JB:
Today is Monday, October 13, 2008, and I’m here in Santa Monica with
Patrick Ela, who was with the Craft and Folk Art Museum for 21 years. He
started out in 1975 as Administrative Director, working alongside the
founder, Edith Wyle, who was the Program Director until she retired in
1984, at which point he became Executive Director, in charge of both
Programs and Administration, and he held that position until he resigned
in 1996. Today we’re going to talk primarily about Patrick’s earliest
experiences at CAFAM, but also about some of his personal history. And
my name is Joan Benedetti. So, let’s start with you. Can you tell us
when and where you were born?
PHE:
I was born in Oakland, California in 1948, June 20, at Kaiser Permanente
Hospital, one of the earlier Kaiser hospitals—and I weighed 10 pounds
(laughing)!
JB:
Wow! Impressive (laughing)! So tell us something about your family and
your early childhood—just a little bit.
PHE:
My dad was a mechanical and chemical engineer and he was studying in a
doctoral program at UC Berkeley and teaching engineering there. And my
mom was a mathematician and she was—I think she had her master’s degree
when she was 19 from the University of Maine—pretty good in math. I have
five brothers and sisters—three boys, three girls, and we . . . (lived)
in Berkeley, just north of the campus on Colusa (Avenue), which is north
of Solano, up by where Chez Panisse is, north of the campus. But my dad
became disenchanted with academia, so he went to work at Lawrence
Livermore Laboratories--
JB:
Oh, uh-huh, which is . . . (about 40 miles southeast of Berkeley).
PHE:
We never quite knew what he did—and then he decided he would go into
aerospace and so we all moved to San Diego, where I grew up. (Ela's
father worked in San Diego as a senior group engineer for Ryan
Aeronautical Company.) I mean I grew up until I was five or six in
Berkeley, and then we moved to San Diego. . . . And so I consider myself
a pan-Californian, having gone to school in L.A. and spent time in the
central valley in Northern California.
JB:
Well, it’s a great state.
PHE:
Great state.
JB:
Were there—I’m just wondering where your interest in art came from. Were
there any collections in your family or . . . ?
PHE:
When we were young, my mother sent all of us to art lessons, art—taking
(oil) painting--
JB:
Was this in San Diego?
PHE:
In San Diego. Margaret Gornick was her name. She was our teacher, and
she had a studio and we drove over. It was quite some ways, you know,
and there weren’t that many freeways then, but we took about a half-hour
on surface streets, maybe forty minutes, and (most of my siblings) all
took painting lessons . . . for a good five or six years. And I have no
idea why we did that, but (we did).
JB:
She didn’t have any—your mother didn’t have any art background,
particularly?
PHE:
No, none whatsoever. I mean, my grandmother—her mother--taught French.
She did have a background of academic accomplishment because my
grandmother graduated from Colby College in Maine in 1919, which, for
women at that time, was quite—you know—progressive—and she taught French
in Presque Isle, Maine, where my mom grew up. And so there was academic
strength and pursuit in our family, but not, really, aesthetic or
artistic. So I don’t know why we ended up going to those classes, but I
did some art work in high school. You know, I was like (an editor) on
the annual staff.
JB:
The yearbook?
00:05:00
PHE:
Yeah, the yearbook staff. But I was more . . . (into sports at the time)
. . . I was a . . . three-year letterman
in two sports and (without trying to sound self-aggrandizing) I was
athlete of the year and I was all-league, and my younger brother was
all-CIF (Collegiate Interscholastic Federation] in San Diego, so we were
pretty athletically-oriented, had athletic scholarships to college, and
stuff. And when I decided to go to college (at Occidental), I took some
art classes as electives, and by the end of my sophomore year, I had
basically completed a major because I had a lot of previous training. So
then I decided to get a double major in art history and studio art and
this was in the sixties, where being, you know, a business major, or
something more practical, was akin to being a prostitute of the
military-industrial complex--
JB:
Especially if you’re from Berkeley, huh (laughing)?
PHE:
Right. So I ended up with a double major in art history and studio art.
Now, a lot of people who didn’t live through that time may not be
aware--or may have forgotten--that many colleges and campuses were shut
down for a good period of time in 1968 and 69 and into 70 and so
sometimes they (the administrators) would just take all of the classes
you’d started to take and if you showed up you would get a pass—as
opposed to an incomplete. And so a lot of people, I think, fell into
their majors in those two years almost by default, because there was
such societal uproar over the Vietnam War and on-campus demonstrations,
and for those--
JB:
But did you feel like that’s what happened to you?
PHE:
Well, in a way, maybe. You know, I—as I said at the beginning—my parents
are no longer living, but they were both mathematically and
scientifically capable, and I have those genes and I don’t have any
problem with math or science. You know, I might have studied medicine or
something (like that) at that time, but--
JB:
But something drew you to art, or at least kept you there once you had
started.
PHE:
I think it was the path of least resistance, you know, and so when I got
out of Occidental, I got a California state (graduate scholarship) to
study in a doctoral program in art history at UCLA. And so I went there,
and I really, really didn’t like it. And I didn’t like looking at slides
and all that stuff that you have to do in graduate school. But I did
take a seminar with . . . (Maurice Bloch), who was the head of the
Grunwald Center for Graphic Arts at the time, and we were doing an
exhibition called “Made in California.” Other institutions have
subsequently used that title for shows, but I think we were the first to
do that, and we studied and did an exhibition on the major lithographic
publishing houses, collectors, presses--Cirrus Editions Press, Tamarind,
and Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited)—and I got to do Gemini. And
I just went over there to start my interviewing process and I said,
“This is pretty cool, and do you have any work?” And I was given a job,
and I dropped out of graduate school, which was boring, to go to work at
Gemini. And that was at a very, sort of, hot time for Gemini.
Everybody—you know, Johns, Oldenburg, Lichenstein, (Frank) Stella, . . .
Rauschenberg, Ellsworth Kelly—all these people—Noguchi—all kinds of
people were working there and I got to work with them.
JB:
Who was the head of Gemini at that time?
PHE:
Well, the founders were Ken Tyler, Sidney Felsen, and Stanley Grinstein,
and when I was there Ken was still there, but then he and Stanley and
Sidney had a parting of the ways and he (Tyler) went to Mt. Kisco, New
York, and created his own atelier called Tyler Graphics, which no longer
exists, but (he) worked with most of the east coast guys. Hockney went
there to work; Motherwell, who used to work at Gemini; Kelly, a lot of
people stayed with Ken, and I’m still very close with Sidney and Stanley
at Gemini.
00:10:00
JB:
It just occurred to me that with your parents’ background in science and
so on, that maybe
—well, I should ask you—when you were in college, you must have taken
some science courses if you got a B.A.--
PHE:
I took physics and other things like that and I also got A’s, you know,
(but mostly courses for non-majors).
JB:
Well, . . . the area of printmaking certainly draws on both sides (of
the brain).
PHE:
Oh right. (Yes), it’s wonderful. (Printmaking) is still one of my
favorite areas (of art) and . . . this is fast forwarding, but I’m (now)
an accredited appraiser with the American Society of Appraisers and a
lot of the collections I appraise . . . (include) prints. Some people
are intimidated by . . . (printmaking) because they don’t understand the
various processes. . . . The connoisseurship derives from the knowledge
of the process . . . so I worked at Gemini, and I got . . . to play
tennis with Frank Stella all the time, and Claes Oldenburg and I would
go hang out in (their) warehouses and talk and--
JB:
Wow.
PHE:
And these guys were at the top of their game at that time. . . . I
remember one time we--after only five years--there was a retrospective
of Gemini at the Museum of Modern Art. This was in 1970 (or 71), I
believe, because Gemini was founded in . . . (1966), and I was already
involved enough where I got invited, as did most of the other employees,
to go there, and we-- (This MoMA exhibition was called Technics and
Creativity II, May 5 – July 6, 1971.)
JB:
Oh, how marvelous.
PHE:
We went to a big party at (Robert) Rauschenberg’s house. He lived down
in . . . SoHo on 14th Street. He had a big old church that he’d
converted to his house. I remember--
JB:
This was pretty heady stuff—how old were you at this time? You were
still in your twenties--
PHE:
In my early twenties . . . . But I remember, we went to parties while we
were there—and . . . all the doors were open--you know, at the Museum of
Modern Art--and I remember we went to a party at Merce Cunningham’s
studio, and . . . . This will show you how long ago this was--John Cage
was on stage making music and Merce Cunningham was doing some type of
movement, and Andy Warhol had a Polaroid camera and he was coming around
offering to take your picture and sign the back of it for $25. And we
declined because we thought it was a rip-off!!
JB:
And you probably didn’t even have $25.
PHE:
No, I didn’t have $25, but that’s--
JB:
Oh God!
PHE:
That was a missed opportunity, but who knew that at the time? . . . But
I saw all the same people in New York or San Francisco or L.A. And I
felt kind of constricted by the contemporary art world. It was very . .
. precious—not unlike the glass collectors . . . (were in the eighties
and nineties). And so at that time I decided that I’d better consider
some other options. And that’s when I applied to the—what’s now the
Anderson School of Management at UCLA, and I got admitted to study
business, but with an emphasis on cultural or arts administration or
arts management—as opposed to finance or accounting or corporate
mergers. You know . . . mergers and acquisitions (or) something
(else)--it was in effect a major.
JB:
Yeah, they did have people actually teaching arts management, per se?
PHE:
. . . There are (basically) two types of business schools. There are
schools of business administration: USC and Wharton are more
quantitative; Harvard, Stanford, and UCLA are more managerial. So what .
. . (UCLA) really emphasized (at the time was) . . . decision-making and
(having) enough knowledge about a particular subject area to know when
you need to bring in an expert . . . So, like a regular undergraduate
curriculum, there were general courses that every person had to take:
macroeconomics, micro economics, accounting, marketing, statistics, all
those things. And then you had, in effect, your major courses—so my arts
courses were taught by either managers or practicing arts professionals
and my general courses were taught by hard-core . . . business
professors. . . . Each of the majors had its own specializations and its
own courses, and we had ours in the arts world.
JB:
Let’s see, was that—that was a two-year program, I guess, wasn’t it?
PHE:
. . . . Yes, it was a full-on MBA program as opposed to an Executive MBA
or a non-resident or a working MBA. There are lots of different
derivatives of MBAs now, but there weren’t at that time.
JB:
And at that time, what were you thinking about in terms of your
long-range goals or your ambitions?
PHE:
I had no idea. I really didn’t. I just—I figured it would be practical
to have an MBA . . . if I wanted to do something in business. And the
other thing—just as a book-end to that statement I made earlier—when I
was an arts major at Occidental—studio and art history—I enjoyed it, but
I found the business curriculum equally creative and interesting. So I
really enjoyed the business school as well. It wasn’t dry or stale or
anything. It was very helpful, and one thing I came away from that
program with was that a lot of business people may seem sort of
straight-ahead but the fact is that they think about things that make
sense before other people do--
JB:
Which is a creative process--
PHE:
Yes. And so once you hear about it, you say, well, what’s the big deal?
Well, the big deal is you didn’t know about it until it’s pointed out
that this is how it is. . . . And so I found that to be very
stimulating.
JB:
I was curious in looking at your résumé—I knew that you spoke Spanish
fluently—you certainly used it a lot while we were at CAFAM, but I guess
I didn’t realize that you were—also are—fluent in German, and I wonder
when—was that partly through courses that you took in college?
PHE:
I took German in high school and then I decided that I really should go
though it again in college to get strong foundations, so I took it
again. And then as part of my undergraduate curriculum, I applied for
and was awarded a sort of a year abroad in Germany--which I didn’t
take--
JB:
Oh you didn’t?
PHE:
No, because my girlfriend at the time became ill and I just didn’t want
to do that. And so then when I was in graduate school I did spend six
months in Munich at the Bavarian State Painting Collections. . . .
(Bavaria is) a state of Germany. They have a centralized administration,
which governs about forty-five museums throughout Bavaria, and I was
working at the Central Administrative office in the education wing.
(Laughing) Want me to say it in German?
JB:
Well (laughing), I . . . have it written down here, but you--
PHE:
It’s Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen in the Muzeum
Pedagogische-Centrum . . . . Museum Education Center . . . .
JB:
So this was after you had—you’d begun to take some graduate courses in
art history--
PHE:
No, no. I (had already taken) graduate courses in art history. I left
UCLA, went to work at Gemini, got disenchanted with the contemporary art
world. Then I went back (to UCLA) and was matriculated in the Anderson
School of Management or, at that time it was called the Graduate School
of Management and in my second year of business school (in
1972)—Management School—I went to Europe. . . . And at that time I
actually did a study of comparative museum education approaches in the
State of California and the State of Bavaria. So, I went to San
Francisco, Santa Barbara, L.A., and San Diego and interviewed people in
museums, and then (in Germany) I went to—not only Munich, but to
Nuremburg and Berlin and other German cities—Cologne—to see what their
approaches were, and then I did a study [20:00] on museum education.
JB:
So you had a good chance to practice your German while you were doing
that.
PHE:
Yeah. Well--and I learned more while I was there.
JB:
And was that—the fact that you focused on education—museum education—was
that sort of happenstance . . . or did you (already) have a growing
interest in education?
PHE:
Well, I’ve always had an interest in education. And I applied to
different cities and I was accepted in Bremen and some other place. But
the one in Munich—and I was interested to go to Munich because . . . the
Olympics (were going to be there) in 1972. And that (job) was in the
Museum Education Center and so I decided to take it. And that probably
pushed me a little more in that direction than I might otherwise have
gone.
JB:
So you were there for six months, and then you came back to California
and finished your study (at UCLA)?
PHE:
Right.
JB:
So where did the job at the Kohler Art Center—how did that come about?
PHE:
Well, when I was getting out of school, I sent letters around. You know,
because I wanted to--
JB:
Oh right. You still had at least a year to go to finish your MBA--
PHE:
No, six months. I finished in—I got back in December and I graduated in
June.
JB:
Oh, OK.
PHE:
So I graduated in (June) 1973.
JB:
. . . So, then you were looking for a real job.
PHE:
Yeah, I was looking for a job, and I got this job in Wisconsin and—which
turned out to be a very interesting job and the Kohler Art Center has
grown in prestige and some of the programs for which it’s best known I
helped to start back there--
JB:
Like what?
PHE:
Like the art and industry program at Kohler.
JB:
Oh! Yes--
PHE:
It was pretty cool. Not only did I get to run the exhibition program and
install and things like that, but I also—you’ll get a kick out of this—I
was in charge of summer theater—and so I--
JB:
Good lord!
PHE:
I hired producers and directors and made sure all the staging was under
control.
JB:
I guess I didn’t realize they had a theater--
PHE:
Oh yeah, they had a very active (program with) three or four plays a
year. And we had a film series and I was in charge of that. And, you
know--
JB:
You got to do a lot of things there.
PHE:
Yeah, I did. It was fun. And I learned a lot about exhibition
organization and installation techniques and--
JB:
And at that time, had they started what’s now become a rather famous
folk art collection?
PHE:
They (had) . . . . At that time Ruth Kohler, who is still the director,
if you can believe that--
JB:
She must be in her nineties--
PHE:
No—she’s probably in her--
JB:
Eighties?
PHE:
--mid-seventies, I’d say. Her brother, Herb, is chairman of the Kohler
Company and he and his wife—which number I don’t know—Natalie—Natalie’s
a friend of mine. She was married to a good friend of mine at that time.
She went to Stanford. And Herb and Natalie have gone off building golf
courses—all over the world. I mean in England—everywhere. Ruth Kohler is
particularly interested in a guy named Fred Smith who did concrete
sculptures--
JB:
Oh yes!
PHE:
And so we were documenting Fred Smith back in the early seventies—(it's
a site) like Grandma Prisbrey’s Village or Watts Towers.
JB:
Well there was that famous exhibition, which I happened to see at the
Walker Art Center about that time, which included--
PHE:
Fred Smith--yeah, so she was into that. But we were into . . . (a lot of
different things). I guess it’s Sarasota, Florida—the Ringling
Brothers--
JB:
Oh yes—yes (the Ringling Museum is in) Sarasota.
PHE:
And so there’s a Circus World Museum in Baraboo (Wisconsin) and we used
to go down there and pick out things to show, old eight-sheets and
16-sheets—these incredible lithographs and they had early lithographs by
Alphonse Mucha and all kinds of (other artists). . . . It was really
fun, you know.
JB:
Well, I was always—since I first heard that you had worked at the
Kohler, I thought it was really a wonderful happenstance because of what
you did (later) at the Craft and Folk Art Museum.
PHE:
And my first wife, who is now the Registrar at the Getty Museum--
00:25:00
JB:
Sally (Hibbard).
PHE:
--and has been for many years.
JB:
She’s still there? Oh.
PHE:
. . . . I’m not in that close touch with her right now. But she was
homesick for Los Angeles. So, after a couple of years in Sheboygan,
Wisconsin, I was—I was offered a job at the County Art Museum—Los
Angeles County Museum of Art. And partly at her insistence I decided to
come back to the west coast, but I was enjoying Wisconsin. And I’m a
native Californian, so it was a little bit—you know, it was a little
weird, but I enjoyed the Midwest. They have very interesting accents.
Phyllis and I are always talking about Sarah Palin’s accent and I think
it’s very upper Midwest, but she says, no, it’s Canadian, but it’s
obviously Alaskan, but, you know--I think her dad was from the Midwest,
and I think that would have an impact on it. . . .
JB:
No, I was just going to say--as one who has lived on the east coast, the
Midwest, and Canada, I think she has more of a Canadian accent, but I
don’t know (laughing).
PHE:
Well, I’ll tell Phyllis that.
JB:
So—you went to LACMA.
PHE:
So then I went there and I worked in the Education Department and I was
one of five or six people when I arrived, and they—due to the internal
politics of that organization—when I left, I was the only person in the
Education Department.
JB:
Oh my goodness. Well, you were working for--
PHE:
For Ruth Bowman.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
Who was on the board of the Craft and Folk Art Museum and she was the
one that recommended to me that . . . that I go over to the Craft and
Folk Art Museum. But, you know, I had a good run at LACMA. I enjoyed the
people and I still have some lasting friendships with some of the
curators, most notably Pratapaditya Pal. He’s a good friend. And we have
lunch every now and again. Had lunch a couple of months ago. So—and I
knew, I knew various people over there. And Ruth Bowman ran afoul of the
very powerful Museum Service Council and the Educators and so it became
dysfunctional.
JB:
Yes, she doesn’t describe that as her happiest time. But I guess the
Craft and Folk Art Museum was a bright spot for her—and she had just
become involved because the first (board) meeting of the museum, which
had, of course, just been transformed from The Egg and The Eye gallery .
. . the first board meeting had just happened in June of ‘75. So—I’m
wondering what you know—either what people have told you or you’ve been
able to surmise--was the reason that . . . (CAFAM) created the position
that you took?
PHE:
One of the chairpersons of the (CAFAM) board, Mort Winston, once
characterized Edith as an accelerator and me as a brake, and so I think
that Frank Wyle and other more practical people, less maybe inspired (by
the museum's mission) in certain ways, but no less creative, thought
that it would be a good way to sort of counter-balance Edith Wyle’s
creative inclinations—and maybe that was apparent early on based on the
five-year history they had had at The Egg and The Eye.
JB:
Yeah, well, actually, ten years at that point. The Egg and The Eye
(gallery) started in 1965.
PHE:
Oh, yeah, ten years. I was focusing back on Gemini . . . . At that time,
Frank basically--Frank Wyle--had the control, the monetary control as an
owner--and partially relinquished that as a board chair because—as you
know, ideally, the board hires the staff and the staff runs it and if
the board doesn’t like the way the staff’s running it or the top
management’s running it, they get a new manager, but they don’t mix it
up with daily operational issues.
JB:
Ideally (laughing).
00:30:00
PHE:
And that’s not always the case at many institutions.
So I--based on (Frank Wyle’s) ten years of experience with Edith in this
capacity (of being a program director, or a director) he probably felt,
as did others, that they needed someone to administer and . . . keep
everything under control.
JB:
And do you remember—can you . . . tell us the story of, you know--how it
all came about? Did Ruth (Bowman) just mention a possible position to
you and then at that point did you—? Tell us the story.
PHE:
Well, remember I said I was the last person in the Education Department
(at LACMA), and while I had a lot of friends at LACMA, not only in the
programmatic area, but in the administrative areas, my future was
somewhat uncertain there, given the fact that the Education Department
had fallen on hard times.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
And its relevancy was questioned. I mean I don’t think anybody really
doubted that there had to be public programs, and of those, you know, a
variety of workshops and docent tours and so on needed to be provided,
but they had sort of separated a lot of those functions, so the docents
(who were volunteers) were under a lady named Barbara Rumpf, who worked
at the—in the slide library--and Eleanor Hartman ran the library (which
was also at that time under the Education Department) and so there were
. . . functions that were being performed, but the overarching public
programs or Education Department was basically eviscerated. It was
basically cut up and . . . thrown into different places. So, I didn’t
know where I was going. And I think Ruth said, well, you know, “I think
these people over at the Craft and Folk Art Museum are going to need
someone with administrative capabilities. Why don’t you go talk to
them?” And so I did, and I remember thinking, "Boy, going to that little
place after being at LACMA is like out of the frying pan into the fire."
Because there was really no certainty associated with that institution,
and LACMA had the weight of the County of Los Angeles as well as the
Museum Associates behind it. So, it was a little dicey.
JB:
Appearances can be deceiving though.
PHE:
Yeah, they can be. They can be. But still, I mean, in all of the time I
was at the Craft and Folk Art Museum--and by the way. . . there were
another two or three years (later on—(1999 – 2002)—actually four years)
when I was (at CAFAM) when I was the chairman of the board and an acting
interim director, so it’s more like . . . (I had) 24 (25) years of
service toiling in the (fields of CAFAM).
