebody from City Hall who is here on a daily basis, and there is an intern who has been given no instruction about what she is to do here.

So right now we are pretty much coasting until we can renegotiate an agreement with the city.

TD: What’s been Ellarslie’s position over the last couple of years in the Trenton and Mercer County arts community?

Bob Cunningham: I think we’ve been a major player in that community as far as putting on shows, detailing the historic past, the industrial past of Trenton. Also a lot of art, music. We’ve really been very very active. Our membership has gone up. The attendance has gotten much larger than it used to be. We were really looking to ramp it up more this year.

We had scheduled what we call “The Four Vases” exhibit which is four monumental vases that were produced by the Trenton Potteries for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Three of those are with museums. One is with the state museum. Another is with the Newark Museum. And a third is with the Brooklyn Museum, which we currently have here on loan. The fourth one was lost.

Luckily, in 2009 at an auction in Los Angeles, the Museum Society was able to purchase the lost fourth vase and bring it back.
Our goal was to get the four vases together for the first time in 106 years or whatever. Unfortunately, with the loss of the director and the inability to raise the funds and things, it’s just not going to happen. That’s a major blow to us.
That was something that we thought the city could get nationwide publicity over. Those pieces have been called the most important pieces of porcelain ever produced in the United States.

TD: What else has been threatened and/or damaged by the events of the last few months? How have upcoming plans for shows and events been affected by all these changes?

BC: Well, we had an art exhibit which was supposed to open in September, which was being put on by two of our members. We had another exhibit of paintings that was coming in later. We can’t guarantee the safety and the proper curation of those now so we asked people not to bring them in. We feel we have a great responsibility if we bring things in here and we really don’t have the ability to protect them as we should.

We’ve talked to the city recently and impressed upon them the need for a director. It’s not “every museum has a director and we want one too.” It’s a case of we really need a director to talk to other directors and bring in the kinds of exhibits and things that the city really needs and deserves.

The four vases that we talked about earlier, I think we have seen the effect of not having a director. The Brooklyn Museum, after 14 years, has asked to get their vase back. They don’t want to leave it here any longer and it is understandable. It is unfortunate, but it is understandable.

CS: Another exhibit that the city is going to feel the lack of is that every year we had the Ellarslie Open, which is a juried show. We would get about 500 pieces of art from about 300 artists from as far away as Connecticut, Maryland. I think one year, even somebody from Virginia entered. It’s become a very prestigious show. And the opening for that exhibit draws as many as 700 or 800 people. Obviously, we can’t have that exhibit this year, with nobody to curate it and oversee it.

It’s not that we don’t have the talent on our board to do some of this stuff. We don’t have the overall ability to manage an undertaking that large.

That’s the kind of thing that brought tremendous positive press to the city that we’ve had to not be able to do while we have no director.

TD: You do have a permanent exhibit still on display. Has attendance dropped off without the other draws in the rotating galleries downstairs?

BC: Yes it has. We don’t really get the people in here that we used to. I used the figure yesterday speaking with someone that the state indicates there are 40,000 people a year that come to Trenton. Over the last couple of years we have documented that we have 22,000 visitors here. That’s a huge increase over years ago.

We have a very, very dedicated core of people who support this museum. We always have what we call a “Holiday Boutique” here, which is where we sell things at holiday time to raise money. It’s usually a fairly small group. We have a few people here selling things and we get a good attendance. This year it was called the “Save Ellarslie Boutique” and it rivaled the “Ellarslie Open.”

The night we opened the show, you couldn’t get in this building. You couldn’t park within a quarter mile of it. People were here; people were buying. It went on through Saturday and Sunday, and the galleries were just filled both days. It was just an amazing outpouring of support that we saw. We saw that people really appreciate what is going on here.
There’s been a lot of letters to the editor supporting the museum and what it does. This museum is a very positive reflection on the city. We feel very good about what we are doing here, and we want to expand things and not contract what we do or postpone what we do.

TD: You’ve had this great support for the Holiday Bazaar, and obviously it is a response to the changes. Do you think that is going to be sustainable with the lack of programming?

CS: I think you are absolutely right. I think that we can probably maintain the interest for maybe a year. If we don’t have a new director in here, if we don’t have things going again, we’re going to lose people. How long would people hang on if nothing’s happening?

