[MSN] Gulf coast museums muddling through, but 2007 looms

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Museums muddling through, but 2007 looms

As difficult as it's been for museums on the Coast to keep going in the year since Katrina, the coming year may not be much easier and, for some, could determine whether they will actually be able to survive the storm.

Most museums attained whatever shred of normalcy they've known this year by getting grant money for educational outreach and emergency staffing. That money allowed them to provide summer camps and take their programs into area schools, things they always do.

"Everyone has come back with a fighting spirit," said Biloxi Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum director Robin Krohn-David, "pushing forward to keep things as normal as possible for our children through all the summer camps, and to save our history and heritage as much as they can." The Seafood & Maritime Museum lost its building and most artifacts.

"(But) 2007 will be a very tough year for most of us," she predicted. "Most of the emergency-grant monies will be gone, and we will still be trying to survive and rebuild."

Looking ahead, the most critical future need of area cultural organizations, said Gayle Petty-Johnson of the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs, "is secure collection storage away from the direct path of the hurricanes and their flooding."

And museums are working together to have that in place during major storms, said Marjorie Gowdy, executive director at the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi.

Twice since Katrina, Ohr has moved its collections of pottery, archives and photographs - first from its damaged downtown facility to Mobile (Ala.) Museum of Art for immediate safekeeping and storage, and again earlier this month.

This time, collections were quietly relocated back into Mississippi to an undisclosed location away from the Coast, Gowdy said, "at a major academic institution's very secure vault."

It's undisclosed, she said, "because the institution understandably wants the site to remain very secure."

The Ohr-O'Keefe museum not only plans to rebuild its destroyed campus designed by Frank O. Gehry on the Biloxi beachfront, said Gowdy, but its board also decided to build a replica of the destroyed Pleasant Reed House on the same property. The project had a pre-Katrina price tag of $30 million, but after FEMA and insurance payments are received, Gowdy estimated it will take an additional $18 million to rebuild the entire campus.

Plans are to start construction by early 2007 on the Center for Ceramics building, which was the most complete of Gehry's five structures at the time of the storm and also the least damaged, and to move Ohr operations into it in 2008.

In the meantime, the museum hopes to move operations from its FEMA trailer into the historic 1905 Creel House, which it will move from Reynoir Street to property near the new museum.

Three museums intend to initiate traveling exhibitions to help bring in money.

WAMA opens its first traveling show in September in Sausalito, Calif., and more are in the works.

Ohr-O'Keefe plans to debut its national traveling show of Ohr pottery in 2007.

The Coast's only children's museum, Lynn Meadows Discovery Center in Gulfport, began in June to reopen in phases. Completion is slated for the end of 2006. It is revising its exhibit of Katrina Quilts - made by Coast schoolchildren as an outlet for their feelings after the storm. Now traveling gratis on donated money, the quilts will turn into into a traveling moneymaker in 2007. A not-for-profit group in Houston, Texas, is going to put two quilts in its silent auction with a minimum bid set for $10,000, said Betsy Grant, center executive director.

"We feel like 2007 is going to be almost as much of a challenge as this year was," she said. "The economy is not 100 percent, we're not going to have 100 percent of our families back, or 100 percent of our tax base and if the community is not at 100 percent, we won't be either."

Only WAMA and the tiny Alice Moseley Folk art museum in Bay St. Louis escaped structural devastation in Katrina, and therefore, resumed operations relatively quickly.

The Moseley museum, which has very few expenses, was able to reopen seven days after Katrina to a ready-made pool of customers, primarily out-of-town volunteers seeking local art to take home, said Tim Moseley, who operates it in the home of his late mother. Business, however, has slowed down this summer and it's going to take tourism to get it back, he said.

"If we could get tour buses coming back," Moseley said, "we're ready for tourists. That's our biggest problem here: letting people outside know we're ready to go."

WAMA, while still dealing with deficits not covered by insurance or FEMA support, has re-established all of its pre-Katrina programs and added new ones, reported Petty-Johnson. The biggest hurdle, however, is still financial, she said.

Beauvoir

Jefferson Davis' home at Beauvoir will remain closed to the general public for some time while restoration and repair continues on the house and presidential library. Owned by the Mississippi Division of the United Sons of Confederate Veterans, the historic estate awaits resolution of its insurance claims and still is in need of even temporary repairs. Substantial and visible progress in restoration of the house, said Director Patrick Hotard, should be seen within the next 12 months.

J. L. Scott Aquarium

J. L. Scott Marine Education Center and Aquarium has transitioned from an educational center - with a comprehensive aquarium that was a "must-see" public attraction with natural and cultural exhibits - into an educational entity.

Owned by the University of Southern Mississippi, the center moved to the grounds of the Gulf Coast Research lab in Ocean Springs after Katrina destroyed its decades-old waterfront quarters in Biloxi at the foot of the Biloxi Bay bridge. Emphasis now is on getting marine programs into classrooms via traveling exhibits and video conferencing, said Chris Snyder, marine educator and media specialist.

"The future is still a little uncertain right now," Snyder said, "about where our aquarium is going to end up."

... Which seems to be the universal key word: uncertainty.
On the horizon

What: Here is a look at what's in the works at some Coast museums.

Maritime & Seafood Industry: Expects to announce soon that an architectural firm has been selected to start the redesign and rebuilding of its new museum; and that it will relocate to property adjacent to the new Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art. Opening targeted for late 2008.

Fundraisers: On Sept. 30 will hold its $10,000 drawdown, at which time will raffle the 1956 Century Resorter Runabout (boat valued at about $40,000). Its two 65-foot Biloxi Schooners are available to rent and its new Schooner Pier is available for public events. (228) 435-6320

Beauvoir: Fundraising campaign to repair the house will be announced in the near future. (228) 388-4400

Lynn Meadows Discovery Center: Expects to be fully open and refurbished by end of this year. Admission $7 all ages; Bear Club for pre-schooners to reopen Tuesday, Sept. 5; permanent exhibit "Dolan Avenue Depot" to open by Labor Day, Sept. 4; upcoming visiting exhibits are "Dora the Explorer," Oct. 5-7 and "Clifford the Big Red Dog," Nov. 9-11; sale of annual memberships at $100 for four people resumes in September; museum will extend Sunday hours to hold private birthday parties. (228) 897-6039

Walter Anderson Museum of Art: Has conservation under way of water-damaged linoleum blocks cut by Walter Anderson. New programs since Katrina include Café Night for young adults, third Thursday each month; family programs, third Sunday; free admission, first Sunday; and free admission ticket offered to children who visit with a group so they can return with an adult. It regularly features work of Mississippi and regional artists in one of its galleries; makes small gallery available to other Coast museums while they are rebuilding; intends to launch a national advisory group by the end of 2007. (228) 872-3164

Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art: Holding its first juried professional exhibition on the Gulf Coast since Katrina, titled "George Ohr Rising: Gulf States Competition," Aug. 25-Sept. 25, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, Jefferson Davis Campus; features 113 works by 86 artists from the five Gulf states. Will hold a free community art show for ages 18 and over, titled "Memories of Point Cadet," Oct. 3, 4, 5 at three public locations.(228) 374-5547.

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