JB:
I should have included that in your introduction--
PHE:
Well, no, it’s not a big deal, but it’s just--
JB:
But we will definitely get into that in a later session.
PHE:
But I guess--so in effect, I was recruited by Ruth to go over and talk
to them, and I didn’t know that much about folk art or crafts at the
time. I did know about exhibitions. I did know about education. I did
know about public programs. I knew a bit about grant writing, you know.
And I remember, I was invited over to Frank and Edith Wyle’s home and at
that time they lived in a temporary situation over on Wilshire Blvd.,
east of where the museum is now, and they had a house . . . . I came in
and we talked and they had Japanese prints and I liked Japanese prints
and they had (interesting) rugs and different things and we chatted, and
I remember he offered me some rum. . . . He said, “What do you want to
drink,” and I said, “I don’t know, some rum.”
JB:
(laughing) What time of day was this?
PHE:
Oh, this was in the evening.
JB:
Oh.
00:35:00
PHE:
He said, “I’ll give you some rum, but you’ve got to drink it straight
because it’s really, really good rum, and so I said, “O.K. Whatever,”
you know, and we drank the rum, and had a nice visit, and they offered
me a job. And we negotiated a little bit, and established my
responsibilities vis à vis those that Edith had. And I think that one of
the most important things about my ongoing relationship with them
was that we were friends. . . . It was just—some people don’t understand
this—but it was just a good friendship. I had—there wasn’t any
quasi-parental thing, quasi-mentor thing. I love my parents. My dad and
I had a great relationship. My mom and I had a great relationship. I
never thought of Edith and Frank as, you know--
JB:
Mom and Dad.
PHE:
--ersatz parents. But just as good friends—of an older generation . . .
Frank and I used to do all kinds of stuff together. We’d . . . go to
sporting events. We’d build things together. We’d do carpentry together.
We’d just--
JB:
And you never felt like there was—that that (friendship) made your
professional relationship less—more difficult?
PHE:
Compromised?
JB:
Whatever. Did it change--
PHE:
Well, I mean it did . . . a couple of times. I mean—maybe, as you said
earlier, there are a couple of things that are better left (unsaid).
JB:
Oh.
PHE:
. . . (Just briefly,) two or three times . . . (there were attempts to
recruit me) away from the museum for interesting positions, some of
which I wonder if I should have taken, but my friendship with them was
one of the factors that kept me there. Because from a professional
development perspective, it would have been possibly more to my
advantage to have taken these other positions that I was offered. So—my
friendship . . . affected my professional relationship, or my
professional life in that sense.
JB:
Well, we can talk about that later. I just thought I’d bring it up since
you mentioned that you were such good friends.
PHE:
Yes, I mean, like when we went to their ranch, and I eventually bought
some property up near the ranch that they had--and, unfortunately, (I)
had to sell it. But there was a rule, you know, never talk about
anything museum-related at the ranch.
JB:
Well, I can remember Edith saying—and I think she meant even beyond the
ranch, but especially at the ranch—she said, “People would be surprised
to know that Frank and I really don’t talk about the museum very much
when we’re away from it.” (Laughing.)
PHE:
No, exactly. Nor did I.
JB:
Just before we leave this subject of your first impressions, I wanted to
ask if you had known anything about—well, you were obviously at LACMA
for almost a year--
PHE:
Oh yeah, I had gone to The Egg and The Eye before it was the Craft and
Folk Art Museum.
JB:
Maybe even when you were in college or--
PHE:
I may have. I don’t remember. . . . But I—I could well have gone over
there. I remember doing a lot of things, you know, gallery-wise,
museum-wise, and so on, when I was in college, and I probably went over
there, but I did certainly go over there when I was at--
JB:
--at LACMA.
PHE:
--at LACMA, and I thought it (the Egg and the Eye gallery) was
incredibly expensive. . . You know, it’s a gallery—oh yeah, I just—I
thought, my God, how could anybody pay (that) for that. . . . So—because
these were objects that I--
JB:
Oh, the objects—I—oh, yes.
PHE:
Yeah, the objects that they had in their shop and--
JB:
Yes, I remember thinking that too, yes.
PHE:
They seemed a bit precious and a bit expensive and I didn’t have a sense
of relative worth, you know. . . . I knew how much a Frank Stella
lithograph cost or an Claes Oldenburg sculpture, and somehow, given the
fame associated with those people and the prestigious institutions and
collectors who had them in their holdings, I just didn’t get it. Now
that’s when I worked at LACMA, and over time, I certainly understood the
different markets that exist for all these things. But at that time I
didn’t. I thought it was a little precious when I was at LACMA—and a
little self-absorbed—The Egg and The Eye.
00:40:00
JB:
I want to ask you something. I’m not sure how to phrase it. I’m just
wondering—I remember getting that sort of (patronizing) attitude from
some others in the so-called fine arts world--and I wonder if that was a
kind of (I’m generalizing of course)—if that was a kind of
attitude about craft--or contemporary (craft) at the time?
PHE:
Well, I think that at the time, I think that the vast majority of crafts
were associated with functionality. This is in the late sixties, early
seventies. . . . And--you know--the studio crafts movement, in glass and
the other media, over time, established itself as a different art
medium, basically, or art media (from sculpture, painting, etc. in
different media) because there were people like Peter Voulkos in clay or
(Dale) Chihuly in glass, who established themselves as basically
sculptors—artists who used traditional media. But--
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
--but it’s still—there’s still a lot of back and forth about that as you
know.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
I know Carol Sauvion did her program--
JB:
Yes (the PBS film series), “Craft in America.”
PHE:
I was a part (of the planning for that) a little bit. And—I don’t know.
That whole thing—(the place of craft within the larger art world) is a
big can of worms.
JB:
Yeah.
PHE:
But I don’t think that when I went to The Egg and The Eye
(gallery)--before I was recruited to go over there and work--there was
any bias that I had about—oh, this is craft and (that is art). I wasn’t
even aware of those things. I just thought--
JB:
Which was good.
PHE:
And I thought, you know, “This little glass salt and pepper
shaker—“Remember, I didn’t pay $25 for an Andy Warhol Polaroid. When I
saw a little glass thing for $40 or $50 bucks, I thought, “Geez! You
know, that’s really expensive.”
JB:
Yeah.
PHE:
So, it was a different time, and--
JB:
Yeah, of course.
PHE:
And money was worth more (then than now).
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
It wasn’t as inflated—devalued--as it currently is. So it was (worth
more) in monetary terms than it was in terms of relative value (of) one
form to another.
JB:
Right. And also I think at least some of the prices reflected, at the
time, Edith’s intention for what had been The Egg and The Eye gallery to
be an art gallery, not a shop, not a—certainly not a gift shop.
PHE:
I agree with you.
JB:
So--
PHE:
I agree with you, but I think a lot of prices were inflated at that
time. I mean—and this is probably inappropriate for me to say, but I
remember, you know, like Harry Franklin had an African gallery, and a
lot of those prices were just through the roof--through the roof. And I
don’t know if all of those pieces that had the through-the-roof prices
then would fetch those prices now. Some of them certainly would
probably--and more--but others might have been marginal.
JB:
Well, and you have the knowledge now of the appraiser to--
PHE:
Well, thank you. Well, appraising is a different kettle of fish.
JB:
So—you knew a little bit about the history--that it had been a gallery,
and had just recently turned into a museum. So what were your
first—you’ve talked about this a little bit—but, I’d just like to know a
little bit more about your impressions of Edith and Frank. Did you meet
them for the first time when you went to their house or--?
PHE:
I met Frank for the first time then. And I think I met Edith once
before. I think Edith—I think Ruth Bowman invited--
JB:
Maybe you went to lunch at The Egg and The Eye?
PHE:
Yeah, I think maybe we went to lunch. I don’t remember exactly, but
something like that. And I thought—I thought, “They’re nice people.” I
thought, “It’s an attractive, sort of embracing building.” And I thought
that--it had a little bit of a transitory feeling. It didn’t feel like
really solid, particularly in comparison to the County Art Museum at the
time.
JB:
Which was a little scary, I suppose.
00:45:00
PHE:
Yes, it was. I mean, considering . . . , I had a mortgage to pay, and I
wanted to earn money, and—I mean—obviously if I were—even at that time I
knew that the art world is not the best place to earn money,
although, for certain people it is. (CAFAM) just . . . seemed a little
dicey, and a little bit risky, but I figured, OK, I’ll just do it.
JB:
So—there wasn’t really a formal interview, as such, for the job.
PHE:
I didn’t submit a résumé and I wasn’t sort of like . . . . Frank and
Edith were more instinctive. And they knew me fairly extensively from
whatever (Ruth had said about me).
JB:
They must have seen a résumé and heard Ruth talk about your background.
PHE:
I think (Ruth) vetted me, basically, to them. And, then, they probably
invited me over to their house to see if we were compatible, just as
people. And Frank and I liked each other, and Edith and I liked each
other, and it was just--
JB:
It seemed natural.
PHE:
Yeah, and then--I got to know their kids over time and became friends
with them.
JB:
Did you—let’s see—from the board meeting minutes that I read, you, I
think, the first (CAFAM board) meeting you attended was August 28--
PHE:
’75?
JB:
’75. You were introduced to the board then. And I think that you
were—that the board essentially—you may have met some of them—besides
Ruth and the Wyles--before that, but that was essentially your
introduction as the future--
PHE:
. . . . Administrative Director.
JB:
Yes, I did notice that the first introduction—I think it was at that
August meeting—Edith was still being described as the Director and you
were described as the Administrator. Now that changed and was
clarified--
PHE:
Well, that was one of the negotiating points. I had already been the
Assistant Director of an arts organization (at the Kohler Arts Center)
and, just in terms of my professional growth, I didn’t want to have the
same—it’s like in the film world, you know, you don’t want--
JB:
. . . . to go backwards.
PHE:
(--to be) the Assistant Director. You want to be the Director.
JB:
Sure.
PHE:
So my progress was actually from Administrative Director to Co-Director
to Executive Director (to Director). I just dropped the “Executive” and
was the Director. At the end.
JB:
So that was basically—the fact that Edith was going to be primarily in
charge of the program aspect of it: exhibitions and other kinds of
programs.
PHE:
Well, I didn’t—one thing you may not know is that Hy Faine and Ichak
Adizes--who were the founders of the Arts Management Program at UCLA--or
Arts Administration, whatever you want to call it—always had as their
ideal model the idea of a co-director. So you would have an
administrator who--
JB:
So that was in your mind--
PHE:
Yeah. I mean that was the model that they thought would work because
they didn’t think that necessarily everybody that was talented
administratively or managerially and who was attracted to the arts would
have the rest of the package—you know, the creative--
JB:
--and vice versa.
PHE:
And vice versa, yeah. So that’s why they reasoned that would be a good
mix.
JB:
So that was important--
PHE:
Yes, it was pivotal to that program. And I think a lot of the people who
went through it then, went in and out of either creativity in the arts,
programmatic creativity, or managerially, managerial creativity. I mean,
a person who was in the same program that I went through a couple of
years later was one of the two people who ran the Olympic Arts Festival
with Bob Fitzpatrick—Hope Chopik Schneider.
JB:
Oh yes, I remember her, uh-huh.
00:50:00
PHE:
And a lot of people went on to become movie people or--or heads of
operas or whatever. I mean, if you were skewed a little more
creatively—and remember I had both studio art and art history—so I was
interested in it and
. . . initially, I was, in effect, implementing the model that I had
been taught academically.
JB:
Yes, and I think that’s very important to know. (Recording interrupted)
JB:
OK. We took a short break and we’re back. Had you met any of the board
members before the August (1975) meeting?
PHE:
Not that I recall. . . .some of the ones that I remember from that
period of time would be Daniel Selznick and Proctor Stafford (who’s no
longer living) (and of course) Ruth Bowman. I don’t think Ron Katsky was
involved at that time.
JB:
Not yet, I don’t think.
PHE:
Frank and Edith, and I don’t think Mort Winston was involved at the
time, but he came in subsequently.
JB:
Yes, we’re going to get to that in just a minute. So I believe the board
was introduced to you, and it was said that you were going to start at
the beginning of October— I think October 6 was actually--
PHE:
Really!
JB:
--your first day.
PHE:
Wow, good memory!
JB:
Well, no, this is based on—(I've been reading), you know--the board
meeting minutes, probably, or some other documents in the Craft and Folk
Art Museum archives, which I’m still working on.
PHE:
You’re a saint for that activity for sure.
JB:
Well, it is a very interesting project. (And) at that time—I also know
this just because of the archival documents—Frank had said that he
didn’t want to be president.
PHE:
Frank Wyle?
JB:
That’s right—(president) of the board. Bernard Kester, who was also at
one of those first June meetings--
PHE:
Right. I remember Bernard Kester from that time. Also—somebody else you
just mentioned—I think Bret Price’s dad was on the board. (Bret was a
ceramic artist whose thesis exhibition was at CAFAM: R. Bret Price, an
M.F.A. Exhibit; opened 11-25-75.)
JB:
Oh yes, Buzz Price. I had forgotten that. . . . He was on the CalArts
board too.
PHE:
Right, I remember. And then there was one other person you just reminded
me of, but I’ve forgotten again.
JB:
Well, I was just going to say—those first June meetings were really done
more for the legal process of converting what had been a commercial
gallery into a non-profit museum and Bernard was one of the people that
was there.
PHE:
Was Tomi Kuwayama on the board at that time?
JB:
Tomi was also there—and I’m trying to remember if she subsequently
became a board member . . . . She certainly was shortly thereafter.
(Tomi was elected to the board on November 23, 1976.) But what happened
with Bernard was that he was elected board president in June.
PHE:
Right. I remember.
JB:
But he didn’t want to do that either, and he consented, I think, just as
a legal formality, so he resigned (shortly after the June meeting], and
there was no new president elected until November, and at that point
Frank said, well, he would—he would take it on temporarily. And he
served for less than nine months.
PHE:
He wanted to get the monkey off his back.
JB:
Yeah, yeah. So when you were first hired in October there were board
meetings to attend and I assume other board—there were a few committees.
But Edith presided at those first meetings.
PHE:
In fact, I remember that those first meetings were held in what became
your library, that sort of back room.
JB:
In the cottage--?
PHE:
No, no—upstairs, on the third floor (of 5814 Wilshire), what would be
the southeast corner, there was a room that was at one time your library
and—and that’s where—(the board met)--on the third floor.
JB:
Oh!
PHE:
Remember that room?
JB:
That clos—that sort of overgrown closet—yes!
PHE:
That’s where the board meetings were held.
JB:
Oh my goodness, that was such a small room.
PHE:
Well, it was a small board. That’s where your first library was, if I’m
not mistaken.
00:55:00
JB:
That’s—yes. Oh,
that’s interesting. Now that’s a new nugget (of the CAFAM history).
That’s very interesting—(where the CAFAM board first met). So, I guess
I’d like to know at this point just what (was) your understanding of
(your position). You’ve said (and I’ve heard that before--in fact I
think Edith told the staff at one point) that she was the accelerator
and you were the brake. But in terms of—other than the most obvious—I
suppose the budget, and maybe development, what were your duties? For
example, vis à vis the board at that point?
PHE:
Well, . . . if I remember (correctly), I tried to create an organization
in ways--in areas-- where I perceived none existed; or existed only in a
rudimentary form. And that entailed, you know, projections, and I
remember, it entailed personalities too. I think, you know, somebody
like John Browse, who was very powerful (at the time). He ran the
shop/gallery, and could be very imperious, as you (might) know. And I
think he and some of the other people—Dorothy Garwood—thought (about
me), you know, “Who the hell is this guy?” You know, some young, green,
kid who went to graduate school and now he’s our boss and you know--what
the hell--sort of (thing). So I tried to build an esprit de corps. I
tried to be respectful of everybody’s position. And collectively make
the transition from what had been a gallery-based, entrepreneurial
attitude on the part of a lot of people, to one that was more interested
in—or more focused on--education and collecting and more . . .
museum-like. You know, the more hallowed museum things that everyone
(who works in a museum) needs to engage in, in order to have credibility
(as a museum) because it was—I mean, well, I won’t inject politics into
this, but certain things are assets and liabilities, and, yes, there was
a set of assets that (had) accrued to the museum because of its tenure
(and) its history as a gallery, but there were an equal number, if not a
greater number, of liabilities associated with credibility and stature
and (lack of) academics and motivation and self-aggrandizement on the
part of the board members and the "owners." That (situation) haunted the
museum for many years, because a lot of people had the early idea that
Frank and Edith owned (the museum), and so—“why the hell should we give
them money.”
JB:
Yes. I think that lasted a very long time.
PHE:
A long time, long time. That’s part of the bad will, as opposed to the
good will of The Egg and The Eye. And even the name of the museum for
many years was the Craft and Folk Art Museum Incorporating The Egg and
The Eye.
JB:
Yes. That’s right. That’s what it legally was for the first—couple of
years anyway.
PHE:
So (a major part of my job was) to build an organization, to facilitate
the transformation from a commercial gallery into a nonprofit 501(c)(3)
tax-exempt educational institution—and what that entailed. That’s what I
was trying to do, and I knew more about that stuff than many of the
people—not all of them--but many of the people there. So that’s what I
set (out) for myself (to do). And I didn’t always tell people that. I
just did it, you know.
JB:
That’s what they expected you to do probably.
PHE:
And I remember Dorothy Garwood fell by the wayside.
JB:
Well, I was going to mention that she did resign in November of ’75, and
I was wondering if you could talk about that a little bit?
PHE:
Well, she was talented as a curatorial type, but I don’t think she
fancied the new regime and the new concept, and I think she probably
felt [1:00:00] (the specter of frustration)—whether she actually felt
frustrated by it--I think she anticipated that she would eventually feel
frustrated by it.
JB:
Now by new regime, do you mean yourself as . . . (Administrative)
Director, or do you mean the fact that it was now a museum as opposed to
a gallery?
PHE:
Both, both, I mean both. And I don’t know; that’s just my hypothesis,
you know. . . . It was a new organizational structure, and both Dorothy
and John had had—and I consider John to be a good friend—I don’t see him
enough, but, you know, I really like him and I think we have a good
rapport--but they had (had) direct access to Edith and they could do
things--and now there was this intermediate layer—my organizational,
managerial, financial, programmatic (layer) in the sense that I--where
they used to be able to say, “Well, let’s do this, let’s do that,” I
would say, “Well OK, why do you want to do that? What are the costs and
the benefits? And what--you know--what is the impact?” So there were
certain other things that they had to process in order to get from point
A to point B and maybe they didn’t like it. I don’t know.
JB:
Well, I do know, just from talking to John (Browse), that financial
matters were always an issue and--
PHE:
They were. They were. And over time--you asked me in an earlier
conversation if I remembered curating or installing or designing certain
things, and I remember several-- but over time, my art-related, my
craft-folk art-design, aesthetic-related activities gave way to almost
exclusive fund-raising and managerial issues and organizational issues
and it just changed over time, as it often does in non-profits, and so
that was one of the reasons I decided to cash in my chips when I did (in
1996). Jumping ahead a bit.
JB:
(laughing) Well, I think it’s amazing that you didn’t cash in your chips
sooner than you did.
PHE:
Well, I think that’s partly because of my friendship and my sense of
obligation to the Wyles and--to my detriment or to my benefit,
whatever--that’s what it was.
JB:
Did you realize when you (started)—I mean, I guess obviously, you
couldn’t have realized completely—how big a gap, say--looking at your
perception, your impressions of the museum when you started, and maybe
what they were a year or a year and a half or so later--did you have any
idea when you started--how needy the museum was going to be?
PHE:
No, I sensed it, but I didn’t know. I sensed that, like I said, it was
getting out of the frying pan and into the fire, and—but--on the
opposite side of that, there was unbounded enthusiasm and excitement and
everybody . . . believed that it could happen. And so that was, that
gave all of us, I think--
JB:
Energy.
PHE:
Energy to move forward. Now (then), we started the Mask Festival (in
1976) and we started these international programs. And we started . . .
tour programs. And we started having some critical recognition in the
paper—in the L.A. Times—and it was like we could sort of see that it
could work, you know, and so that, I think, empowered a lot of
people—and energized a lot of people, as you just said.
1:05:00
JB:
Yes, it was really a big, you know a B-i-g (capital B) idea kind of
thing, and I think that all of us that worked there--even much
later--felt that. I really think that most people that
came in contact with the museum (were energized)—but especially in the
early years—because there were a lot of firsts, or at least firsts in
terms of the west coast. . . . CAFAM was bringing a lot of new ideas to
California.
PHE:
Right. And we had corollaries: the Renwick, the Museum of American Folk
Art, the Museum of American (sic—Contemporary) Craft, the Museum of
International Folk Art. Eventually up in San Francisco there was a
(Craft and Folk Art) Museum. But that (was) totally different than the
energy that—and the identity that the museum has now. I mean I don’t
really even have much to do with it—honestly--right now. . . . It’s a
different sensibility (at CAFAM now). It (strives for) a different set
of criteria. I don’t really understand what the mission is now. But
that’s just my addled, historical point of view (laughing).
JB:
Well, there’s no—I think there’s no doubt that what it was at the time
(when we started working there) had a lot to do with Edith’s
personality, but it also had to do with the fact that--aside from
Edith--that these were issues: the issue of promoting “ordinary” objects
to the status of art. There was never any doubt but what the gallery and
then the museum was an art museum—an art gallery, an art museum--and
things were put on pedestals and they were—the exhibitions were
installed in a gallery setting--
PHE:
Right. I agree. I think the world--
JB:
--rather than a shop. And that was a very—it’s hard (to remember)
because it’s so common now—it’s hard to remember how it was at the time.