So we are still trying to provide some kinds of programming, appropriate programming. We are not trying to do musical events because part of the purpose of musical events was to bring new people into the museum to see the beautiful displays and the building itself.

We are doing some lectures. One of them was Petty’s Run, with Richard Hunter. That was wonderful. We have one coming up, David Bosted is going to do one on {James} Monroe who was here during the battle of Trenton. The question is, “exactly where was he when he was wounded?” And he used that wound to help him get elected.

We have others on the drawing board that we want to do because we still feel we have a role to play in the city. And there are some things that we can do that make sense even in empty galleries.

BC: In February we are going to be doing what has become our annual antique appraisal day. People can bring antiques in and we’ll give them some idea of what they are and what importance they may have.

She’s come up with this program of Sunday lectures. It’s really a great program I think, and we’re going to have some interesting speakers. We’re going to have a talk on the effect of the sinking of the Titanic on Trenton. Some prominent Trentonians were involved in that. I’m going to be giving a talk on the four vases later in the year. We’re going to try and do that once a month and keep some semblance of order. When Richard Hunter gave his talk, I think we had, what, 40 or 50 people here.

TD: There are those who may think that the programming, the support of the museum is all within one group. It’s an exclusive club. Is it for the white audience, the upper classes? Does your programming reach out to the Trenton community at large?

BC: Certainly, our intention is not to be exclusive. We don’t want to be. We encourage different things. We’ve had the Trenton Schools present art in here. We’ve had exhibits on Trenton High School in here. We’re going to have a talk about the Lincoln School from Betty Lacy.

I can understand where people get that perception, but it is through default not purpose. We really want to open this to everyone. We encourage anybody to join our board. We desperately look for qualified people and we certainly don’t discriminate in any way, shape, or form.

Unfortunately, the original charge to the Trenton Museum was to focus on the industrial past. That was one group at that time and it’s unfortunate that it wasn’t more diverse, but history is what it is. I think we can try to expand upon that to show other things going on.

CS: We do a lot of collaborative events. We work with any group that is interested in working with us, but mostly we reach out.
Bob mentioned the Trenton Public Schools exhibit. This year, because we don’t have a director here, we are not trying to have it in this building. That is an exhibit that we think supports the artistic efforts of the children in all of the Trenton Public Schools. That exhibit is happening and we’re hanging it at Artworks, where we do have a director who can oversee what goes on. So that exhibit will run in January and February.

This year, the Louis and Rose Linowitz Foundation has established monetary prizes, and we’re doing a visual arts one based on the exhibit that’s going to be at Artworks.

So we try to be mindful of the greater community as we establish exhibits. As we establish programming and encourage all sections of the community to participate.

BC: And in the summer, we have that Art in the Park program and we have the children in here for a week doing different projects. I was here for maybe a half a day supervising that, and it was amazing. The talent and the commitment of these children, who were into this and very much enjoyed being here.

CS: We intend to do that again. That is a collaborative program with Passage Theatre. It’s a two-week program: art and theatre. At the end of it they have a production. Last year, they performed it at the Mill Hill Playhouse. We’ll probably do that again this year.

TD: What has happened, that you can share with us, since the last full-time director was laid off? You mentioned earlier that you no longer have a director, a facilities person and assistant. How is Ellarslie currently being staffed? Who from the city is here?

BC: The city has assigned Colin Cherry, a management assistant, here full time. Colin is a great guy. He’s a good interface with the city. He’s helped us out a lot with the city in getting housekeeping issues resolved and things like that. But he in no way shape or form claims to be a director. I think we’re all very glad that he is here, but it doesn’t replace the director.

He’s a good liaison. Even if we had a director, somebody needs to be that liaison with the city because they are responsible for the maintenance and housekeeping and all that, and there had been things that had been let go and not kept up and he’s been really good about pushing those things for us.

TD: Outside, we see evidence of some work being done to improve the lighting, so the city is still committed to the facility.

CS: Yes. And there is also an intern here. But as far as we can tell, she receives no direction from anyone at city hall about exactly what it is she is supposed to be doing here.

