I've read a couple of things today that suggest donating items to
museums - all well and good but it is vital that an agreement is made
with the museum concerned whilst you are still alive to understand their
policies before committing your work to their collection.
Not all museums have the physical space to acquire every piece of lace
or lace artefact that they would wish to. Some bequests hold pieces that
are duplicates of pieces already in the collection, and in some cases,
of lesser quality. So very likely you will find that they will not
automatically agree to accession (ie take into their collection) a piece
but will, as Brian found, say that once donated they have the final say
on what is done with it - which in some cases means that you are
agreeing that it may be sold or otherwise disposed of.
Many pieces taken into a collection are then stored away - partly to
protect them from the damaging effects of light, but because they do not
have space to display everything they think the public would like to
see. So, not only will your piece not be seen, it may also be that
no-one will know it is there to ask to see. (I was fortunate enough to
see an 1860s wedding dress that once belonged to a member of my
husband's family in the Nottingham collection, which because it is held
in store I wouldn't have known about if there hadn't have been a 'family
story' which we checked out). With the Internet, moves are in place to
share photographs of artefacts on their websites or set up email groups
where images are shared (The Lace Guild's 'Artefact of the Month Club'
is one example).
With the advent of the Internet, and electronic viewing of artefacts,
the museums themselves may find that they do not have enough visitors in
person to pay the huge costs of remaining open - grants are often linked
to 'footfall' - the number of general members of the public visiting
them. Many rely on volunteers giving up their time to help lower
staffing costs, but the high cost of fuel in times of recession affect
the number of days a volunteer can afford to attend if not living close
by. At the Guild, we would like to open our Exhibition Room one Saturday
a month rather than one Saturday a quarter, (in addition to the normal
Fridays), but we can only do this if enough volunteers are able to give
us their time.
Do consider donating pieces to museums, but make sure you are fully
aware of what may happen to those pieces if the museum closes, already
holds a similar piece or hasn't got the space or funds to care for it.
You may find they say 'thanks, but no thanks'.
My suggestion to the small group that started before the thread spread
onto Arachne was that we use photographs of some of our own lace to
produce a book, maybe including snippets from the Arachne archives,
which could then be sold and the profits donated to an international
charity - or even donated as *general* (ie non-restricted) funds to
museums who have lace collections. It is important that they have full
say as to what to do with the money, or we could find that as in the
case of the Luton Lace Dealer's Pattern Book, where we stipulated that
cause, by the time the money was handed over the required amount had
already been raised and without contacting every donor the museum could
not use the money for other purposes.
Brian - I would have expected a "thank you" too; it is common courtesy!
--
Jane Partridge
-
To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line:
unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to
arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