PHE:
I think Edith was very fundamental to all of it, as you say, but I don’t
think her vision alone is what realized the institution. I mean—you
mentioned Bernard Kester, you know—Mary Jane Leland, Gere Kavanaugh,
Charles and Ray Eames, who were involved, (who were influential). I
mean, there were a lot of people who--
JB:
Josine (Ianco-Starrells).
PHE:
Josine Ianco-Starrells, (who ran the Barnsdall Municipal Gallery at the
time), yes. There were a lot of people who concurrently had a similar
response to the truth of it and carried the ball—and I think all of the
staff did. And I think that—so, it’s hard to say, and I’m not in any way
minimizing Edith. It’s just that her initial vision was not--
JB:
--the only thing.
PHE:
-enough to sustain it as well as it was sustained. Certainly her
facilitating it was (critical), but there were a lot of other components
to the mixture, in my opinion anyway. Does that make sense?
JB:
Oh yes, yes, absolutely, I agree completely. I wanted to ask you
about—if you can remember—I’ve been trying to figure it out from the
staff rosters and the lists of staff in the catalogs that were published
early on—just who was on staff, other than John and Dorothy, who was on
staff at the time that you started--and then I’d like to also ask you,
if you can remember, who were some of the first staff that you hired?
PHE:
Jorge Casillas (who was the maintenance person—and sometimes did
exhibition preparatory work). . . . He was on the staff.
JB:
He was on when you started.
PHE:
Right. And Joaquin, who at that time was known as Timoteo, (who helped
Jorge and later did most of the physical work) came a little later. I
think Marcie Page was there.
JB:
How about Karen?
PHE:
--or close to it. Karen Copeland wasn’t quite there yet, I don’t think.
JB:
Do you think you hired her then? Or were part of the hiring of her?
PHE:
I’m not sure.
JB:
How about Roman (Janczak)?
PHE:
He . . . (had already been) hired. Lorraine Trippett was hired by me.
JB:
That was a year or two later—Lorraine.
PHE:
Gail Goldberg was hired by me.
JB:
Now Gail was, I think, one of the first publicists (before Nina
Greenberg), isn’t that right?
1:10:00
PHE:
And also Volunteer
Coordinator (before Suzi Ticho).
JB:
Ah-h-h. OK. I wanted to ask you about publicity. One of the points that
John (Browse) made—and I’ve heard other people say this—was that during
The Egg and The Eye days the Times and the other media came to them—I
mean they didn’t really have someone sending out press releases; they
didn’t have a publicist as such, and I asked John, I said, “How did you
get all of this great publicity?” And it is amazing to see the (number
of) newspaper articles—and especially in what used to be the Home
Magazine section of the L.A. Times. John said, “Well, if we weren’t in
there—it was a weekly, (on) Sunday—and if we weren’t in there at least
once or twice a month, we--you know--didn’t understand, because we
always were.” So did that kind of the thing continue? And at what point
did you—I guess I’m assuming that you had something to do with getting
someone to actually be a publicist and begin to write press releases—or
maybe that’s something that you did at the beginning?
PHE:
Well, I think we all got involved a little bit. We became aware of the
fact that we needed it. I mean, if you think about it, when the place
was The Egg and The Eye, it was trying to always do new and exciting
things, and at that time probably some of the programs and activities,
fashion shows, whatever they did, could be considered newsworthy,
whereas most museum things are more feature—I mean hard news as opposed
to feature news? It would be interesting—and probably very laborious—but
it would be interesting to do an analysis from 1965 – 1975—how much PR
The Egg and The Eye got in relationship to how much PR other museums
got—large and small—to see if everybody got more coverage at that time,
or if it got more coverage because The Egg and The Eye was
ground-breaking and commercially interesting and did exciting,
newsworthy events. And it was much more in the commercial arena (than
were museums at the time).
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
So, I don’t know the answer to that question. I know that I’ve written
press releases and other people did and that getting press coverage took
on an important role, not only in terms of building attendance and
hopefully membership, but also in substantiating grant applications that
were submitted to various governmental entities.
JB:
Yeah, speaking of membership. When did the whole membership program
(begin)—was that part of--
PHE:
Well, when The Egg and The Eye was a commercial gallery, they had 400
members.
JB:
Oh, they had (The Egg and The Eye) Association!
PHE:
The Associates. (The group was called an Association; the members were
called Associates.) And then they grew—then when The Egg and The Eye
became a museum the members sprang forth--like Venus (on) the Half
Shell. They just sort of converted everybody from Associates to Members.
(In 1980, a "higher end" support group called The Associates was formed
that had no relationship to the previous Association members.)
JB:
It was just a natural transition.
PHE:
Yeah. And then they started to make (the museum concept) grow.
1:15:00
JB:
Probably some of those—a lot of those people were the first volunteers
too. I guess I want to just go back a little bit. I don’t know if it’s
back or forward. I am—this will be a recurring theme—the neediness of
the museum and Frank Wyle being presumably, at least at the beginning,
the primary donor, contributor, to the museum’s financial stability. It
must not have taken you very long to realize that you
both had to find other sources of revenue, but also that it seemed,
inevitably, you had to go back to the original source too. And
that--that must have been difficult to--
PHE:
Well, it was difficult, but I mean, I also tried to make sure that
everybody got paid on time.
JB:
There were times (when we didn’t get paid on time).
PHE:
There were (cash flow) problems, and (the accountant), and others didn’t
(always) do things they were supposed to do and some of these
things--were . . . (less transparent than desirable) and I didn’t even
know about it. And I’m not casting aspersions on anyone. I’m just saying
that there were some issues that arose—and I remember I tried to make
them work out. I always tried to (plan and realize) a balanced budget,
you know, and to raise money. And Frank Wyle had as a management
style—if he could—he would play out all his options before he would
write a check . . . . It was always a hustle, and over time it--I guess
it was stressful.
JB:
Wearing, I would think.
PHE:
It would wear you down—over time . . . . But (CAFAM) was always needy.
And there were certain times when (it got better and easier). I remember
asking for a million dollars from somebody and I got a million dollars
for the museum—(that was rewarding). A couple of times . . . there were
half a million dollar (donations)—so, over time it got easier as our
credibility--and the economy improved.
JB:
Yes, we went through a couple of recessions during the history of the
museum.
PHE:
So—it was all—it took a lot of time and a lot of commitment and a lot of
inventiveness to try and shake loose money, but I remember when Mort
Winston came--
JB:
Yes, we should talk about him--
PHE:
One of the things we did—sometimes we would—there would be these
windfall things where (Mort Winston’s company, Tosco—The Oil Shale
Company) would get credits and they couldn’t take advantage of them, so
they would give the museum these windfall oil profits.
JB:
Oh-h-h, yes.
PHE:
You know, and sometimes we would get . . . 500 barrels of oil or 200
barrels or 800. And we’d sell them and get the spot price, and that
would be a welcome addition to our budget.
JB:
Well, I’m torn. I do want to talk about Mort (Winston) because he came
on as chair (early on in 1977).
PHE:
He came on—he would only come on the board if he was made the chair.
That was his deal.
JB:
Oh, yes, yes. I think Frank mentioned that. I guess before we go on,
though--I do want to just talk a little about your impressions of the
shop and the restaurant, which we haven’t talked about except to say
that you had been there (during The Egg and The Eye days), but if you
could just—as if I didn’t know anything about it--just describe the shop
and the restaurant from the point of view of someone from the outside,
or someone very new to the organization. Because I think you could say
that they were of more importance than those same facilities were at
some other museums.
1:20:00
PHE:
They were dominant. . . . I remember somebody (maybe Edith or maybe the
chef, Rodessa) said The Egg and The Eye was "a feast for the eye and the
palate." And the impression one had when arriving (in 1975 when the
Gallery first became a Museum, but before any renovations had been
made)—if you recall--there was a big central staircase, and you came in
through the front door and there was a shop up on your right, and a shop
on your left—and behind the staircase there was a little step-up that
covered up some electrical things. And it continued in the back. And
then you went up to the middle floor and both sides of the middle
floor—the mezzanine—were restaurant. There was the bar side and the
dining room side. And Salvatore and all of these people were cooking.
And then when you get up to the museum—it was (on) the third floor—and
in addition to the gallery up there,
there were offices. And so, the credibility of the place (was tenuous
and) the . . . claims that the institution made about being a
museum--were belied by the physical space. . . . And the amount of time
and physical space that were allotted to the shop and the restaurant
(were out of proportion to the space allotted to the museum).
JB:
Let me ask you—because what you’re describing—of a shop being both to
the left and the right of the staircase is a little—is different from
when I started, which was not until the following year in ’76. At that
time the right—the west side—was a gallery, a museum gallery. So in ’75,
when you started, it was still shop on both sides?
PHE:
That’s what I remember.
JB:
Was there an attempt to maybe, even though the west side was part of the
shop, was there an attempt for that to be more of—you know they had the
“shop shows”—they continued to have these mini-shows or shop shows—was
that where that took place most of the time?
PHE:
I don’t remember (exactly). But I do remember that I . . . was
instrumental in gradually getting the museum to have a presence on the
lower floor.
JB:
Well, that’s very interesting. I didn’t know that.
PHE:
--because of the credibility issue.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
And to the extent that may have been foreseen or foreshadowed in early
staff meetings, that may have caused consternation to John. It may have
caused consternation to Dorothy. I don’t know, but it was like--
JB:
Oh-h-h, interesting.
PHE:
It was a thing that needed to happen, just in terms of the
organizational building blocks. . . . in making a transition from the
gallery to the museum. That needed to happen physically. So early on,
early on in my tenure, that change was facilitated.
JB:
Yeah, yeah, that was important. And that’s a big change. So—when you
went up the stairs, you went to the restaurant.
PHE:
You had to go through the restaurant. You couldn’t get to the museum
without going through the restaurant.
JB:
That’s true, and that remained the case.
PHE:
For a long time.
JB:
Although there were some little niches in the stairway walls.
PHE:
Yes, there were. And most of those niches belonged to the shop—until the
museum encroached on the shop’s turf. I mean, that’s what it was like—it
was like--it was like an ebbing and flowing of the shop gradually
receding over time for the museum to, you know, take over its space . .
. (appropriate it).
JB:
Yes. I—later, when I was there—again, I don’t have a lot of records of
the restaurant—or the shop for that matter--in the archives, in the
CAFAM archives--which are at UCLA. So part of my goal in the oral
history is to try to bring those aspects to life and . . . I’m wondering
about the restaurant. I guess the sort of “glory” days of the
restaurant—everybody says—(were) when, at the very beginning—in the
early days--
PHE:
When Rodessa was there.
JB:
Yeah, Rodessa Moore.
PHE:
I never met Rodessa.
JB:
I never did either.
PHE:
Well, let me tell you (about another relevant and) functional reality.
When The Egg and The Eye was a gallery, it was a taxable entity. . . .
It got money from the shop and it got money from the restaurant.
JB:
Right.
01:25:00
PHE:
The reason we went from owning the restaurant to
(renting or) leasing the restaurant facility to an outside vendor--was
that if we would have run the restaurant, we would have had to pay tax
on the property.
JB:
On the restaurant property.
PHE:
On the restaurant portion—and we would have had to pay unrelated
business income tax on any profits, because running a restaurant is not
part of the mandate of the museum. It’s not an educational activity.
Renting is exempt from unrelated business income tax. So one of the
recommendations I made—and other board members probably made—was to
divest ourselves of the management (of the restaurant) and rent to
various people—there were corporations: Ian Barrington ran it for a
while. And that’s why that happened. . . . We did not, as a museum, have
to pay unrelated business income tax on the proceeds from the
restaurant.
JB:
Yes, well that makes absolute sense.
PHE:
But we still always had to pay property tax to the County of Los Angeles
on that portion of the building, which was the museum shop, because that
was a commercial activity.
JB:
Oh-h-h.
PHE:
But we didn’t have to pay income tax on it to the federal or state
government.
JB:
Huh! Boy, I didn’t know that. That must have been kind of complicated to
figure out.
PHE:
It was. But it’s just a matter of square footage.
JB:
Well, so the restaurant was--you know--had maybe passed its heyday, but
it was still a big attraction.
PHE:
It was a big attraction, and we got . . . cash flow, so we had a minimum
monthly rent versus a percentage of the gross sales—whichever was
higher--we got every month. And so—that’s what we did. Do you remember
that guy Casey?
JB:
No--
PHE:
I mean, you know, there were various (people in the restaurant over the
years). You remember Nate, I’m sure--
JB:
I think so. . . . Ian was really the first one that I knew on a personal
basis.
PHE:
Well, there were two or three before him.
JB:
I do want to talk about Ian in another session, but I just wanted to get
your (first) impressions of the restaurant.
PHE:
Well, my impression was that it was disproportionately large—and the
shop was disproportionately large, and over time and with great
friction, we had to change that.
JB:
Well, that’s very, very interesting, that is understandable that there
would be a power—a certain amount of a power struggle there. So then
early on in March—I guess we mentioned that Dorothy Garwood had resigned
in November of ’75 and in March of ’76 John resigned. And I guess he had
hired Ann Robbins sometime before as his assistant, but she became the
shop manager (after John left) and I’m not clear who hired Susan
Skinner; I think Ann hired Susan. But at any rate, there was a new
regime in the shop.
PHE:
Right. And by that time, the shop was of reduced size. It was confined
to the left-hand side as you come in.
JB:
Yes, yes. Would you talk a little bit about Ann and her management of
the shop?
PHE:
Well, I think that Ann was very well-liked, and she did a very good job,
you know. And she had her vision. I would characterize her strengths
were probably more in contemporary crafts and John’s were more in tribal
arts and ethnic arts, . . . although both of them were comfortable to a
degree in the other arena. And then I think that Susan learned the
business and then took what she learned and went off to start her own
(shop), New Stone Age.
01:30:00
JB:
Ann was always very much a supporter of the artists. I believe that they
were before, under John also, but as you say, Ann—Ann was herself an
artist—a ceramist,
and so she really made a big point of continuing the mini-shows and
supporting—but she seemed to be able to do that within what was I guess
a reduced space.
PHE:
Hm-huh. Well, at that time it went all the way back. I don’t know if you
remember, but they had books way in the back on the left.
JB:
Oh right. Well I think there was a little room--
PHE:
Was it a closet?
JB:
--where they could wrap and mail things, but, yeah--
PHE:
And the rest rooms were back there. And they had that--for a while--that
little platform area that went back and forth between the shop’s use and
the museum’s use depending on the particular show. Do you remember what
I’m talking about?
JB:
I’m not sure.
PHE:
OK, so like if you’re going down the—I don’t know—can I write on this?
JB:
Sure.
PHE:
OK. So at that time if the museum (Patrick is making a drawing of the
ground floor) this was the back—there was a little corridor with
restrooms here.
JB:
Oh yes. And there was even a little dressing room in there at one point.
PHE:
And then there were steps here.
JB:
Right.
PHE:
But on the ground floor, this area was a platform and you could go over
and through. And so, depending on a given show, the museum—this may have
been museum—or another time this could all be shop. It went back and
forth. We had this wall that we would construct and move laterally to—I
remember during the French Folk Art show, for example--
JB:
But structurally it was open?
PHE:
Yes, it was totally open structurally. I remember in the French Folk Art
show I put some (objects) up in there. I was drawing a little (for you
“radio” listeners) diagram of the original floor plan.
JB:
So that continued to be like that at least through French Folk Art,
which was ’78? At what point was it—well maybe it never was really
closed up.
PHE:
It went back and forth for a long time.
JB:
I hadn’t realized that.
PHE:
And then we put in some permanent display cases on the museum side and
let the museum have a good part of it (and) the shop have a good part of
it. So ultimately it was a hybrid until it was done away with.
JB:
Well, that’s interesting. OK. (Now) I’m just going to mention a few sort
of highlights—these are mostly taken from that timeline that I sent you
of the museum. In September ’76, Mort took over as Board Chair. So what
was it like (working with Mort)—I mean Mort was a different kind of
person—and he was chair for, I think, about 11 years--a long time.
PHE:
(He was) a very creative guy. He was a lawyer by training, clerked for
Felix Frankfurter, who was a Supreme Court Justice.
JB:
Oh.
PHE:
Got into the oil business and at that time, if you think about it right
now—and the whole dialogue about drilling (oil shale) and dependency on
foreign oil and all that—he was dealing with this stuff in the seventies
with The Oil Shale Corporation—that’s what Tosco means—that’s the
acronym. . . And he was involved in theater--
JB:
Oh—TOSCO stood—it was an acronym for The Oil Shale Corporation--
PHE:
The Oil Shale Corporation.
JB:
I didn’t know that.
01:35:00
PHE:
And they were trying to extract oil from shale, (somewhat like fracking
now). He was a high-flyer. I went to his home once for breakfast and the
French actress, Dominique Sanda, was there, and I mean--he hung out with
musicians and, you know, various international creative types. And at
the same time he had a very progressive corporation--and he loaned the
museum often the facilities and attributes of the—of Tosco—so we could
have our board meetings in a proper corporate board room. He loaned his
assistant, Mark Gallon, who was a publicist, basically, and a lobbyist
in many ways—(Mark) went to Stanford Law School. And he was the guy
who did one of our first fundraising dinners.
JB:
Yes, I’ve always thought of him as having been the one that—I’m sure
that you started it, but (he) really got the development (fundraising
area) of the museum going.
PHE:
Yes, he was assigned basically by Mort Winston as part of his corporate
responsibilities to facilitate the growth of the (CAFAM) institution.
JB:
You must have been relieved to have someone like that.
PHE:
I was surprised. I remember when we had that first dinner and
we—remember Darcy Gelber?
JB:
Oh yes. . . . Let me pause it. (Recorder paused)
PHE:
I don’t know if that last little bit actually went through--
JB:
I think you were saying, “Remember Darcy Gelber. . .”
PHE:
Yes, Darcy Gelber, she (organized) a lot of the performances associated
with those first fundraising dinners.
JB:
She coordinated and got the performers (hired)--
PHE:
(And she started) Las Primaveras . . . that was the support group for
the annual dinner, (which was called “La Primavera”). Anyway, Mort added
a lot of gravitas, weight, and substance because he came from a
corporation that was very timely and cutting-edge. . . Its whole
culture, its halls, were filled with art work and quilts and, you know,
all kinds of artifacts that were akin to the museum’s interests.
JB:
I think he gave a collection of quilts at one point.
PHE:
Yes, he did. And anyway, he was a good guy. And he really worked hard on
behalf of the museum, and then when his company started having
difficulties and Matt (Talbot) . . . He replaced Mort and he became the
chair of the museum for a while. Remember Matt Talbot?
JB:
No.
PHE:
Matt . . . he was an accounting type.
JB:
I don’t remember that. Was he on the board?
PHE:
He was on our board and he became our board chairman. And he was the
Chairman of Tosco for a while.
JB:
Oh OK.
PHE:
Or did he become our board chairman? Maybe not. Maybe he was Tosco’s
board chairman. But I know there was awhile in between Mort leaving and
Frank Wyle resuming—I think for a while he was an interim--
JB:
OK.
PHE:
I may be wrong. But he was on our board. If you look through the board
minutes, you’ll see his name. And I think for a while he was the
chair—and then we had some other types and then, you know, Bud Knapp
came in.
JB:
Oh yes.
PHE:
And then—and you know, (Knapp is) from Architectural Digest and Bon
Appetit and Knapp Communications and then, you know, other types like
Fred Waingrow, who was high up in Peterson Publishing. I guess Fred
Waingrow just made a $5,000,000 contribution to LACMA or something?
JB:
Oh, wow.
PHE:
Big. Anyway, lots of people came through the museum’s board because, for
its size--at certain points--it had a credibility and a cachet and a
certain hipness that other museums had—Bill Norris, for example--he was
one of the founders of MOCA. He was on our board and learned a lot from
his board activities. Now he’s on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. But
we have had some pretty interesting people on that board.
JB:
Yes, absolutely. But Mort did seem to really enjoy being the chairman.
PHE:
He loved it, yes. He did, he did. And . . . he was a big fish in a small
pond.
JB:
Sure!
PHE:
But that pond was located in Los Angeles and the fact that the Craft and
Folk Art Museum had a presence on one of the main Los Angeles
thoroughfares (Wilshire Blvd.)--
JB:
Oh yes.
PHE:
--and adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits and the County Art Museum--at the
time . . . the Petersen Automative Museum came in. There was a Museum of
Miniatures for a while, which was a for-profit entity, a German Cultural
Institute—lots of different activities in addition to film—ultimately a
lot of film companies and TV companies moved over just east of the
museum.
01:40:00
JB:
Yes, well, at the beginning, though, LACMA was the kind of overwhelming
presence and there was certainly a love-hate relationship there with
LACMA,
although I don’t think it can really be argued that it didn’t help the
Craft and Folk Art Museum to have that presence.
PHE:
Right.
JB:
I’m sure that you had—and probably took part in--these conversations
about how . . . people would come to The Egg and The Eye (Restaurant)
for lunch on their way to LACMA—or vice versa. And there was a lot of, I
think, resentment (on the part of some CAFAM people) because of
that—that our galleries were not really even—that people were not even
aware sometimes that (CAFAM was a museum).
PHE:
Right. And that’s why publicity—going back to that earlier point—was so
important, you know. That was an uphill battle all the time. It really
was. But it was one that everybody, I think, for the most part enjoyed
waging. You know, this uphill battle.
JB:
Well, there was always a sense, wasn’t there—I know this was true
throughout the staff-- . . . that, you know, we were sort of the David
against Goliath.
PHE:
Yeah, I think so.