Very occasionally, we ask her for some help on a project, which she is happy to do. Over the summer in particular, part of her time was spent over at City Hall. So we could never ask her for help on a continuing basis, because we never knew when she was going to be here.

TD: Who within the administration have you been working with? Has it been consistent, or is your contact person there constantly changing?

CS: This is one of the things we are trying to work out right now. Besides [Colin] being an interface with the city for facility matters, it is unclear whom we should even be speaking to at City Hall about anything. They have now designated an issues-resolution committee and that’s who we’ve been talking with, but I gave them a list of questions based upon our management agreement.

Is there a department of Recreation, Natural Resources and Culture? And if there is, who’s in charge of it? Who particularly is in charge of the Culture part? We know that Sonya Wilkins is doing the Recreation part, but we have not received answers to those questions yet. So it makes it very difficult to deal with the city in any meaningful way to make progress, but I think we are making progress with the issues-resolution committee.

TD: With a lack of a professional director on staff here, what is the situation with the existing collection: those items that had been on display as well as in storage? Is the collection at risk?

BC: We have security. We have the building open basically six days a week. We have our collections committee, which takes care of getting the collection together, caring for it. We have some people in here. Bob Sands, who works for the Museum Society—he acts as sort of a curator. He’s well qualified in that area. We have Diana Kayse, who is kind of the board secretary and much more, who is here quite a bit. And then usually someone from the society is here on almost a daily basis. So we’re trying to keep that going.

The one thing I think we do miss is the gallery greeters, who were here and did a fantastic job for very, very little money. They really helped make it because they personalized things for people. As soon as someone walked in they were here to say “Hi! How are you? Welcome!” and “we have this” and “we have that” and they take them around and show them the various collections. And that is something I think we really need to address in the future.

But the collection is secure. We are doing the best we can. We have gotten a grant to have some of our artwork conserved and restored. We have the big piece up there; the Mott Plant. The big drawing, which is kind of crumbling a little bit. So that’s going to be restored this year. We’ve talked to the city about better climate control, because in some of the storage areas where we have paper and paintings and things like that, really conditions are not quite what they could be for temperature and humidity control. So there looking into that.

We’re doing the best that we can and actually, I think we are doing better than we have done in the past. We’re really proactive here, because we don’t have someone else to depend on. But we have the collection that we really need to care for.

TD: Are you still adding to the collection or just focusing on maintaining what you’ve got?

BC: Well, you kind of add to it through default. People just bring things in and say, “We would like to donate this,” and then we go through whether we want to [acquire] the pieces or not. In fact, we have a collection committee, where we will be looking at a lot of issues like “Where do we go from here?” We’re really trying to firm up a more specific acquisition policy. We don’t just want things that relate to Trenton. We want things that help tell the story of Trenton.

CS: Last year, because of our heightened publicity and people really knew about us we received quite a few donations. Quite a few people contacted us and were interested in giving us pieces. So that’s one of the reasons we are looking to hone our acquisitions policy, because we’re actually running out of storage in this building.

We need to really think about what it is we need to add to our collection; maybe what things … we are very reluctant to let anything go, but what things that might come in that we really don’t need any more of.

Bob Sands is our collections consultant, and he continues to work on a registration inventory project that we’ve had underway for a number of years, so that we see and properly record every object that is in the museum and its properly stored. We continue to do that.

So I think the collection is still in really good hands, because we’re here to take care of it and we’re really active with it. And the city has not shown any indication that they want us to take any pieces out or whatever.

TD: All things considered, the Museum Society carries on; the collection is secure. What is the future of the Trenton Museum Society at Ellarslie?

BC: Well, I think one thing we need to put across is the need for a director. If the city can’t provide a director, then we’re going to need their help to get a director of our own to run this place. We really have to have that person, as we have said time and time again here.

We’re in our basically fundraising mode now, and we initially got some very good returns on that, and we want to continue to wrap that up now and see what we can get. We’ve raised quite a bit of money every year, but if we’re going to get a director and we are going to pay for that person, we need a lot more money. And we need sort of a stable funding source or at least something we can somewhat depend on to maintain that person. We don’t want to have to hire a director this year and then have to get rid of the director next year. This is a long-term building and a long-term commitment by everyone.