JB:
But that we had this worthy--worthy cause.
PHE:
Right. Yeah, there was that. I agree with you.
JB:
Now, I want to talk about two other things. In October of ’76, just
about a year after you had started, was the germ of something that
became very, very big. It was just a parade in that (first) year--
PHE:
The Festival of Masks? Right.
JB:
Can you tell—do you remember how that idea came to be? What—do you have
any idea why the focus on masks?
PHE:
Well, I think at that time people were becoming aware of how very many
cultures existed in Los Angeles. And how many languages. And I think
Mayor Bradley’s office—I think he was the mayor, I don’t think it was
Yorty at that time—but anyway, Bradley’s office said over "x" number of
languages.
JB:
Yeah.
PHE:
And of course, Edith Wyle--with her propensity to exaggerate--tripled
the number and . . . then I think Edith had the idea of celebrating the
cultural diversity through a common medium, and they settled on the
mask, and they started with a parade. And one of the reasons there
was—that it turned into a festival--was that they wanted to have vendors
and performances and Willow Young and Katie Bergin and Sharon
Emanuelli—Shan—you know, Shan and I went to college together—I don’t
know if you knew that.
JB:
Oh I guess I—yeah--I do remember (hearing that).
PHE:
Yeah, so (Shan) did some internship activity with me, and then she came
in and started working there, but the point was that the first deal was
a parade. I remember Roman Janzak and I—he constructed that dragon’s
head on the awning.
JB:
Yes, that wonderful—I had just begun to visit the museum and think about
volunteering and here was this fantastic dragon head that was an
advertisement for the show, “Devils, Demons, and Dragons.”
PHE:
And I remember almost falling down when I was helping him put it up. And
you may not have known this, but the CalArts Gamelan Orchestra came and
they were arrested!
JB:
Yes, tell about that!
PHE:
They were arrested--
JB:
Were you there when that happened?
PHE:
Yeah, I was, and I talked to the police and told the police to back off,
and it was just—it was very sort of happening-like—like in the
sixties--like an Alan Kaprow thing, you know--
JB:
Yeah, it would be wonderful if there was video of that. I think maybe
there might be a photograph somewhere of . . . them sitting on the
sidewalk.
PHE:
I have a picture of me in front of that Gamelan (Orchestra), that Edith
gave me, haggling with the police.
JB:
Oh, I would love to see that.
PHE:
I’ll show you. I have some pictures.
JB:
Well, what—was there a problem?
PHE:
They didn’t have a permit.
JB:
. . . . That’s what I was wondering.
01:45:00
PHE:
You know, the parade
had a permit.
JB:
Oh, the parade did have a permit.
PHE:
Yes. We closed Wilshire Boulevard. . . . And then it grew, and one of
the reasons it went to a two-day Festival was that the vendors, once
they set up, they didn’t want to have to--it was uneconomical for them
to not have two days to sell.
JB:
--to do it for just one day, yeah.
PHE:
So that’s when that started. And it spawned symposia on masks, you know,
and ultimately the Olympic Arts Festival and other things.
JB:
I mean, in a way, what happened with the Festival of Masks, which
eventually became the International Festival of Masks, is kind of a
metaphor for what happened with virtually everything at the museum.
PHE:
Right.
JB:
It was like a demon seed that was planted and then sprouted.
PHE:
Well, like the PET Project. I remember the PET Project.
JB:
Yes—which went on for four years . . . .
PHE:
Protect our Ethnic Traditions.
JB:
Yeah--to begin with, it was just the Community--Community Documentation
Project--and then somebody had the idea of calling it the PET
Project—Preserving Ethnic Traditions. But it went on for as long as
there was funding for it—(four years from 1978 – 1982). Which was of
course the way a lot of things were. (All of the PET Project
documentation (slides and reports) is included with the CAFAM
Institutional Records (the CAFAM Archives) in the UCLA Research
Library's Special Collections.) But the Festival was very successful at
getting grants I guess, at least in-kind grants, from the County and the
City.
PHE:
Right, exactly.
JB:
And I think maybe from the NEA too. Well, talk a little bit about the
Festival, about what it really was like, and anything in particular that
you remember.
PHE:
Well, I guess—and this is looking backwards obviously--
JB:
Sure.
PHE:
I think that the message of the museum—the goal as I came to know
it--was that there was--first with regard to cross-cultural awareness,
you developed knowledge of the existence of something and the
similarities between the cultures—in this case the mask—different mask
forms, different mask traditions, but still the mask was there. And so
you started out with awareness. Then you developed mutual understanding,
and ultimately, the goal would be to establish mutual respect between
the various cultures, thereby causing animosities or polarizations to--
JB:
--dissipate--
PHE:
--dissipate. And so I think--
JB:
And that was by showing—through performance and through interchanges--
PHE:
--exhibitions—essays—catalogs, whatever. That was to show these
realities—the . . . commonalities and thereby, it was a bridge. And I
think that was also implicit in a lot of the folk art--and maybe less so
in craft and design--but still it was implicit in a lot of the folk art
activity. You know, developing mutual respect through mutual
understanding back to awareness and introducing the concept, and I think
that that was probably the most compelling thing about the Mask Festival
and, you know, it was celebratory. There was music, there was noise and
hoopla, and lots of great performances--
JB:
Yes, and it was free—at least admission was free.
PHE:
Right.
01:50:00
JB:
So it was a great family thing. Maybe it would be appropriate (now) to
just fast forward a little bit. I didn’t want to go much beyond 1984
(today), because that’s when you—(when) Edith—retired and you took over
as director, but
in 1984, that was the (year of the Summer Olympics in L.A. and the)
Olympic Arts Festival, (which was run by Bob Fitzpatrick) and he was on
our board, and I don’t know whose suggestion it was, whether it was
Bob’s or Edith’s or mutual, but they had the idea of the Festival (of
Masks) being an Olympic Arts event, and that (made it) a much larger
(arena) than it had been before. It was in a different venue—the new Pan
Pacific Park.
PHE:
It rained, I remember, during the parade. Can you believe that?
JB:
Oh! I had forgotten that.
PHE:
In the middle of summer it rained.
JB:
It was on the first—or no, it must have been--
PHE:
--tail end of July—beginning of August. (The 1984 International Festival
of Masks ran from July 20 – 22.)
JB:
Yeah, so it was at a different time. It had always (before) been near
Halloween, the end of October. Can you just talk about how that (the
1984 Festival) was different? There were some financial issues too.
PHE:
Yeah, I mean, one of the big problems with that whole thing was Peter
Ueberroth and Harry Usher and the Arts Festival and everything.
JB:
Peter Ueuberroth was the overall Olympic chairman.
PHE:
They ended up with something like a $200,000,000 surplus and a lot of
the—maybe it was $20,000,000--but it was a huge number. And a lot of the
participants in the Olympic Arts Festival—the Craft and Folk Art Museum
included--lost money and were not made whole, despite the fact that they
did their best to make this an international celebration. And that was a
cause of friction. That was a cause of friction. And the whole (Mask
Festival) was uprooted in a way, not only physically, but in terms of
(its) timing . . . . A lot of people who would normally have
participated in the fall had to . . . jump through all kinds of hoops or
contortions to get there.
JB:
Well, we decided not to hold the 1983 festival in October. There was one
in ’82 in October and then at some point in ’83 the decision was made to
do the Olympic Festival in July so the decision was made not to hold it
in ’83 and that was somewhat unsettling probably for (all the
participants).
PHE:
Yes, it was. It was. And it was just—I don’t know if it had the
impact—certainly I think the exhibition did—I think the exhibition was
really well done. But I think the Festival itself maybe didn’t live up
to everybody’s expectations. At least I don’t—I don’t even remember it
that much.
JB:
Well, I volunteered—I think most of the (CAFAM) staff did work the
Festival, and it was very exciting. The torch came through on the first
day, I think, and that was fun.
PHE:
I remember the torch and I remember the blanket toss of the Indians. You
know the people from Alaska came down and they did the Eskimo blanket
toss.
JB:
Oh yes.
PHE:
There were good things about it. I remember some of it and I remember it
was down in that depression--
JB:
That sort of hollow--
PHE:
That 100-year flood hollow (flood control water cachement). But I think
my recollection of it was overshadowed by the inequities of the
finances.
JB:
At the end.
PHE:
Yeah.
JB:
. . . .Another big difference was that the decision was made to charge
admission, which would not have been so much a problem, but they had to
put a fence up to keep people out, and the cost of the fence was
prohibitive.
PHE:
Yeah, I mean all of these different things conspired to make it more
difficult.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
So I don’t have fond memories of that, I must say--
01:55:00
JB:
Well, I can certainly understand that, absolutely, and like we were
saying—it was so different--not in terms of the program, but in terms of
the venue and the time of year--that it was a little unsettling. As a
consequence, we (also) didn’t have a festival in ’85 either or ’87. It
was essentially made into a biennial rather than an annual for a few
years. So that was too bad . . . . (Nevertheless), I think everyone
loved the Festival. One of the worries that I had,
even about . . . (all the others) that were right across the street
(from the Museum), was identifying the Festival with the Craft and Folk
Art Museum.
PHE:
Right. It actually took on its own personality. I remember we used to
harp on that a lot, but . . . probably a lot of people never did end up
associating it with the museum and that’s one of the issues in terms of
publicity that the museum (had) across the board. I mean, a lot of its
programs we did in different venues.
JB:
Yes!
PHE:
Like the Egypt Today and Scandinavia Today and Japan Today and the
Korean American—we were good at organizing and coordinating city-wide
events, but we didn’t get the recognition for those (that we should
have) and had we, we would have probably been better off. Interestingly,
you look at Susan Skinner and the New Stone Age or you look at Aaron
Paley and Katy Bergin and their organizations—CARS (Community Arts
Resources)—those are all basically just riffs on what those people did
at the museum and then they took them on to the private sector.
JB:
Yes, yes. Well, I think CAFAM was a real breeding ground for ideas and
for talent.
PHE:
. . . . Right. I agree.
JB:
And that’s . . . flattering to CAFAM, but it’s also—it is too bad that
CAFAM didn’t always benefit (from all the talented people it nurtured
and their hard work).
PHE:
But I mean, if you think of—and I’m not making this comparison—but if
you think of some other seminal institutions--like in the Los Angeles
art scene—the Ferus Gallery (1957 – 1966) had a lot of early L.A. people
. . . like Billy Al Bengston and Peter Alexander and Andy Warhol, Ed
Rusha--lots of people showed there and then it went out of business, but
it’s legacy lives on--
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
I think that the Craft and Folk Art Museum, in its former state--and I
don’t know what the . . . current state is, but the earlier iteration of
it, I think, is similar (to the Ferus Gallery) as a seminal institution.
JB:
Yes it is, and I think that there are still plenty of people around—less
and less every year I guess--but still many who do remember and respect
the former CAFAM.
PHE:
Right.
JB:
When I first (went) to the Oral History Program at UCLA and talked to
(its head), Teresa Barnett, and mentioned that I was—at that point I
only wanted to get her advice—and I said that I was going to do a Craft
and Folk Art Museum . . . oral history, she said, “Well, I certainly
hope you’re going to donate it to UCLA.” I didn’t have to tell her—she
is, I think, certainly younger than me and I think younger than you too,
but she had a very vivid memory of the Craft and Folk Art Museum and its
place (in history).
PHE:
That’s good.
JB:
Yes, that made me feel really—
PHE:
No, that’s good--
JB:
--wonderful, and consequently they (UCLA's Center for Oral History
Research) offered their support in terms of equipment and so on—so yes,
that . . . was a rare time I think. I think we were both lucky to be
involved.
PHE:
Well, yeah, I agree, I agree. And it was one where a lot was attempted
and a lot was accomplished and, you know, certain things weren’t
(accomplished), but it wasn’t for lack of trying. . . .
JB:
One more thing I want to talk about—at the end of ’76--the Wyles had
owned the 5814 building—the original building—and they did donate it to
the museum at that time. Was the mortgage paid off at that point?
PHE:
I believe so.
JB:
I think so too—I wasn’t certain. So that was a pretty big deal.
PHE:
It was a big deal. And there may—there may have been reasons that that
happened in that year—tax reasons, whatever.
JB:
Nevertheless--
PHE:
And we can talk more about that at a later time.
JB:
Oh, absolutely. Well, it seems to me that we have talked enough for this
first session--
PHE:
OK.
JB:
And I’m sure that we’re going to have a couple of more and thank you so
much for taking the time.
PHE:
No—it’s a pleasure, a pleasure. (End of Session 1-- )
JB:
Today is Friday, October 17th, and I’m with Patrick Ela in his office in
Los Angeles. At our last session, we talked about the early days of
CAFAM--but before we continue, I want to make a correction. When I
introduced Patrick last Monday, I said he had worked at CAFAM for 21
years, but, in fact, after nine years as Administrative Director and 12
years as Executive Director, he came back to CAFAM in late 1998 as Board
Chairman under an arrangement with the L.A. Department of Cultural
Affairs, which had agreed to a merger proposal instigated by Patrick. He
(then) served as Board Chair for four years until the end of 2002,
and--from April 2001, when then-director Joan de Bruin (resigned due to
illness), through the end of 2002, while he was still CAFAM Board
Chairman--he also served as . . . Director until a new director was
hired. So, he actually was with CAFAM for at least 25 years. We’re going
to talk about those last few years at our next session. During his
tenure, (Patrick) was involved in virtually every aspect of a museum
whose size belied its complexity and level of activity. Today, I’d like
to take on some larger topics, and not worry too much about the
chronology, though I would like to stop today, approximately, at the end
of 1992, when we moved out of the May Company (Department Store). And my
name is Joan Benedetti. So, Patrick, it’s been difficult to decide how
to frame these questions, because you were involved in just about
everything. So, I decided that, today, as I said, we won’t worry that
much about chronology, and we’ll just tackle some of the larger topics.
PHE:
OK. Sounds good.
JB:
I thought we’d start by just talking about the many support groups that
the museum had. As you know--I’m sure you can comment on this--the
support groups are a blessing and a challenge. (Laughs) And as
administrator, you had to at least be aware of what was going on and, to
some extent, make sure that they weren’t bumping into each other and
overlapping. The volunteers, of course, were there pretty much to begin
with when you arrived. I thought I’d just mention a few names of people
that were involved. Eventually, the volunteer group became an actual
council, a Volunteer Service Council. Gail Goldberg, I guess (was the
first Volunteer Coordinator). Did you hire her?
PHE:
Yes, I did.
JB:
And so she was a paid, at least part-time, staffer at first?
PHE:
Right. Mm-hmm. We had the Volunteers, we had the Contemporary Crafts
Council, we had the Folk Art Council, we had the Museum Associates, we
had various groups affiliated with the Festival of Masks over the time
that it ran, and one of the things that I tried to do to--you know, when
you’re a volunteer, you get psychic satisfaction, or spiritual
satisfactions, or the sense that you’ve done good deeds and good works,
and that is typically what drives people. However, . . . it’s also a
passion and a love for the art form, or the hospital, or whatever
nonprofit one is affiliated with--church, whatever. But also in
addition, there’s a need for formal recognition.
JB:
Yeah.
00:05:00
PHE:
And for a sense of worth, and a sense of gravitas, of weight. So one of
the things I always tried to do was to integrate the volunteers
into the fabric of the museum. And to that end, the Folk Art Council
chairperson was made an ex officio member of the board of directors.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
Same with the Volunteers (Council), same (with) the Craft Council. And
so, by doing that, they all felt that they had--and they have
literally--a seat at the table, and their needs, wishes,
accomplishments, whatever, could be made known to the larger board. So
that’s how I tried to bring them into the fold and to make sure that
their work would be optimized, and they would feel good about (it).
JB:
Oh, yes. And that was really appreciated, I know. I just was
thinking--when you were talking about gravitas--and that was
important--but we also had a lot of fun.
PHE:
Oh, yeah!
JB:
At times, I thought, any excuse for a party! And I’m realizing, talking
about these groups, that a lot of the time it was parties (that they
were involved with), of one kind or another.
PHE:
Well, it could’ve been an opening, it could’ve been a reception at
someone’s home, it could’ve been a trip. I was just thinking about your
library and your archive, and you had, you know--like remember
Judith--you had a lot of different volunteers who were--
JB:
Judy Clark?
PHE:
Judy Clark--wholeheartedly dedicated to you.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
And that made your work easier. And they just toiled in the fields of
the library, you know?
JB:
Well, I’m glad you mentioned Judy. She just passed away --
PHE:
No, I heard that. Right.
JB:
--last Thanksgiving. Oh, that’s right, we did talk about that.
PHE:
Right, right.
JB:
She was 96 years old.
PHE:
Wow.
JB:
But every one of the departments of the museum had volunteers to one
extent or another, and I think they all, you know, gravitated to
whatever they loved best.
PHE:
And attended whatever party was being thrown.
JB:
Exactly! (Laughter) Yes, some of us more than others.
PHE:
Well, I think the fact that for many years of the museum’s existence,
there was a restaurant right in the middle of it, with a full service
bar --
JB:
Yes! (Laughs)
PHE:
--before it turned into just wine and beer only.
JB:
And cappuccino.
PHE:
Yeah, and cappuccino. So . . . just even on your way out the door you
were in a celebratory environment, where a lot of people came to just
hang out, you know. That was early on, anyway. Later, as the place
evolved physically, that changed a bit.
JB:
Yes. Before the restaurant closed, I used to think that that place right
there at the railing overlooking the gallery was the best place to be.
It was really in the middle of things--
PHE:
Yeah, exactly.
JB:
--and kind of was a metaphor for everything that went down.
PHE:
For food looking down on art? (Laughter)
JB:
Well, you know, we just said we wanted to feed all the senses.
PHE:
Right.
JB:
So, let’s see--is there anything else we want to say about the
volunteers other than...
PHE:
Well, . . . you mentioned . . . that I hired Gail Goldberg because I
wanted the volunteers not only to be organized and made accountable, but
I also wanted them to know that they were important to the museum, so
much so, that we would pay someone to help them with all of their
various issues.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
And so, I think those organizational commitments to board positions and
to staff support served to make them work better and optimally.
JB:
Oh, absolutely. I think there were a few years when the museum couldn’t
afford to pay that individual, at least for a while.
PHE:
Mm-hmm.
JB:
But, yeah. Having the liaison, or the position on the board--
PHE:
Right.
00:10:00
JB:
--certainly added to its importance, or its gravitas. The two councils
that represented, at least at the beginning, the major interests of the
museum, Contemporary Craft and Folk Art,
were very important. There (are) several aspects . . . that I wanted to
. . . (talk) about. First, I’d just like to mention that the . . .
Contemporary Craft Council was organized by a group of people, Bernard
Kester was one, Suzy Ticho, Dora Delarios, and then Shan Emanuelli (were
the others)--this was, by the way, in 1979, that both the councils were
organized. And Shan was on staff by that time. In 1989--which of course
was after you had become Executive Director (because) Edith had
retired--they did change the name to the Contemporary Craft and Design
Council. In 1980, all these groups seemed to have some sort of major
event. I guess quite a few of them were fundraisers for the museum, and
the Contemporary Craft Council had the Contemporary Craft Auction. I was
trying to remember, I guess I should call Shan and ask her--the
Contemporary Craft Auction was first held in 1980, but I don’t think she
was married to Mike Kaiser yet at that time.
PHE:
I’m not sure.
JB:
I know that eventually he served as the auctioneer for the Contemporary
Craft Auction.
PHE:
Right, right. He did several auctions, not only for the museum, but for
other places.
JB:
Oh! I didn’t realize that.
PHE:
Yes, and then I got into it as well for different organizations . . . .
So, often, it was either Mike or me as the auctioneer.
JB:
Well, I can understand that. Now, the Folk Art Council, organized also
in 1979, organized I guess by Jane Ullman, Tomi Kuwayama (who is still
involved), and Joyce Hundal, with Willow Young being the staff liaison.
A few years after that, in 1983, they had the idea of organizing a folk
art market.
PHE:
Right.
JB:
Which turned into a very big deal. I guess--I don’t have the figures,
but my assumption is that they were able to contribute a lot of money.
PHE:
Right, and they’re still doing it.
JB:
Well, they were. I understand from Tomi that last year was the last.
PHE:
Really? I didn’t know that.
JB:
Well, I just heard this from her. They had 25 folk art markets, every
year. Even including the years that the museum was closed, they had
their folk art market.
PHE:
Yeah. They were great.
JB:
They’re going to continue as a council, but they’re not going to do
their market, and I was very sad to hear that. Now, the Associates--why
don’t you tell about what the Associates did. They got started in 1980.
PHE:
Well, they were principally focused on--all of the groups, the Craft
Council, later to become the Craft and Design Council, the Folk Art
Council, the Associates--they all wanted more of what the museum was
doing, but was not financially, organizationally, able to provide. And
so, in a way, they were all augmentations, and they grew out sort of
concentrically from the museum’s core missions. And the Associates would
basically go on trips, principally domestic trips.
JB:
Generally, on weekends, I think.
PHE:
Like four-day trips. Once in a while, they would go on international
trips, but they would go to, like institutions, or like collectors, or
like organizations—or museums and so on--in different cities.
JB:
And you went on some of those.
00:15:00
PHE:
Some of them I went on, yes. There was an assistant to our
then-chairperson, Mort Winston, called Mark Gallon, and Mark Gallon
really liked the idea of . . . the Associates. And so they paid $500 a
year over and above
their museum membership to be an Associate Member, or maybe it was the
museum membership, that was with museum membership at that level. And by
so doing, earned the right to pay additional money--
JB:
Yes! (Laughs)
PHE:
--to go on trips. But the trips were pretty gourmet, high-end, you know,
good food, good wine, . . . and in the travel--in the institutional
travel world, which I know a little bit about--having a strong
affiliation with an institution like a craft museum or a contemporary
art museum in one city, unlocks the doors to that similar institution in
another city. And so you get to go to collectors’ homes, you get to go
behind the scenes, go through the vaults of museums, the collection’s
storage areas, and meet with craftspeople, or designers, or folk artists
in their studios, or ateliers, or whatever. And so that sort of
institutional imprimatur, or “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval,” opens
doors that a non-affiliated group might have more difficulty opening.
JB:
Sure. And all of these things were--in I suppose both general and
specific ways--good promotion for the museum.
PHE:
They were. And then the other corollary is that programmatically, the
museum was--particularly with folk art, but also with design and
craft--it was international in its scope. And so, that gave rise to
international travel programs that were either for the Associates or the
broader membership. But we also served--as you probably remember--on a
number of occasions as the coordinators for a variety of international
symposia.
JB:
Yeah.
PHE:
Japan Today, Egypt Today, Scandinavia Today...
JB:
“Today” shows.
PHE:
Yes, the Korean-American Centennial Celebration. As we talked in our
last interview, the Olympics (Arts Festival in 1984) made the Mask
Festival international, and so there were a lot of international
activities (associated) with that. I mean from the Craft and Folk Art
Museum to the related institutions in different countries: related . . .
folk artists or craftspeople.
JB:
Yes. I think you were--well, you were involved in all of them--but I
think Edith was the principal person, or the chair, at least, for the
Japan Today.
PHE:
She was the chair . . . for Japan Today, and then I did Egypt Today, and
. . . we were co-chairs of Scandinavia Today.
JB:
Yes, that’s my understanding, too. I wanted to ask you particularly
about Egypt Today, because in connection with that, you went to Egypt at
least once, and maybe...
PHE:
A couple times. I led a museum tour there once, as well. And it’s pretty
interesting. I probably wouldn’t recommend going there right now with a
group, but at that time it was relatively safe.
JB:
In 1981--and interesting because we had the visit from Mrs. Anwar
Sadat--
PHE:
Jehan Sadat, right!
JB:
--just before her husband was assassinated.
PHE:
Right, exactly. Yeah, (the vist) was pretty . . . (interesting to be in
Egypt then). And I remember when I was going there to coordinate the
(program)--see, I was a part of a national team. There were two
ambassadors, (Joseph) John Jova and (L.) Dean Brown--they had been
ambassadors to various countries in the Middle East and South America,
and then Janet Solinger, who was the head of the Smithsonian Institution
Museum (Resident) Associates . . . (program). So, the four of us would
meet with all these people--cabinet-level ministers, you know,
ambassadors --
JB:
Wow.
PHE:
--whomever--to plan all of these exhibitions and visits and so,
subsequent to that . . . when I went back to Egypt to lead a tour for
the museum . . . it was (helpful) . . . to have that type of entrée.
JB:
Oh, yes.
00:20:00
PHE:
I remember one time we were drinking scotch in the American Embassy
(with our) . . . ambassador to Egypt, (a former) ambassador to the
Organization of American States
, and (a former) ambassador to Jordan, (right in the heart of Cairo).
And we were talking about politics, and it was fun! It was sort of a
heady experience, you know.
JB:
Well, it seems to me that there were many occasions when CAFAM (made an
impact), relative to its size--of course, it did grow!
PHE:
It grew, right.
JB:
Over the years--but still, relative to LACMA (the L.A. County Museum of
Art)--it was relatively small, and yet it did attract major figures
(from) both political (spheres) and, you know, the movie industry of
course, but also (many other) people . . . who were quite well known.
PHE:
Right, well, I think the museum--it was not as much focused on
collecting, due to its size and budget constraints as some place like
LACMA. But I think it was more attentive to, programmatically and
institutionally . . . the idea of a museum as a tool or an agent of
improving life in Los Angeles and beyond. And I think one of the great
things that we tried to do was to promote cross-cultural awareness,
understanding, and hopefully eventually a mutual respect among people.
The different exhibitions, the Mask Festival, the international
symposia, the collecting activities that existed, those were all sort of
geared toward . . . a yet more transcendent potential that the
institution has--and all institutions have, but a lot of people just get
stuck on themselves and they don’t go outside the box. And I think one
of the good things about the Craft and Folk Art Museum was it did go
outside of the box, at that time, anyway.
JB:
Well, it did. Because its focus--in a very natural way--because its
focus was, as you said last time, for the most part the functional, or
dealing with materials that, in the traditional context, are very every
day.
PHE:
Right.
JB:
So even within the so-called contemporary craft world, the issue of the
material would come up, and its relationship to today. To whatever was
going on today. I just wanted to mention--as we talk, so many memories
come up, and this is going back a while--but the very first Primavera
ball, which I believe was in 1977, each of those balls, as a fundraiser,
had an honoree, and the honorée in that year was . . . Joan Mondale,
(wife of Vice-President Walter Mondale).
PHE:
Oh, right. I remember that.
JB:
I don’t know how many people even remember who she is at this point, but
at the time, President Carter was in office, and Fritz Mondale, (who had
been a Senator from Minnesota for 12 years), was the Vice President, and
Joan Mondale (was known as “Joan of Art”) because of her great interest
in art, and particularly in crafts. She was a ceramicist, I believe. So
she had a major interest in it. I’m not sure how the connection (with
her) was made initially, but she became our honorée that first year, and
not only came to the ball, but visited the museum.
PHE:
Well, I think there were two ways that connection was made. One is that
at that time, a great friend of the museum and one of its early
supporters (was) Elena Canavier--
JB:
Oh yes!
PHE:
--she was a native of Los Angeles, a resident of Los Angeles, anyway.
She was the . . . (Coordinator) of the National Endowment for the Arts
Craft Program (1974 – 1978) before somebody like Eudora Moore (Moore was
Craft Coordinator 1978 – 1981) , for example.
JB:
Yeah.
PHE:
She had regular entrée to Joan Mondale, and, you know, they commissioned
these--
JB:
Yes!
PHE:
--stemware glasses and plates and flatware.
JB:
"(American) Crafts in the White House" (was the name of the exhibition
those commissioned pieces were in; opened August 16, 1977).
00:25:00
PHE:
"Crafts in the White House," right. . . .And they commissioned all these
artists to have American craft works used in various dinners at the
White House
and eventually, we as an institution acquired one of those (place
settings). But the other entrée was (through) a former trustee, Ed
Sanders, who was . . . (Senior Advisor on the Middle East to President
Carter, 1978 – 1980) . . . .
JB:
Oh!
PHE:
And Ed Sanders was a very old friend of the Wyles (as well as) their
lawyer. And I remember going to the White House with Frank and Edith
Wyle, at his invitation, and meeting Rosalynn Carter and going inside
the Oval Office and having lunch--
JB:
Wow!
PHE:
--at the White House Mess, and all that stuff. (President) Jimmy Carter
wasn’t there at the time, but Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter--just to
continue--they were also interested in the crafts (and) they were very
good friends with Sam (and Alfreda) Maloof.
JB:
Ah. (Overlapping dialogue; inaudible)
PHE:
And they have several pieces of his furniture that they’ve bought, both
subsequent to the White House, and I guess during their time there.
Reagan has one of his rockers, Al Gore has one of his rockers, I think
Bill Clinton does--
JB:
I think so, too.
PHE:
So, you know, (Maloof’s) had quite a run. So, we had Elena Canavier, Ed
Sanders, Sam Maloof, and others. . . (Recorder paused.)
JB:
OK, we took a short break. There was so much going on (in the early days
of CAFAM). I guess I’d (like next) to try to get a sense of the kinds of
things that you had to deal with--every day, it seemed. There were many
decisions to be made. Many things--I think we mentioned this last
time--many projects that started out very small, (and then) grew, to
some extent in unexpected ways. And I can’t resist mentioning the
library as one of them.
PHE:
You shouldn’t resist. You were the prime mover.
JB:
(laughs) Well, that’s what brought me to CAFAM. And there was already a
library there. The Egg and the Eye Cultural Association, I guess, had a
small library. There was even another librarian there before me, I
wasn’t the first one! (Laughs)
PHE:
Really? Who was that?
JB:
Her name was Karen--oh, her last name has escaped me just now. (Cahoon).
But Judy Clark was there, too.
PHE:
Wow, way back then.
00:30:00
JB:
Yes, Judy actually started as a volunteer about the same time that you
came (in 1975), and I didn’t come along until a year later. I don’t know
exactly whose idea it was to go after grants for the library, I think it
was partly my idea because I could see the potential. I didn’t see that
there was any other sort of information clearing house for folk art and
contemporary craft on the West Coast. There were a few other
organizations, but I could see that even if we weren’t a research
library to begin with, because of our size, that we could serve the
purpose of having information files. Of course, this was way before
computers. But at any rate, Ruth Bowman was one of the people who
encouraged me, and Mark Gallon. And after a couple of years, we came to
the conclusion that we could write a feasibility study, and so I went
off--actually, we got a grant to pay me to do the feasibility study over
one summer, and then the feasibility study resulted in a grant from the
(James) Irvine Foundation, the first of several grants from the Irvine
Foundation. I really just wanted to (mention it) because it’s I think
typical of a number (CAFAM) projects: as long as we had funding for
them, they tended to continue and to grow. I did
do some figuring, and over 18 years that the library was funded, we got
almost $330,000 (in grants), which averages out to almost how much it
cost to pay me, so (laughs)--
PHE:
Right, well--
JB:
--so I felt like, at least my salary was paid--
PHE:
That’s wonderful.
JB:
--over those (21) years, (1976 – 1997).
PHE:
Well, the library, and the exhibitions, and the various activities--the
publications we made, the catalogs, our newsletters, newspapers,
members’ bulletins, all these different things-- when you’re the
director or the head administrator, the decisions that you make are in
the context of the overall mission of the museum, how the various
programs--in the appropriate mixture--realize that mission, and then,
within those, (there is) further prioritization of what the best aspects
of each program area are . . . , you know, to underwrite, to pay for,
and not, hopefully, to have the tail wag the dog.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
So, ultimately, the director, who’s hired by the board--the board makes
the policy, the director and staff implement the policy through various
programs--it’s ultimately about decision-making and trying to--it’s like
a recipe in a way--like cooking something. You have to have the right
mix, and if you have the right mix, it will come out well, and people
will like it, and it’ll be saleable, and that means you’ll get support,
or they’ll keep coming back to your restaurant, whatever. You know, and
if you have a bad mix--
JB:
That’s a very appropriate metaphor.
00:35:00
PHE:
--if you have a bad mix, then it doesn’t work. Or things get out of
whack. It’s really about that--I made the reference earlier to the
institution being a vehicle or a tool for social change, cultural
change, whatever. And so you’ve got to think of it as something that you
can sort of steer, and the way you steer it is by constantly
fine-tuning. It comes down to who to hire, sometimes who to fire, what
projects to do this year, what projects to do next year, what projects
to do a planning study for--before you go whole hog to get a fully
implemented program--and which programs to let go when it’s time to let
them go, and to try and do it in a positive way, you know? One of the
things that I was thinking about earlier when you were talking about the
various councils, is that the whole arena of crafts, or design, or
craft-as-art, has had a lot of identity issues. What is it really? Is it
art, is it craft? That whole thing. The design functionality--I remember
developing sort of a context (about) where . . . (types of folk art or
crafts were) . . . in a fundamental way . . . in stages of industrial
development. A lot of folk art and folk objects were, in effect,
pre-industrial; and some crafts are pre-industrial, or early industrial;
. . . design was industrial, (was a product of) . . . industrial
societies—(in) much of Europe, Japan. And then . . . we get into a
post-industrial world, where most of us are involved in providing
services or processing information--which the Computer Age was--and we
continue to be
--rushing headlong toward. We’re (now) in a very post-industrial
society, all of our things we use, our cups and glasses and so on, are
made probably somewhere else by machines or craftspeople, but the
craftspeople are somewhat irrelevant to that process unless you’re
nostalgic or unless you gravitate toward art. And so a lot of (crafts)
people (in industrial societies) felt put out to pasture or something,
or they felt like they needed to go in a different direction, whereas a
lot of the folk art things just continue along in traditional--made by
traditional people in traditional societies. And I think it’s
interesting that the Folk Art Council is still going strong--
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
--and the Craft Council--or the Craft and Design Council, long since,
you know, went by the boards. It went belly-up.
JB:
It did not last as long, no.
PHE:
And I think part of that has to do with the whole ferment, lack of
identity, confused identity, that (contemporary) crafts have. This is
just not in LA or in the Craft and Folk Art Museum. There used to be an
American Crafts Council, which has gone through all kinds of
convulsions.
JB:
Well, they (the ACC) still exists.
PHE:
Well, it still--but it’s diminished. And the World Craft Council doesn’t
exist anymore.
JB:
No.
PHE:
I mean, there was a time in post-war studio crafts . . . . and world
crafts where there was all--it was very exciting and there was a bunch
of activity.
JB:
They were sort of rediscovering all of it.
PHE:
The great masters of craft--Marguerite Wildenhain, Bob Stocksdale, Sam
Maloof--a lot of them are no longer alive, and a lot of them don’t have
very many heirs. There are certainly some heirs--you know, you have Dale
Chihuly, but Chihuly’s much more thought of as an artist than a
craftsperson. Anyway, it’s all sort of interesting, and I do think that
still, there’s a validity to . . . certain forms other than (just being)
collectible, or nostalgic, or decorative, whatever.
JB:
(overlapping dialogue; inaudible)
PHE:
There’s a relevance based on where in the continuum of industrial
development a person finds himself or herself.
JB:
Let me just make a little bridge here from one topic to the next. I just
want to mention that . . . the library initiative that was part of the
effort to build a new museum, and to go in a more enhanced direction for
the museum, was what we finally called the Center for the Study of Art
and Culture. And the bridge that I’m going to make is that the issues
that you’ve just been discussing were a large part of what CSAC was
supposed to be about, and we hoped that it would be a fellowship
program, (though) we never had the funding for the fellowships. But it
certainly was intended, and I think served for a while, at least, as a
think tank, and--and as a place of ideas.
PHE:
Yes, it did. I agree with you.
00:40:00
JB:
And you attended, I think, almost all of those (CSAC) National Advisory
(Board) meetings that we had when we were in the May Company. I just
want to mention (that) in terms of folk art, versus (contemporary
craft)--and I think you agree--to a large extent, it was almost a
competition in some ways within the museum. (People used to question)
Were we having a balance between folk art and contemporary craft
exhibitions? I think this still comes up occasionally. . . . And there
really was--I can say from the staff point of view--there really was a
concerted effort to . . . (achieve) that balance. . . . I always found
it interesting . . . that the people who tended toward the Contemporary
Craft Council, who tended to have homes filled with modern or
contemporary art and craft--also were
interested in folk art, to a large extent.
PHE:
Many, but not all.
JB:
No, not all. But, in comparison, to those--these are generalizations, of
course, but--the folk art people that I have talked to, often were not
really at all interested in contemporary art or craft. So in a funny
way, I think that the contemporary art world was more embracing of all
that the Craft and Folk Art Museum was doing--still, it didn’t keep the
Contemporary Craft Council from having a dwindling membership. The Folk
Art Council still exists. I’m just wondering if you have any comments
about that. Have you noticed those things?
PHE:
Yes, I have noticed those things. I agree with you. And I think that, in
general . . . that the traditional crafts and folk arts are experienced
more on a visceral level, . . . maybe an emotional level, . . . (or)
nostalgic level, and I think a lot of (contemporary) crafts and art,
certainly those things exist in different parts of the art world, but I
think in general they’re more cerebral, and they’re more--
JB:
Cool.
PHE:
--yeah, cool--more subject to (insight, perception, media) style and
fashion. One of the things about folk art, and it’s not--while there are
innovations—(as quick moving), and I remember having big arguments with
different curators about innovations and traditions.
JB:
I bet some of those with were Laurie Beth Kalb.
PHE:
And I remember thinking that a lot of people in the folk art world,
(e.g.), Bess Hawes at the National Endowment (for the Arts Folk and
Traditional Arts program), folklorists at UCLA--I thought that they were
extremely doctrinaire.
JB:
Mm-hmm.
PHE:
And that they were very, very, . . . pinned down by their own
definitions, and they had to make it all logical, and all--I mean, there
was intellectual rigor associated with folklorists and folk art
specialists, but when you get down to it, in general, the folk arts are
more traditional, and crafts are more contemporary, and the more
emotional, visceral things in my opinion are associated with folk arts,
and more intellectual style things are associated with contemporary
crafts. And, you know, some people are interested in both, and some
people are interested in neither. And I don’t think, even in
contemporary art, I don’t think a lot of contemporary art people respond
to crafts or folk arts. But if--you know--if Bruce Nauman, or, I don’t
know, Damien Hirst, or somebody uses traditional media--
JB:
Mm-hmm.
PHE:
--then, they (appropriate) it as art. There’s a lot of hype and BS in
the whole art world anyway, whatever you are in it. And there are a lot
of lemmings, and there are a lot of people who purport to know what
they’re talking about, but really don’t.
JB:
Certainly.
PHE:
Don’t get me started. (Laughter)
JB:
Well, I won’t then! (But) if we can talk about some of it--because it
underlies a lot of what the Craft and Folk Art Museum did --
PHE:
Well, did it?
JB:
I think that a lot of the excitement, underneath the superficiality of
the parties and sort of glamour of some of the people that we dealt
with--underneath, there was a controversial aspect to what we were
doing, which lent a great excitement --
PHE:
Right.
JB:
--to what we were doing.
00:45:00
PHE:
I agree. At the Craft and Folk Art Museum, and in
corporate venues, and other non-profit and for-profit galleries I have
been affiliated with, probably, 400 - 500 exhibitions over the last many
years--I’ve personally organized (or "curated") a couple hundred and
I’ve been affiliated with other ones. I work with a large number of
people who are very sophisticated or very unsophisticated, and I’m
constantly amazed at the misperceptions and lack of perception--and
insights on the other end of it--that people have. And you find very
knowledgeable people in very unlikely places, and people you thought
would be very knowledgeable, and who aren’t, in very prominent places.
It’s always an interesting mix.
JB:
Yes, and I’ve found--because I have done a lot of thinking about this,
as have you--that the topic of folk art, in particular--although this
applies to contemporary craft also, but--I think for people who have not
had to think about it, I think that the assumption is that it’s simple,
that it’s--and I think to a large extent it’s true, the entry (to the
subject) is easy, it’s easy to relate to these objects.
PHE:
Right. Mm-hmm.
JB:
But if you have to think about what these objects mean to us today, and
why we’re having exhibitions about them, and especially at the Craft and
Folk Art Museum, why were we doing both--displaying and collecting both
contemporary craft and folk art--what was the relationship of those two
things? My point is that that topic, or topics, is much deeper and much
more complicated than I think most people who have not thought about
them ahead of time realize.
PHE:
Are you talking about (this) from . . . an anthropological perspective,
or--
JB:
Well, I’m talking about from all of the perspectives. Certainly, yes.
Certainly from a sociological perspective...
PHE:
Well, I agree with you. However, I do still think that a lot of
folklorists over-intellectualize things.
JB:
Oh, I--
PHE:
And I think that that’s--
JB:
They have to justify their (positions)--
PHE:
A lot of things (I'm saying are heretical) are like--I’m sure it’s
heresy, but to me they’re (often talking like angels dancing on the head
of a pin, you know? And that’s fine for . . . intellectual . . .
(dissertations), but to obsess about it--I think it takes it to (the
realm of) esoterica. And then it becomes less relevant. It’s relevant
as, maybe, underpinning, foundations, and conceptual frameworks for an
institution, but when you get to the reality of public programming--very
quickly, it becomes unknowable to a large portion of the potential
audience.
JB:
For sure, certainly. I do think that the trend in museum interpretation,
education, and display has been more in the direction that the Craft and
Folk Art Museum was going.
PHE:
Mm-hmm.
JB:
I do think that in a small way, we were leaders--
PHE:
Yes, I agree with you.
JB:
--in that direction. That is the direction of giving more information,
of getting away from the purely formalist idea of the white cube, that
works of art, that no additional information--
PHE:
But, see, the issue I’m talking about--I have no disagreement with you
about that. What I’m talking about is more the nature of the "more
information" given. Is it accessible information? Is it understandable,
is it relevant? It shouldn’t be just lightweight fluff. But if it gets
to be too esoteric, too theoretical, too minute in the points it’s
trying to make--people’s eyes will glaze right over and they’ll walk
right by. . . .
00:50:00
JB:
Absolutely. Let’s see.
There’s so much to talk about. I want to be sure to mention a couple of
things. Gallery 3.
PHE:
Gallery 3--that was in Santa Monica?
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
I remember that.
JB:
1980.
PHE:
Frank Gehry was doing Santa Monica Place, and we--
JB:
Which is just now being torn down.
PHE:
Are you kidding?
JB:
No, no.
PHE:
I didn’t know that.
JB:
It’s being hollowed out and made into an outdoor mall.
PHE:
Wow.
JB:
Yeah.
PHE:
Well, anyway, Frank Gehry also designed a space for us there, and we had
an extension museum in this shopping center, which was a lot of work. I
don’t know, we thought that we would get better traffic, but we were way
off in a corner, and I think we were across from the May Company
housewares (department) or something like that.
JB:
It was off in a corner, and it was hard to find (within the mall
complex).
PHE:
Yeah.
JB:
And I think the consensus, at the end, after we had to close after just
one year--
PHE:
Right.
JB:
--is that that was the primary problem.
PHE:
Well, we were also trying to sell handmade objects across the mall from
machine-made or production things. And so, instead of getting a
hand-thrown, hand-glazed, unique coffee mug for $15 (or more), people
would go buy a machine-made one for $3.
JB:
Well, you said that when you first went into the Egg and the Eye
gallery, or the early (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) . . . (days of
the Museum).
PHE:
I was outraged, yeah.
JB:
--you couldn’t believe the prices.
PHE:
I was just--the prices were just through the roof, yeah. . . . For me,
anyway.
JB:
Well, I think for a lot of people it (was) hard to . . . (understand the
different market that we, as an "art gallery" represented). We did have
some very interesting exhibitions there during that year--how many
people actually saw them, I don’t know.
PHE:
I saw all of them. (Laughs)
JB:
Well, and I did too.
PHE:
I’m sure. (Laughter)
JB:
But yeah, Ann Robbins and Susan Skinner--well, they were more or less in
charge of managing that space and developing it, but Shan Emanuelli, . .
. had more of a curatorial role.
PHE:
Yes, she did. And she did a great job--all three of them did, but one
thing you may not know, is that one of the employees there (at the
time), a guy named Bill Sheehy, (who) was a tall young man. . . , he
learned a lot (there) about exhibitions and display and all of that
stuff. And (now) his gallery, right in the middle of Beverly Hills, is
one of the most preeminent--it’s called Latin American Masters. . . .
It’s not on Rodeo Drive, but it’s on Canon or one of those. And he (did
all) sorts of exhibition and organizational activities--at Gallery 3,
and then went on to open his own gallery. (Sheehy closed his Beverly
Hills location and opened an expanded gallery in Santa Monica at
Bergamot Station in 2009.) And as we (have) mentioned, Aaron Paley and
Katie Bergen, who did CARS, Community Arts Resources, (were also very
successful) after CAFAM. Largely predicated on the stuff they got from
(working on the Festival of Masks), all that. Susan Skinner opened the
New Stone Age gallery, she sort of left the shop, and took some people
with her, and started a gallery. I mean, lots of people sort of
used--the museum as a springboard, you know.
JB:
Absolutely. And because of the museum’s great reputation, in part, they
were very successful. But also I think the staff of the Craft and Folk
Art Museum, had, if they were willing to work hard--and they had to work
hard!--and I always thought, you know, both you and Edith (this is going
to sound like I’m suggesting it was very sexist), but the fact is that
our staff was overwhelmingly young women.
PHE:
Women. I remember that, now.
00:55:00
JB:
There were a few exceptions, but I really believe that as young women in
the ’70s and ’80s, we realized that we had, first of all, a golden
opportunity here, because of the subject matter, and its attractiveness,
but that we had to work very hard, because we didn’t have enormous
budgets, we sort of went from grant to grant in a lot of cases, and so
we worked very, very hard. And my point is that those who went on to
other things, for whatever reason, had
really good, varied, in some cases in-depth, experiences at the Craft
and Folk Museum --
PHE:
Oh, they did.
JB:
--that they wouldn’t have been able to have at LACMA or another
(museum).
PHE:
They did, and because there were so many women, I had--in my office,
there was a closet and inside (the closet), there was a ladder, and I
could go up into the attic, and get a beer, and when things got really,
(laughter) really, intense with all those women, I could retreat--
JB:
Oh, that’s beautiful!
PHE:
--into my lair.
JB:
That is wonderful.
PHE:
And nobody (laughs) could find me. I could hear people looking, but if I
just quietly sipped a beer, and just mellowed out-- (laughs)
JB:
From there I bet you heard some interesting conversations!
PHE:
It was a good escape hatch.
JB:
OK. Gallery 3 unfortunately closed after just one year. I loved the last
show that was there--the Buster Simpson and Richard Posner (show), "Two
Schools of Fish"?
PHE:
Right, right.
JB:
You know, Santa Monica Place had that atrium, and for that show, some of
(Simpson's)--
PHE:
Salmon?
JB:
The salmon (were) floating in the atrium.
PHE:
Right, and I don’t know if you know this, but Buster Simpson has become
an internationally renowned--
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
--public artist. He does a lot of architectural-scale public art, and I
(believe) that (exhibition) was one of the formative--
JB:
Yes, I know.
PHE:
-- activities in his career, in that sense.
JB:
You were talking about staff moving on and using CAFAM as a stepping
stone, but there were quite a few artists in the early day, and I think
Dale Chihuly was one of them--
PHE:
Yeah.
JB:
--who had some of their first exhibitions at CAFAM.
PHE:
Well, I mean, in the bigger picture, as small as the museum is and was,
it’s on (Wilshire Blvd.), the Los Angeles thoroughfare, in Los Angeles,
a major world metropolis, and you can’t avoid the fact that Los Angeles
museums have cachet, they have a lot of juice, you know? And people took
advantage of that, (sometimes exploitatively, sometimes not and the
CAFAM experience) . . . accrued to their benefit.
JB:
Absolutely. Another project I just want to mention briefly was something
called--well, eventually, it was called “Home Sweet Home”—it started out
as a vernacular architecture project, kind of the baby of (Gere
Kavanaugh's) as I understand it, and unfortunately the exhibition that
she had in mind to do, a show about color in vernacular architecture
didn’t come about, I guess, because of lack of funding, but, the
project, which was a citywide project--I guess the reason I especially
wanted to talk about it (was) as another example of something that the
Craft and Folk Art Museum took on that became much bigger than itself.
PHE:
I remember that, and maybe ten institutions or so? We had a symposium--
JB:
Yes!
PHE:
--at UCLA with Reyner Banham and I met Cliff May at the time, he was
still alive--grand style architect. Charles Moore was on our committee
and we worked with him a lot.
JB:
Yes, he and Gere, at least officially, co-curated the project as a
whole. The person who actually did the legwork was Blaine Mallory.
PHE:
Yes, Blaine did a lot of that.
JB:
She was hired in 1981, and I just finished going through those files,
and it was quite amazing what she was able to accomplish with the grants
that she got.
PHE:
I agree. I agree totally.
JB:
Two and half years, it was (overlapping dialogue; inaudible).
PHE:
It was a great program. I remember, that’s when we were, in part, over
at that other building.
JB:
Yes, the Annex.
PHE:
The Annex.
JB:
Talk about that--the Annex.
PHE:
Well, there was...
JB:
It was one of several facilities outside of 5814 (Wilshire) that we had.
PHE:
On the--I guess it would be the southeast corner--of Curson and
Wilshire, there was a building that had been occupied by Emser
International--
JB:
Oh, yes.
01:00:00
PHE:
--which was a tile and rug place, and they were going to demolish the
building.
J.H. Snyder was going to demolish the building in order to create the
big center that he ultimately did.
JB:
Yes, California Courtyard, I think, or something like that.
PHE:
Well--something like that.
JB:
Yeah.
PHE:
Museum Square, I think it was called Museum Square. (It was called
Wilshire Courtyard.) And anyway, in those interim years between filing
for the building permit, and getting the entitlements, and design
development, and plan check, and all that stuff--the second floor of
this building was made available to us for relatively little money, and
so we took that on and were able to expand our exhibition program, our
library--
JB:
Well, the library wasn’t there, but there was room for all (the rest of
the staff).
PHE:
The library was at the cottage (across the street), right. So we had
three buildings going, and anyway, our staff expanded. We had a larger
(gallery there), part of the mask (exhibition)--that was during the
Olympic Year.
JB:
Yes, yes.
PHE:
So, I remember Blaine was working on the (vernacular architecture
program)--I think her office was over there.
JB:
I think so, too.
PHE:
And anyway, it was just another--I mean, the museum, periodically had to
be and was opportunistic when these things came along, because it needed
to grow but it didn’t have all the resources to grow.
JB:
Did we have a very good--did we pay rent? I guess we must’ve.
(Overlapping dialogue; inaudible)
PHE:
We paid rent, but . . . pennies on the dollar for what it normally would
have cost. So I think Abe Bolsky, president of Tishman Construction, one
of our board members at the time, paid for all the renovations, and--
JB:
Oh!
PHE:
--you know, we put up walls, so we could have our exhibitions and we had
a storage area there, and we had offices there, and--
JB:
Well, it did see-- from a staff point of view--it was just a relief. As
we’ve been saying, the museum grew, and the staff grew also--not, maybe,
as much as some of us would have liked, but at some point--I’ve been
trying to figure out when the sort of peak was, but I guess there was
more than one, where each of the--they were departments of the museum:
education, library, development, the administrative offices,
exhibitions, or curatorial. For a long time, as you know, there was just
one person who represented each of these departments.
PHE:
Right.
JB:
And there were even some discussions (as to) whether we ought to call
them departments, but I was one of those that really thought that it
helped to clarify what our jobs were, which often became somewhat
confused.
PHE:
Right.
JB:
We all obviously had to pitch in to help each other a lot of the time.
But at some point, at least once and maybe twice, each of us had at
least a part-time assistant.
PHE:
Hmm.
JB:
And eventually at least one full-time assistant, in addition to
volunteers that we would have. So, the pressure on space, seemed like it
was always--
PHE:
Right.
JB:
--intense. And getting the Annex space, even though I think it was only
two and a half years or so that we had that space, was a--
PHE:
Yeah, it was a great blessing. And, you know, I think part of the major
impetus for a new building and the whole Richard Weinstein high-rise
apartment/condominium thing--
JB:
I want to talk about that, for sure.
PHE:
Yeah, well, I think part of that was our need to try and ultimately
settle on an optimum space. And we came online for that building right
at the--I mean, we’re talking right in the middle of a housing downturn.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
And that was the one in 1989, I believe, when just the whole market went
south.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
That’s before--I guess that’s in the first Bush presidency, ironically,
and before Clinton was elected in the early ’90s. And we were in a
recession at the time, and we alienated a lot of funders who had given
us money for the entitlements. It was, just, inadvertent. It was
society, you know, it was well beyond our control, but it was
a--difficult period, and if I look back on a low point, that was a low
point in the museum’s history.
JB:
Yes, now--
01:05:00
PHE:
But that was all in the same area,
geographically, you know.
JB:
Yeah, yeah. And the space issue, in part, contributed to that happening.
And I do want to get into that in much more detail, actually. But first,
I’d like to talk a little bit more about the time when Edith decided to
retire, I don’t know when her decision was, but she officially retired
around July of 1984, and that was at least formally the time that you
took on both the program and the administration as--
PHE:
Mm-hmm.
JB:
--Executive Director. And I wanted to ask you a few things about that
time. I wondered, first of all, when she first told you that she was
going to retire. Do you remember?
PHE:
Probably six to eight months before that. You know, she’d started the
Egg and the Eye in 1965, that was basically 20 years (to that point),
and I think she was . . . I think there were a number of things. She was
probably getting tired. They probably thought I might (think) it was
time to move to--you know--advance my career in the museum world if I
didn’t assume (the CAFAM directorship). All those things. Her needs, her
accomplishments--I think, her great love, in addition to folk art, was
masks.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
And, you recall that (exhibition in 1984, in connection with the Olympic
Arts Festival) was like her magnum opus, that mask exhibition (Masks in
Motion, June 5 – September 15, 1984)--
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
--which she worked on with both Willow and Shan.
JB:
And Brenda Hurst.
PHE:
And Brenda Hurst. And so, you know, I think after she did that, and she
accomplished it, she didn’t see anything else on the horizon that would
warrant her having to drive in every day and be a worker.
JB:
(overlapping dialogue; inaudible)
PHE:
You know, I mean, she didn’t have to do this if she didn’t want to,
really. Work-wise, I mean.
JB:
Right.
PHE:
She wasn’t forced to work.
JB:
And also--I hadn’t realized this until I heard it from Frank Wyle, but
he also retired in 1984.
PHE:
Yeah. And she wanted to be ready to travel and go on cruises, and stuff
like that.
JB:
Yes, I think I heard something about that. So, I guess from what you’ve
just said--my assumption is that you did want the directorship, and I’m
wondering--it sounds like the Wyles also assumed that you wanted it.
PHE:
Right.
JB:
Did they ever ask you--I mean, did you have a discussion about this?
PHE:
We probably had several discussions about it. And, you know, what I
would do, and what I would—again, without being self-aggrandizing . . .
I was involved with a lot of programming at the Museum much earlier than
that, and decision-making about what exhibitions to have, and so on. So
it wasn’t like some big abrupt deal. It was more--
JB:
Gradual.
PHE:
Yes, it was more gradual. And I also had different perspectives that she
did, and--
JB:
Well, talk about that.
PHE:
I felt it was important to--I think the whole thing about the
interrelationship between crafts and folk arts, and the natural
inclusion of design as part of that continuum--I mean, I had sort of
formed that intellectual construct, and a lot of people--over the years,
as I would go to conferences, or I would be making a pitch to some
foundation or something, I would be asked to explain, “What is this
about? Why are these things together?” And so I had to formulate what I
believed made sense for those things. And I think Edith, to an extent,
instinctively knew that there was a relationship and just . . . (acted
on) it. I mean, she was brilliant, and certainly very capable
intellectually, but I don’t think she over-intellectualized that stuff.
JB:
No.
01:10:00
PHE:
And I don’t think that she was
all that interested in it. I mean, she was interested in that it had to
happen, and she knew in her heart it had to happen. But I don’t think
she needed to write long papers about it, you know.
JB:
Well, she had kind of, I think, a gestalt. When she would hear something
that she recognized as what she felt to be true, she appreciated hearing
that. But she didn’t need to analyze it a great deal herself.
PHE:
Right, and so to the extent that I knew I would . . . be responsible for
the program activity as well as the other things, I felt that I needed
to make it a little bit more succinct and cohesive and describable
verbally. And so that was what I was interested in.
JB:
Yes, and I think that it was an important direction to take the museum
in. I looked at the list of exhibitions, the chronological list, and I
believe that "Sidecar," which you were very involved with--it wasn’t
actually mounted until about a year and a half later, February ’86,
which is not a long time in terms of exhibition organization, but it was
a very interesting show, it showed--well, why don’t you tell about
"Sidecar"?
PHE:
Well, yeah, I think (the subtitle was) “The Process of Design in
Contemporary Lighting.” And my friend and a very well-recognized
designer, Ron Rezek, and some of his associates--
JB:
Who worked with Artemide?
PHE:
And he worked with Artemide--and were in turn associated with the
Memphis (design) group through some of the members.
JB:
Yes--which was very hot at the time.
PHE:
Yeah, very hot. And it was an illustration of how the unique handcrafted
prototype could be turned into a production model for the manufacturing
community. From the context of the discussion we’ve been having, it was
a very direct illustration of the idea of the individual maker, or
craftsperson, coming up with different concepts that he or she could
make as a unique, one-of-a-kind object, or that in turn had the
potential to be manufactured and then distributed. And so I think of the
20 or 30 designs, four of them were actually produced, and then I think
we sold some of those in the museum shop.
JB:
I think so, yes.
PHE:
Yeah.
JB:
I have a couple of lamps from that (exhibition).
PHE:
It’s not a far jump from that to Isamu Noguchi’s Akari light
sculptures--
JB:
Oh, sure.
PHE:
--which are the traditional paper (lamp) forms in Japan, that were--some
were sculpted, and on stands--and they’re still in production, even
though he’s no longer living.
JB:
And (there are) knock-offs at IKEA.
PHE:
Yeah, and knock-offs at IKEA. And, again, it’s the idea of the
traditional folk art, or unique craft, coming into the industrial world
and having a resonance--either nostalgic, or aesthetic, or whatever. And
then being made available for a lower price than it would be if it were
a unique paper sculpture by one of the world’s great artists.
JB:
And that’s a familiar arena in the fine art world.
PHE:
Right.
JB:
Not only in printmaking, but certainly in printmaking.
PHE:
In printmaking and multiples. And then you get, you know, the other
thing that is a fact, is that--you know, you mentioned Bernard Kester,
who (designed) many, many shows at LACMA--
JB:
Yes. He still is doing it, yeah.
01:15:00
PHE:
--and I think still continues to do so, and was the head of the art
department at UCLA, but some of the other design titans who were
involved in the museum, Charles and Ray Eames, for example. We did a
show (in 1999), working again with Gere Kavanaugh—(about) Cranbrook--you
know, people from Cranbook--one of the premier design
colleges. Like there were audiences for folk art, and audiences for
craft, there were audiences for design.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
That just added to the competitive nature of (working with your
constituents)--well, you’re not spending enough time on design, you’re
not spending enough time on craft, on folk art, and so you had to even
slice and dice a little more. . . . I was interested in that stuff.
JB:
Yeah.
PHE:
That’s where I was. I was more interested in that stuff.
JB:
Yeah. Yes, and--
PHE:
The nexuses, the interrelationships between the different forms.
JB:
Yes, and I think everyone that heard about it--to begin with, really,
had to have it explained to them. I felt, personally, that it really
contributed to my wider understanding of all--you know, of everything
that we had been doing up to that point.
PHE:
Well, that’s nice, coming from you. I’m glad to hear that.
JB:
Aw-w! (Laughter) No, it’s true, I’ve always thought that was a major
contribution that you made programmatically, and we had several (design)
shows over the next few years. Of course, "Alvar Aalto: Furniture and
Glass" came from MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art). We weren’t really that
involved with the organization of that show, but we added a lecture
series . . . (and) there were a lot of education programs (in connection
with that show).
PHE:
It... Oh, excuse me. (Patrick answers his cell phone; recorder paused.)
JB:
No, go ahead.
PHE:
I was going to say, incidentally, I was asked to attend a (1986 UNESCO
meeting)—an Asian Crafts Conference in New Delhi--and I gave a lecture
on this idea of traditional and folk crafts, and production crafts, and
industrial crafts, and craft as art (all being related to the level of
industrialization where they were made). So I gave that in New Delhi,
and I was asked for an article for Museum Magazine (the UNESCO magazine,
#157, #1, 1988) on that. Yeah, and so, I felt like I had an opportunity
to at least share that construct. And, I still think it’s--I haven’t
heard (of) any big holes in it, you know, I haven’t--again, the
traditional, the folkloric society, doesn’t buy that idea very much,
but--
JB:
But I don’t know that they don’t buy it. I think that--just to play
devil’s advocate for a minute--I think it’s just not their thing, you
know? Their thing is traditional folk art.
PHE:
Right.
JB:
They’re not even interested in that other kind of folk art that the
Craft and Folk Art Museum was interested in, which--
PHE:
The outsider, or self-taught, or whatever.
JB:
Exactly.
PHE:
Yeah, because it doesn’t conform to their theories.
JB:
You certainly could look at it that way. Academics, as you know, have a
very narrow focus, no matter what their focus is. They go deeper and
deeper, rather than wider and wider. And I think to the Craft and Folk
Art Museum’s credit, we did go wider.
PHE:
Well, actually, it was to our credit and to our detriment, because the
people who controlled the purse strings at the National Endowment for
the Arts Folk and Traditional Art program--
JB:
Oh.
PHE:
--would not support something that didn’t comport with their worldview.
And I always felt that the museum was discriminated against by the
folklorists. And so--some of my dearest friends are folklorists, but as
a body of academics, they’re very limited in their perspectives.
JB:
Yeah, I can certainly see why that kind of an agency would be perplexed
with the range of material that we’ve dealt with. Quickly--I’d like you
to comment about the Craft and Folk Art Museum’s permanent collection.
When did you first become aware (of it). Did Edith show you some of
those things when you first were hired?
PHE:
Well, I don’t think at the time I was hired, they were in the permanent
collection.
JB:
Oh.
01:20:00
PHE:
I think they were in Edith and Frank’s collection, and over
time they gave some of them to the museum. I certainly went to their
home during my interview process, and saw several things. And, I think,
you know, most people felt that in order to ensure, or to facilitate,
institutional permanence, you needed to have a permanent collection.
JB:
Yeah.
PHE:
Yeah, no, people would just think, “Oh, well, you’re just a gallery, or
you’re a kunsthalle or whatever.” I think it was in the institutional
interests of the museum to actually have a collection. And after I left
the museum, and I don’t even know who directed it, actually, after I
left, I forget.
JB:
Paul Kusserow.
PHE:
Paul Kusserow, right, a friend of John Walsh’s from the Getty.
JB:
Yeah.
PHE:
But anyway, you know, several of the key players--Edith and Frank--I
don’t know who led (the effort)--maybe Dan Greenberg--either became
disinterested or became ill, or whatever, and they decided to close the
museum and sell off the collection at . . . (Butterfield) and
Butterfield's (in March 1998). And that was a very sad day.
JB:
It was very sad.
PHE:
Very sad, and I don’t know if I would have taken that same decision, I
don’t know if it was, you know, (a wise step). I always look back at it
and could second-guess it. It’s sort of like a great taboo to
de-accession the bulk of (a museum’s) things, especially when some of
them are just front and center, within the museum’s purview and mission.
And so it took a while for the museum to recover from that, if it ever
has, (as) you know. (Of course, I never knew all of the facts because I
was no longer in the mix at the time.)
JB:
Yes, well, of course, at the time, they thought they were going to make
a lot more money from the sale than they actually did, and there was
debt to be dealt with. But I thought it was a very sad thing. And one
thing that really struck me was--did you go to the auction?
PHE:
I went to the preview. I went to the preview, and I think I went to part
of the auction. I was there because I know one former trustee who was
disgruntled, wanted one particular piece, and I was sort of there to see
if he actually got it. And he did. But he had to pay dearly for it! (It
was poetic justice!)
JB:
Oh, good. (Laughter)
PHE:
Anyway, that was funny.
JB:
Well, Beny and I did go to the auction, and in some ways it was more
like a wake than an auction. But I also went to at least one of the
preview days, and I was struck, because-- for a number of
reasons--primarily that we didn’t have the best storage space for the
collection--for a whole range of reasons, the staff, by and large,
(never did) get to see the collection as a whole. Of course, a lot of it
was packed away in trunks and flat files, and other containers, but at
the preview to the auction it was all out there.
PHE:
Right, I remember that.
JB:
And I know that not everyone agrees with me, but I was very, very
impressed.
PHE:
Yeah, I agree. There was a lot of quality, and a lot of diversity, and a
lot of depth.
JB:
And such a range—a range of material. And it was very sad, as we’ve
said.
PHE:
Right, I think it was sad. I don’t question the judgment of any of those
people who made that decision, but I don’t know, if I had been there, if
I would have done it. And I found out about it after the fact.
JB:
Oh, you did.
PHE:
I wasn’t part of the (planning process) --
JB:
(You found out about it) after it was planned.
PHE:
Yeah, after it was planned. And I remember, then, they were going--what
year was that? It was in the ’90s?
JB:
It was ’98, April ’98 is when the (auction took place).
PHE:
And that’s when I started to wonder if something might be done, and sort
of hatched this idea of maybe having a merger with the city cultural
affairs department, and that’s when I approached Al Nodal. But it was
after the fact of the auction and the reality of the imminent demise of
the museum.
01:25:00
JB:
OK, (because we started talking about the permanent collection, we
skipped ahead to the temporary closing of the museum and the auction of
its collection, but now) we’re going to (go back and) start on sort of a
new subject
, although we’ve alluded to it. Starting in the summer of 1986, Frank
and Edith attended the opening of the American Craft Museum in New
York...
PHE:
Mm-hmm. On 56th, or 57th, wherever it was, yeah.
JB:
Well, they’ve just opened another new one, but that was--their first new
building. . . . (The new American Craft Museum (formerly the Museum of
Contemporary Craft) building that opened in 1986 was located in
Manhattan at 40 West 53rd Street; in 2008 it closed at that location and
reopened on Columbus Circle as the Museum of Arts and Design.)
PHE:
I was there. I was at the same opening (in 1986).
JB:
You did go.
PHE:
Yes, I did.
JB:
OK. Then, why don’t you tell the story about how the germ of the idea
for a new Craft and Folk Art Museum came about--according to legend, it
happened as a result of Frank and Edith’s visit, and your visit, to the
American Craft Museum.
PHE:
Well, essentially, the concept at the time was (the sale of) air space,
and this is before the crash of ’87, you know? And at that time, there
was frenetic real estate activity, a boom period going on, and various
non-profit institutions that had small buildings in urban areas, that
were in desirable locations, came upon the idea of selling their air
rights, and in the process, either building an endowment, or building
enhanced physical space, or things like that. (We take a break; recorder
paused.) Do you want to start over?
JB:
No, that’s fine.
PHE:
All right, sorry for the interruption. Anyway, so--as you said--we were
in New York at the opening of the American Craft Museum. I believe it
was (William) Paley and CBS--I think they were the people that wanted to
build the high-rise. In exchange for the high-rise being built above
them, the American Craft Museum got a three-story or four-story space,
including one subterranean story, or sort of a step down, maybe step
down two floors, which had their temporary and permanent exhibitions. In
fact, I think Shan Emanuelli, our former curator, was one of the
research associates for Paul Smith, (their director at the time). (He
was) doing that inaugural exhibition which was called, “The Poetry of
the Physical.”
JB:
That’s right, yes.
PHE:
That was the inaugural exhibition at the (new building).
JB:
They (Shan and Mike Kaiser, her husband) had moved to New York, and she
was working there for a while.
PHE:
Yeah, (at the) new facility. Basically, the idea was that you get both
capital investment, and you get income, both, and so they approached
(the developer), Wayne Ratkovitch, who--
JB:
Frank and Edith did.
PHE:
Yes . . . (Wayne Ratkovich) had developed a number of historical
properties: Chapman Market, the Wiltern, and the Oviatt Building, and
places like that. He worked with Brenda Levin, who’s a lighting
specialist and architect. She recently has redone the City Hall and--
JB:
Oh!
PHE:
--Union Station, and I don’t know if you’ve seen them light it up at
night, but they’re--
JB:
I think I have, yes. They’re attractive.
PHE:
Anyway--and then there were a couple of different ideas about how to go
about it, and I think Wayne (Ratkovich) was on the board of the Friends
of the UCLA School of Architecture, and they tried--they thought Richard
Weinstein, who was the new dean, would be the appropriate architect. And
again, a lot of those decisions, I think, were sort of
influenced--that’s the most politically correct way to say it--by the
personalities involved, and in a more objective context, maybe there
would have been different developers, different architects, different
this, different that, but that’s the package, the hand we were dealt --
JB:
Right.
01:30:00
PHE:
--and that’s what we dealt with. And the long and short of it
was that we were fully approved by the building department, the
Department of Building and Safety of the City of Los Angeles, to do the
first mixed-use building in the history of Los Angeles.
JB:
Yes. It was certainly before its time.
PHE:
Yeah, there were a lot of places who did that on the East Coast, but we
were going to combine retail with museum, with residential.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
On the corner of Curson and Wilshire, and we had a really hard time
buying a piece of property adjacent to us, and we lost it at the last
minute--
JB:
What was the story about that?
PHE:
--by $25,000 dollars and it was a real disaster.
JB:
So, were you at the meeting at which . . . the attempt to buy that
building happened? Or--
PHE:
Well, the attempt to buy that building--we were offered that building
several times over the years.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
And never took it, at what was a really good price.
JB:
Oh, you were actually offered? Because I know that Edith--I have a memo
that she wrote back in 1975 (that) at the time that building was about
$325,000.
PHE:
That’s correct. It was owned by Thrifty Oil.
JB:
She really wanted it.
PHE:
Yes, and they didn’t buy it, and they could’ve had it for that (amount)
for a long time.
JB:
Mm-hmm.
PHE:
Anyway, long story short, it got up over a million dollars, and we kept
bidding, and we finally lost out--the museum lost out by a mere $25,000
to the ultimate buyer, who were Lena Longo and Roy--what’s his name?
JB:
Ventress.
PHE:
Joseph L. Roy Ventress. Nice guy. And so we became partners. But the
problem was, that (then, during the recession of the early
nineties)--like now--exactly like now (in the 2008 "great recession"
climate)--Ratkovitch, neither domestically or internationally, could . .
. get the financing to build the building. And because he couldn’t get
the financing, we couldn’t go forward, and so we rented that corner
building, and sort of integrated it into our rehab of the 5814 building,
the original museum building, because at the time, prior to that
remodeling, it was non-compliant with earthquake safety standards.
JB:
Yeah, now--let’s just slow down a little bit here. There was the
recession going on, so the construction couldn’t go forward, but then to
complicate things, the original building at 5814 Wilshire, was not
earthquake compliant. I guess it hadn’t been for a while, but the city
had not been really insisting.
PHE:
No, that’s not quite accurate.
JB:
Oh.
PHE:
What was accurate (is)--it was fully compliant with Phase 1, which
was--anchoring the walls and the ceilings.
JB:
That was done a few years before.
PHE:
But it wasn’t compliant with Phase 2, which required all kinds of other
stuff. So, because we were considering demolishing the building to make
way for the new high-rise construction--
JB:
Right.
PHE:
--and (since) all of that was in process, we decided to shutter, for the
interim, the existing building (at 5814 Wilshire), and due to our very,
very good relations with the May Company Foundation and Jim Watterson,
to move over to the May Company.
JB:
They really made us an offer we couldn’t refuse.
PHE:
It was a great offer, and so, while we were in the planning stages of
that high-rise, we made plans to relocate (to the May Company department
store) rather than go to the expense of totally rehabilitating the (5814
Wilshire) building, which would have been, maybe, a couple hundred
thousand, maybe more. You know, in retrospect, maybe it would have been
a better thing to do that. But we didn’t know at the time that we
weren’t going to be able to build the . . . (high-rise).
JB:
No.
PHE:
And so on. And so, so it all got sort of confusing. Chronologically, we
started with the idea of the (high-rise) building concept; Phase 2
requirements (for our original building) were getting too expensive; (in
August 1989) we took advantage of the May Company’s very generous offer;
we move over there, which now, by the way, again--we were
trailblazers--because it (now) houses--
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
-- (part of) the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
And they love having that building.
01:35:00
JB:
Yes. And it also includes the Craft and Folk Art Museum
library collection.
PHE:
Right.
JB:
At least for now.
PHE:
At least for now, and so--then (1989-90) all hell broke loose with the
financial markets, and we couldn’t get the money to do the Richard
Weinstein concept--
JB:
Exactly.
PHE:
--the mixed-use (high-rise) building. So, for a couple of years (we
operated in the May Company)--then, what we decided to do was to . . .
leave the May Company, and rehabilitate (our 5814 Wilshire
property)--and (also) I think because the May Company was closing that
facility.
JB:
Well, we were forced to leave (at the end of 1992), yeah.
PHE:
Yeah, yeah. And so then we . . . (made) the decision to rehabilitate the
museum on Wilshire, you know, 5814 and integrate it into the building on
the corner (at 5800 Wilshire), which we had to rent at a fairly high
price.
JB:
Yeah, I think I remember it was $17,000--
PHE:
Yeah, a month. It was really big.
JB:
Even . . . (now it seems) abnormal.
PHE:
Yes, and so that time we went through a very open and objective search
for an architect. You know, I remember several very well-established
architects applying for the job.
JB:
Yes. Marcy Goodwin--let me just interject--we had hired Marcy Goodwin,
who had been a consultant to the L.A. Museum of Contemporary Art, when
it was building (its flagship building on Grand Avenue) in downtown L.A.
PHE:
Right.
JB:
And she worked with our staff (while we were still operating at 5814
Wilshire—before we moved to the May Company) on a big, extensive
building program for the Ratkovitch development. Then, of course, that
plan, the Ratkovitch plan, had to be abandoned. But then (later) Marcy
Goodwin again worked with . . . (a combined board and staff) committee
to revise that program in light of a more modest plan.
PHE:
Correct.
JB:
So, that was I guess going on while we were still in the May Company and
we hoped to stay there for at least a few more months, possibly another
year, but then the May Company Corporation (suddenly) decided (in
November 1992) to close down the Miracle Mile building, which we were
(still) in. So we ended up having to move (back to Wilshire) within a
month. (But the 5814 Wilshire building had not yet been renovated, so we
moved into the 5800 Wilshire building that CAFAM had leased.) Now,
before you go on to talk about the 5800 building--it’s that building
(next door to the CAFAM building) on the (southwest) corner (of Wilshire
and Curson).
PHE:
All right, OK. As opposed to 5814, (which was our original building).
JB:
It was my understanding that the rental agreement that was entered into
with Ventress and Lena Longo was what they called at the time a “lease
purchase option.”
PHE:
Correct.
JB:
And I know that a lot of us (assumed)--and certainly the Ratkovitch
(project) had been dependent on that building being part of the (plan)--
PHE:
Totally. Absolutely.
JB:
So then, when we moved into that (5800 Wilshire) building, even though
it was on a rental basis--we still assumed that we would somehow be able
to purchase that building.
PHE:
Right.
JB:
Talk about some of the advantages of that building.
PHE:
Well, some of the disadvantages were that it was floating on a tar pit.
There was an arm of the tar pits--
JB:
Oh, that’s right. That smell in the elevator--
PHE:
--that extended over (Wilshire Blvd). Basically, it was just a--you
know, it was nature dominating mankind--humankind.
JB:
Yes. How many times did you replace the carpet in the 5814 building
(because of the tar that was tracked in)?
PHE:
Oh, many times. But the advantages were that it was prime real estate,
it was literally adjacent to the original building, (and) we were able
to integrate the two buildings architecturally.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
That’s a plan that was developed by (the architectural firm) Hodgetts +
Fung. And, you know, it gave us ample space for the library.
JB:
And don’t forget the parking.
PHE:
For the parking, yup. Exactly, we had parking under that (5800 Wilshire
lease), and, you know, I think we bought the Duplex (at 725/727 S.
Curson), too, didn’t we?
JB:
Yes.
01:40:00
PHE:
We bought the Duplex, so that we owned the cottage (at 731 S. Curson),
we owned the Duplex, we had the parking lot (behind) the corner
building. It was, you know, a good chunk of land on a prominent Los
Angeles street corner, maybe more than an acre, maybe two acres,
I don’t know. But it was a lot of land. You know, we were growing, we
were going in the right direction, we were developing.
JB:
And at the same time, I didn’t mention this (before), but of course we
had started this capital campaign in conjunction with the Ratkovitch
plan, and--well, why don’t you just comment on how this change of plans
affected the capital campaign, if at all?
PHE:
Well, I personally, as I think I mentioned, asked for and was awarded a
million dollars from at least one donor, with a promise to give another
million if the plans went forward. We got a couple of half-million
dollar grants, we . . . (raised) a lot of money.
JB:
Yes.
PHE:
And then, when that (Ratkovich) project went south, people in the
funding community were upset. And, you know, this is probably not
something that’s good to put on a tape, but certain foundations, to this
day, are irritated with the museum, because of circumstances that were
legitimately beyond the control of the museum.
JB:
It just took a lot longer, to--
PHE:
Well, no, what I’m saying is that the fact that the project—the
foundations’ projects--the monies that they gave were utilized in good
faith in the development and awarding of the entitlements to approve
building documents for the high-rise, and then once that was done, the
building was never built. And so they felt, “Well, why didn’t the
developer use his money to do it—(to pay for the entitlements)? Why did
our money, our foundation money, get . . . (used instead)?" You know,
"and so we’re not going to give any more money.” That’s what I’m talking
about.
JB:
But there was still, I thought, a capital campaign that continued.
PHE:
There was, yes, there was. And we got enough money to remodel, and all
that stuff, but it was never as good as it could have been, given the
(recession) economy, and the Ratkovitch Company’s inability to secure
the funding (for the Museum Tower). That was a real major setback for
the museum.
JB:
Yes. Now--and that all happened before we had to leave the May Company.
PHE:
Right.
JB:
Let me just comment, from the staff perspective, (on) what the changes
were. Of course we were horrified that we had to move again.
PHE:
Yet again.
JB:
But, I have to tell you--and I was pretty involved with the original
plans, the Ratkovitch plans—and the library was going to be--maybe not
as much as I would’ve liked--but it was going to be a substantial
increase, as was all of our space, in (what we had at the time). I keep
referring to it as "the Ratkovitch development," just as a shorthand.
PHE:
You could say "the ill-fated Ratkovitch development," (laughter) as a
shorthand, to be more precise!
01:45:00
JB:
But here’s the thing that the staff was worried about: we were worried
about the operation of this enormous facility that was going to be so
much bigger that what we’d had. How were we going to afford the
security, and the maintenance, and so on? So, in a way, we were kind of
relieved, when the Hodgetts + Fung project was revealed--although it
took a while to--you know, there were various ideas about how to
actually combine those two buildings. The final plan, I think, was quite
beautiful. But just from the staff point of view, I think we all felt
that (the Hodgetts + Fung plan to combine the two buildings—instead of
building the 22-story tower--was a much more practical plan; it) was a
space that was (a lot) larger than we had had (in the 5814 Wilshire
building), and it was going to provide usable and attractive space for
everything that was on the table at that time. And it seemed like it was
affordable.
So that was why, I think, for a lot of us, the (Hodgetts + Fung plan was
a lot more reasonable than the Ratkovich high-rise plan) Now, were there
people on the board who were very, very disappointed?
PHE:
Yes, there were. Yes, there were.
JB:
Why don’t you talk about, just, the process--?
PHE:
Well, I think it’d probably be indiscreet of me to do that.
JB:
Oh, you don’t have to mention (names)--
PHE:
No, but, I mean, some of the people on the board were married to the
directors of some of the prominent foundations who gave us the money.
JB:
Ah.
PHE:
So they were in a very awkward situation. . . . Does that make sense?
JB:
Well, I guess I never quite understood why they were not willing to have
that money transferred to the new project, or--
PHE:
Because the money was used.
JB:
Because of the time involved?
PHE:
It was used up in the entitlement process. (Entitlement essentially
means all of the preliminary things needed to gain permission from the
Department of Building and Safety to build—architectural planning,
engineering, etc.—a lot of this money went to Ratkovich.)
JB:
Oh, OK.
PHE:
And . . . (two of the donors) thought it was something that--the
developer (should have covered). They thought that they got exploited,
in effect.
JB:
I see.
PHE:
And that we, as the leadership of the institution, should have watched
out for their interests, which in turn were our interests, and as a
result there’s a residual lack of comfort.
JB:
I see.
PHE:
And that’s the awkward part of it. And a similar thing happened (with
regard to the selling of the collection) --it’s so weird, for me,
because I didn’t have anything to do with this place (at the time the
collection was sold); I was gone. Gone, gone.
JB:
Yeah, for at least a year or so.
PHE:
Well, more than that. Two or three years. . . (Ela resigned from CAFAM
in June 1996; the CAFAM collection was sold at Butterfield's in March
1998.) And when I came back (later) just to kick the tires in the
context of, you know, working out a deal with the city, I had to make a
few phone calls. . . for things that (had) happened under . . . (the
subsequent administration), and decisions that were made that were
further alienations . . . (they) were pinned on me, and I wasn’t even
there. I mean--that was weird. So, you know what I’m saying? It’s
like--I don’t want to go into any detail about it (now) . . . well, I
can do it at some later date--the institution--the Craft and Folk Art
Museum--has at least two black eyes with two major players in the Los
Angeles cultural scene . . . (and) both of them to do with grant
administration.
JB:
OK.
PHE:
And one of them, I still to this day don’t understand; but the other one
I do understand, it’s because, as I described, the funds weren’t
optimized--though (they) were not inappropriately used. There was never
any malfeasance or anything like that. And then the second one, whatever
monies were in question, oddly enough, given the relative sizes of the
institutions in question—(a David and Goliath sort of deal: David had to
return the money to Goliath; it was neither fair nor just, but it
happened)--were returned to that institution. And so it was all taken
care of, but there’s a residual issue.
JB:
Hmm. Well, that is too bad. There probably was an attempt by you and/or
Frank to help--
PHE:
Ameliorate?
JB:
Well, I was going to say, to get more financial satisfaction out of
Ratkovitch, or was that not possible?
PHE:
Well, you know, that’s a different story. But he just sort of skated
(away), scot-free. And we were left holding the bag. I mean, Wayne
Ratkovitch is a nice guy, and I’m not trying to do anything, say
anything, untoward, but I think the whole thing could have been handled
much better and more effectively than it was.
JB:
Mm-hmm. Well, I think maybe we should leave the rest of that story until
next time. I do want to revisit . . . (at our next session) some things
we’ve talked about (only) a little bit today. Specifically, the
restaurant, which of course had to close forever at the end of our time
at 5814, and also a little bit more about the shop. There’s still plenty
to talk about, but this has been great so far. And thank you for letting
us come into your inner sanctum.
PHE:
You’re very welcome, sorry it’s not more--
JB:
It’s fine.
PHE:
--presentable, but it’s, you know--
JB:
It’s wonderful, no, it’s a wonderful--
01:50:00
PHE:
It’s what it is.
JB:
--office in (the artist), Frank Romero’s, studio. It’s a great place to
be. Thank you.
PHE:
You’re welcome. (End of Session 2:)
JB:
Today is Tuesday, November 18, 2008. And I’m here in Santa Monica with
Patrick Ela, (former CAFAM director), and this is our third session, and
my name is Joan Benedetti. In our first session, Patrick, you said that
when you first arrived at CAFAM in 1975, the shop and the restaurant
were completely dominant. And one of the things that you did was to
minimize the physical impact of the shop. You said that when you first
arrived, both sides of the first floor were . . . (occupied) by the
shop.
PHE:
Correct.
JB:
And the (museum) gallery, then, I guess, was only on the third floor?
PHE:
That’s correct.
JB:
When you made that change, that must have been the start of the
first-floor gallery then.
PHE:
Yes. I would say it would be better to characterize it as an attempt to
make the new museum, in its physicality, more proportional to its stated
goals and mission. Because it was for many years, as you know,
considered a gallery (and) a restaurant.
JB:
Well, it was supposed to be a commercial gallery.
PHE:
Right, and so that was the legacy . . . (against which), if you will,
the academic side--the tutorial side of the organization--had to . . .
swim . . . . That was the current against which . . . (we were all)
swimming. When you went in the front door, not only was the shop on the
left, and on the right, and in between, behind the steps, it also
ascended the steps up to the mezzanine. There were little display
vitrines. And those were all part of the shop--all geared toward The Egg
and The Eye being a feast for the eye and the palate. And so what we did
was make . . . the right-hand side (a) museum gallery.
JB:
The west side.
PHE:
The west side. As you’re looking in, (the right-hand side). And the
transitional space underneath the stairs of the old facility--there was
a little platform where a lot of electrical conduit and everything was.
And so depending on the show that the museum had, that space under the
stairs was allocated to the shop for more display of sales merchandise,
or to the museum for more exhibition. And it went back and forth, back
and forth. And that was actually until the whole thing was remodeled,
you know. But that was the configuration we utilized. And then, even
those vitrines in the stairwell were eventually given over to museum
exhibition, depending on how much space was needed. So that, (as a
result), you had a (museum) presence on the first floor; (and then, with
the niches in the stairwell), between the first floor and the mezzanine;
and then on the third floor.
JB:
Well that was a big deal, then, to add that much gallery space to the
museum.
PHE:
Yes, it was. It probably added--I wouldn’t say it doubled the gallery
space, but it probably added another 70%.
JB:
Do you remember--I guess there were several--not major renovations--but
renovations nevertheless, over the first ten years or so. There must
have been some renovation that took place when this change that you’re
talking about happened at the beginning. Do you remember?
00:05:00
PHE:
Yes. Over the years, there were several facilities. There was the museum
cottage, there was the building between the museum and the cottage,
there was the building on the corner, eventually, there was the May
Company, there was a space called the Annex, which was above Emser
International Tile on the south (east) corner, I guess, of Curson and
Wilshire. And depending on what configuration we had, we changed the
office configuration on the
third floor of the original . . . 5814 building . . . which was the
museum proper. Yeah, there were some changes. I remember the first time
I ever went there, the board meeting, and the nascent library and
archive were in--
JB:
In that little room.
PHE:
--the little (southeast) corner--well that subsequently became part of
the gallery.
JB:
It’s amazing to think that the board actually met in there.
PHE:
Yeah, that subsequently became part of the gallery. So there were
several renovations, and a lot of those were, like, interior
improvements, as opposed to moving walls, you know, burying walls and
things like that.
JB:
Right. Well that’s what I was thinking of. Because until we actually
moved out of that building (in 1989 and then in 1990) went to the May
Company, I don’t think there were any major structural changes to that
building.
PHE:
No.
JB:
When you first started, were the offices (upstairs) at the
front--overlooking the Tar Pits?
PHE:
Yes, they were at the front. They were at the front. And then, at one
point, my office was moved over to that little two-story building.
JB:
To the Duplex?
PHE:
The Duplex, yeah.
JB:
That was, I guess, around the time that we were about to move to the May
Company?
PHE:
Yes, somewhere (in that time period). (In July 1989, CAFAM staff offices
were moved temporarily around the corner to the "Duplex" at 725/727
Curson Avenue; they remained there for one year until the end of June
1990 when they were able to move to the May Company.) JB . . . There
were a lot of properties (at that time). It was sort of like a Monopoly
game almost. Except that we were not really occupying all of them at the
same time. It was--
PHE:
No, we weren’t.
JB:
--shuffling around. Well, I thought I would ask you about some of the
individuals who were there for a while. And maybe some of the story of
their departments will come out in the process. But I just was thinking
we’d focus on the people for a while. Thinking about the shop, when you
first arrived, John Browse was the Shop Manager, and he had been there
for about (four) years. He had come to The Egg and The Eye gallery (in
1971) with Alan Donovan. John was from Kenya.
PHE:
Nairobi.
JB:
But he had moved to the U.S. (though they had met in Nairobi). Alan was
an American citizen who was living in Nairobi, in Kenya. And together,
they had an import-export business. And he (and Alan) had brought this
show of East African crafts to The Egg and The Eye gallery. And then
Edith asked John to stay. I guess she (had) asked Alan to stay, and he
didn’t want to. So she asked John. And he said yes. So he had been there
for about . . . (four) years when this transition from the Gallery to
the (museum) happened. And you came on the scene. Do you remember--I
mean, of course, you remember John Browse (from the later time when) . .
. he came back (after Ann Robbins left in 1982).
PHE:
Oh, he’s a very dear man.
JB:
But do you remember, at the beginning, how it was with him as the (Shop
Manager)?
PHE:
Oh, yeah, I think it was probably a little volatile, at times. I mean,
because, A, the nature of the space and (B), the goals of the space were
changing. And (C), the rules under which he had operated were changing.
. . . He had (had) direct contact with, not only Edith, but with Frank
Wyle, and other members of the board. I mean, he was probably--now that
I think about it--he was probably, like, the co-director of the gallery.
00:10:00
JB:
Let me just interrupt you a second. When I interviewed John, I asked him
what his title had been. And he said, “Well,” he said, “I don’t know
that I had a title. Edith used to refer to me as an associate.” Well
after that, I was looking through some of the old Egg and The Eye
newsletters, and I came across a little article with his picture that
introduced him, you know, in the newsletter. And this was in 1972. And
it says that he is the Assistant Director. Now, whether he ever knew
that, or he had forgotten it, I don’t know. But that is the position
(that was described in the article). And here you are
coming in as Administrative Director, which I could see might have
overlapped (with what had been his duties).
PHE:
But he was always very cordial, if formal, you know, at that time. Since
then, we’ve become . . . friends. But apart from any personality issues,
the rules changed, and the goals of his work changed. . . . Before, it
was to have the best, and make the sales, and be profitable and all of
that. And now, in addition to those things, everything had to be under
the umbrella of, and in support of the mission of, the museum. And the
first tangible thing, of course, was the changing of the (west side
gallery) space, which took place not too long after I got there. And it
was based in--you know, it wasn’t, like, territorial or something--but
it possibly felt that way (to the shop staff). It was just in terms of
trying to actualize and realize what the museum said it was about, as
opposed to how it felt when you walked in. And, you know, I always . . .
(sought to be inclusive) from the first day I got there--I had staff
meetings. And I always asked for John’s input. And he had a volatile
relationship with Edith--a loving relationship, but, I mean, he--
JB:
Yes. That’s almost exactly how he described it.
PHE:
I remember one time that he had worked really hard on installing the
African show, and she came in and was critical of it. And he took
everything down and said, “Well you do it, then, madam.” And he told me,
“Well, madam was not pleased.” . . . . And so, it was sort of like an
"Upstairs/Downstairs," English or colonial . . . like . . . a colonial
relationship, although he was, in many ways, her equal. Actually, the
first time I was there--one of the first shows I remember was that
African show. ("Africa's Influence in Traditional Clothing Styles,"
October 14 - November 23 or 28?, 1975; the exhibition was primarily of
Katherine White’s collection.) And they had dancers and models and the
great international model Iman was supposed to be there. And at the last
minute, it fell through, and that was a big disappointment. But they had
other people (from Africa).
JB:
Well, I think . . . (Iman) had been at that first Egg and The Eye
gallery show back in 1972 (that John and Alan organized).
PHE:
Yes. And eventually John--you know, he never ceased his Tribal Eye
(import) business. He always had that on the side. And I think,
eventually, he felt that he had done what he had set out to do and
accomplished what he could, and that it was time to move on. And he
passed the reins over to Ann Robbins, who had been his assistant. And
then Ann Robbins came on, and she retained Susan Skinner, who was there
for quite a long time-- until she had gathered sufficient information
(contacts, names of artists and suppliers, etc.) to create her own
gallery, which was called New Stone Age.
JB:
Well, John was actually at the museum for (only), I guess, about six
months after you arrived. And then he had an opportunity to work with
the Museum of Natural History shop on a big show that they were bringing
in. So that was when he left the first time. He did come back, because
Ann Robbins--after about six years, I think--Ann and Susan were running
the shop--and Ann left rather precipitously. I think it was personal, or
family-related. (Ann Robbins resigned August 31, 1982.)
PHE:
Right. She and others in her family had health problems, and they were
unfortunate.
JB:
Yes. But Ann was an interesting person. She was a craftsperson herself,
and became very involved with the American Craft Council marketing arm,
American Craft Enterprises.
00:15:00
PHE:
Before you leave (the subject of) John--John was very close with Dorothy
Garwood, who was a curator there
, and also very oriented toward the crafts, whereas John was more
oriented toward the folk arts. And I think John and Dorothy felt the
changes were not to their liking, or--John less so than Dorothy, but
Dorothy just basically left about the same time, or not too . . . long
before John left.
JB:
It was about the same time. That’s right. (Dorothy Garwood resigned
sometime before the end of 1975; John Browse resigned in March 1976.)
PHE:
And so when Ann came in--she was more aligned, in terms of her own
tastes, with Dorothy. And so she brought in, as you say, with (her
association with) American Craft Enterprises, a whole sensitivity toward
the crafts, and toward establishing relationships with good, recognized
craftspeople to sell their pieces in the museum shop.
JB:
Yes. So she had, you know, a fairly lengthy tenure. I think it was, like
I said, five or six years. (Ann had been hired by John as Ass't Shop
Manager and then when John resigned, she became Shop Manager in March
1976. She resigned for personal reasons at the end of August 1982.)
PHE:
Yes. And how would you feel, by the way, if you came in as the new, sort
of younger director, and then all of these established people left? I
mean, that was a little unsettling.
JB:
Well how did you feel? (Laughter)
PHE:
Well, I felt like I had always treated them with respect, and I had
treated them fairly. But that I was emblematic of--or I represented--a
new institutionalization process, with which . . . they may not have
been comfortable, or with which they may not have been particularly at
ease--nor did they have an interest in (that process).
JB:
So you took it philosophically.
PHE:
Yes, I didn’t take it personally. I . . . (treated them all) with
respect. And I think, over time--John, at least, with whom I (still)
maintain contact--I think he felt that and respected that.
JB:
Oh, I’m sure that he wouldn’t have come back to work again (in 1982) if
he--
PHE:
Right. But it was a sensitive time, you know. And, you know, the shop
was, proportionally--not only in terms of the physicality of the space,
but as the museum grew, if the shop were profitable--wildly profitable
even--the portion of support that it rendered the larger museum grew to
be less and less, so that it may have originally been 30-50%, and it was
then, toward the end, maybe 8-15% (of the museum budget) . . . . Because
there were curatorial positions, library, education, publications,
exhibition expenses, and so on, that were well beyond what the shop
could pay for. And early on . . . (during the Gallery days), it had all
been mixed up together. The shows were . . . sale shows.
JB:
Well, I think I heard either Ann or John talking at one point about
wanting to be able to separate out the shop revenues from the--they
recognized that the shop revenues had to help support the museum. But
they had a concern about the artists getting paid, and so on, and their
expenses--
PHE:
Yes, but the shop and the museum always had separate accounts.
JB:
Oh, did they?
00:20:00
PHE:
Sometimes there were inter-account borrowings. But the other side of
that coin, about the craftspeople being paid on time and so on, which,
you know, everyone always tried to do--when you’re running a shop, and
you get inventory, there are two ways to get inventory. You can take it
on consignment, or you can purchase it. And one of the dangers that
befell the shop under certain managers--and maybe under all managers
from one time to another--was that they would put their profits and
their cash flow into inventory, making it illiquid. Meaning, if they
wanted to --
JB:
Rather than taking things on consignment, you mean.
PHE:
Yes. Or (rather than) having cash on hand to make sure that their people
were paid. Because if you buy something from a craftsperson, and you buy
all kinds of things from all kinds of craftspeople, and your sales are
slow, then you don’t have the money to pay them, whereas if you take
things on consignment, and the sales are slow, you don’t owe anybody
anything until the sales are made. So one of the constant battles was
making sure that the inventory levels (were at the proper levels.)
Sometimes—often—(they) were over $100,000 of inventory--so, like, if you
think $100,000 of cash instead of $100,000 of inventory, there would be
few times when cash flow for the shop would have been a problem. There
were inter-borrowings. But oftentimes, the museum shop couldn’t pay the
museum (even though their assets in terms of inventory were high)
because . . . (the assets were) illiquid, if that makes sense.
JB:
Yes. Well, I just think from an administrative point of view, aside from
the problems that the Shop Manager may have had, it must have been
difficult for you (at the beginning). One of your primary jobs was
overseeing the budget, right? So that must have been difficult.
PHE:
Well--and you had to do it with sensitivity and not, you know, aggravate
. . . (people). It was always a balancing act, trying to keep things
centered along the direction of consensus--the . . . (road on) which the
board and the director or the staff, collectively, thought the
institution should be traveling.
JB:
And you were usually in the middle of all that.
PHE:
Yes, and I had to . . . steer the boat, you know--basically. Including .
. . avoiding the rocks and the underwater--
JB:
Shoals.
PHE:
--hazards.
JB:
Not an enviable position to be in.
PHE:
Well it was OK. I mean, it was OK.
JB:
There were some fun times, too. The shop over the years was certainly
very successful in terms of its reputation. I think it’s safe to say it
continued to be highly respected. . . .
PHE:
I agree, and I would just point out that the Natural History Museum
shop, the Southwest Museum shop, The Egg and The Eye (gallery), and then
the Craft and Folk Art Museum shop were among those institutions that
had a world view early on as the world was opening up. And they,
accordingly, had many highly collectible and unique things--treasures.
But over time, with globalization, a lot of the unique things were
copied. . . . (For example), it was not uncommon to find . . . Navajo
weavings made in Oaxaca. Or you can find Oaxacan carvings made in the
Philippines.
JB:
And all of it made in China!
PHE:
Yes, all of it made in China. You can find Navajo jewelry made in Turkey
now, you know, and foist it off as authentic. Go to Costco, or go to
IKEA, and you’ll find kilims from Anatolia. It’s like the whole thing is
not like it was 40 years ago. The whole arena, the "whole world" point
of view. And there’s duplication and dumbing down. And a lot of people
don’t know the difference between an authentic piece of folk art and a
well-made replica.
JB:
Yes, and I think that was always a problem. But if anything, it may have
become even more difficult.
PHE:
Right, so right now it’s a lot worse than it was. Because they (copies
are) . . . omnipresent. There are so many things that are just copies of
other things that are copies of other things, and they’re made all over
the world.
00:25:00
JB:
Yeah. One of the things that we used to brag about was that,
unlike many museums--like LACMA and most of the larger museum shops,
(they) had reproductions. They were reproductions from their permanent
collections. And, of course--well, our permanent collection is a whole
other discussion. But nevertheless, we could say that we didn’t have
reproductions in our shop. They were all originals. And it was quite
wonderful. I think one of the biggest attractions of the shop was that
you could go in, you could spend a lot of money, but you could also
spend a little money and still get something that was original and
interesting.
PHE:
That’s correct. That’s exactly correct.
JB:
Well, little by little, after we had to move out of the original
building and moved into the May Company--and I do want you to talk about
the May Company--but I just wanted to mention that the shop sort of
diminished little by little at that point after it had to move out of
the original building.
PHE:
Yes . . . it grew back to a respectable size when it came back to the
5814 facility . . . (but) it did diminish in that space (in the May
Company).
JB:
During that time (March 1990 – December 1992). In fact there were over
two (and one half) years that the shop was completely closed (from the
time we moved from the May Company into the 5800 facility at the
beginning of 1993 until the Hodgetts + Fung remodel opened in May 1995).
And that must have been very hard financially for the museum.
PHE:
Well, it was hard financially. On the other hand, the costs associated
with running it (the shop in the May Company) were . . . (minimal and
the critical financial importance of the shop was diminished during the
May Company years. It had always been a strong part of the program mix
of the museum, but because the May Company was so generous in funding
us, the lack of the normal cash flow and financial contribution of the
Shop was not as painful as it might otherwise have been.) And so, on a
net basis, it wasn’t that bad, because as I said earlier, when the
income derived from the shop was a higher percentage, it would have been
much more impactful, but when we moved to the May Company, it was
already, you know, below 20% of the museum’s needed income. Probably was
more like 10%. So--to have (the shop costs) eliminated--and then, also
at the same time, to have all of the utilities' (costs) eliminated,
because we were guests of the May Company--there were offsetting
benefits to (not having the Shop open).
JB:
Now, let’s talk a bit more about the restaurant. I know we did talk
about it a bit in the last session. But that was another part--a very
basic, important part (like the shop was) of the whole Craft and Folk
Art Museum persona. And I know, because I’ve been looking in the
archives, that you tried very hard to keep the restaurant going in some
fashion. Or to include it, I should say, in the plans for—well--both of
the new building plans. When we moved out of the May Company, and the
Hodgetts + Fung renovation was begun, there was still a space in the
plans for that building for some kind of a restaurant. But . . . when we
finally did reopen and had our big homecoming gala reopening, which was
fabulous, there wasn’t a restaurant.
PHE:
But the restaurant in the Hodgetts + Fung plan, if I remember, was in
the corner building, and not in the original building. Maybe I’m wrong.
JB:
I believe that it was in what is currently . . . the office spaces on
the (mezzanine) --
PHE:
Oh, so where it was originally, in other words.
JB:
I believe so.
PHE:
Maybe so, maybe so.
00:30:00
JB:
Whether it was actually big enough to really do what I think, you know,
people envisioned, I’m not sure. But that was a very big change. I
wanted to ask you--I jumped ahead a little bit actually from what I was
hoping you could talk about, and that is how the restaurant was when you
first arrived, and some of the management people that were there
. And then I would like you to talk about Ian (Barrington) also. So why
don’t you just kind of tell the story of the restaurant as it was (when
you arrived in 1975) and how it proceeded during the time that we were .
. . at 5814 (before we moved to the May Company at the end of June
1989).
PHE:
Well the restaurant had a great reputation. As I said earlier, the
building, as one entered it, was dominated by a staircase that went up
to the mezzanine, and (the restaurant was) on either side . . . on the
mezzanine level. And (on the left side) they had an omelette preparation
area, where this wonderful cook named Salvador (made omelettes) . . .
sort of in front of the people eating.
JB:
Yeah, so it was . . . a little stage, almost.
PHE:
A little stage. And they had banquettes along either wall, and, you
know, sort of French bistro tables. Wooden tables on metal stands with
round feet and bentwood chairs. On the right side, they had a full bar
with a full-on liquor license, which was subsequently lost in the
bankruptcy that the restaurant had. There were various owners.
Originally, the restaurant was part of The Egg and The Eye.
JB:
So it was owned by The Egg and The Eye. By the gallery. PHE . . . The
gallery, and subsequently, the museum, owned not only the equipment but
also the liquor license. When you’re a 501(c)(3) organization, a
nonprofit organization, you can have businesses like the museum shop
that are related to your stated nonprofit purpose. But if you have
businesses that are unrelated, you have to pay unrelated business income
tax. And so, on my recommendation, and on the recommendation of some of
the other board members--and I think it didn’t exist until I got
there--I said we needed to divest ourselves of the management of the
restaurant. Because rent is exempt from unrelated business income tax.
So then we needed to set about to find operators of the restaurant. And
we went through two or three. I remember there was a guy named . . .
Casey. There was another guy from Mexico. And all of them did OK, you
know--or not. But one of them had real problems. He had put a lot of his
capital into a Mexican bank the day before the peso was devalued.
JB:
I remember that.
PHE:
And he lost 95% of his money overnight. And he was just devastated. What
we had had to do periodically was to put the liquor license in the name
of the then manager or concessionaire with the understanding that it
would be returned to our possession on the termination of the lease. And
I remember that guy declared bankruptcy, and our liquor license got
embroiled in the whole thing. And I had to go testify in court. . . .
The opposing attorney’s last name--a bankruptcy lawyer--was . . .
Moneymaker, which I always thought was very ironic. And we lost our
liquor license, which was very hard to get, in that bankruptcy
proceedings. And one of the senior sub-managers of the penultimate
concessionaire was Ian (Barrington). And so we approached Ian --
JB:
What was his relationship to the restaurant?
PHE:
I think he was a chief waiter or a chief--an undermanager (for a prior
manager).
JB:
So he did act as a waiter, but he also had a management role?
00:35:00
PHE:
He was a super-waiter, yeah. Had a junior, on-site manager position. And
so when that relationship
soured, we approached Ian about becoming the person with whom we would
do business. And, you know, he was a doctoral student at USC and very
wise and well-travelled. Scottish. He loved bagpipes and was very
(gregarious); he chatted up all of the wine purveyors.
JB:
He was the first one that I remember knowing personally.
PHE:
Yeah, and he used to really put his heart into that, and he had a number
of employees-- Booker and Nate and Salvador were there--various younger
people he brought through. So he ran it for quite a while until we
closed it up to move to the May Company, and I think it’s important for
people to know that we closed the building because subsequent to the
1971 earthquake . . . . There were very strict retrofitting requirements
placed on any unreinforced masonry building. And ours was designed by an
architect named Underwood, I believe. And he was the one who designed
the Ahwahnee Hotel in (Yosemite).
JB:
Yes, his firm, at least, was the same.
PHE:
Yeah, his firm did, and the assembly. And even though (that building)
had ridden out many earthquakes, and we had done our bolting of the
floors and ceilings to the exterior masonry walls, we (still) had to do
major, major, major work. It was (going to cost) maybe $700,000, or
$750,000 or (maybe just) a half a million. Some huge amount of money.
And we would have been dark for a good year. In retrospect, maybe we
should have done that (retrofitting then). But at that time, we had a
very good offer to move to the May Company, which subsequently has now
been taken over by LACMA, you know--but we were the first museum there
(while the department store was still in operation). And we got a pretty
good deal to move over there. . . . We lost some of our momentum. But
we--you know, it was a strategic move at the time. We were trying to
build a major complex. And we almost did it. But with the downturn of
the economy in 1989, we--just like it is today in 2008--we couldn’t get
the financing. (If it hadn’t been for the Ratkovich plan for the
high-rise mixed-use complex, we would probably have done the earthquake
retrofitting sooner and the restaurant) would have still been there.
JB:
Well, and . . . the mixed-use idea was--
PHE:
Very progressive, yeah.
JB:
Very much ahead of its time.
PHE:
It was a (plan for a) residential condominium/restaurant/ museum
(complex), and then some retail. And it almost happened. But it didn’t,
you know. But going back to Ian Barrington. He ran the restaurant. And
he subsequently passed away. He ran the restaurant until we closed to go
to the May Company. And, at that time, we didn’t have (any way to
continue the restaurant). The May Company had its own restaurant, the
Tea Room.
JB:
The Tea Room--the infamous Tea Room. Which I think we all really loved a
lot, even though it was funky.
PHE:
It was incredibly tacky and funky, but it was retro.
JB:
Well I guess we really should talk about the May Company. I know that we
looked at several places. You gathered up the staff on at least a couple
of occasions to make field trips to go and look at various possible
venues. Maybe you should talk a little bit--you already started
to--telling about the earthquake retrofitting. It is confusing for a lot
of people. Some of the people that I’ve already talked to--some of the
former board members and so on--are confused in their minds about why we
moved to the May Company.
00:40:00
PHE:
Right. Retrofitting was in two phases. And basically most brick
buildings and other, un-reinforced masonry buildings had little ledges
on either side into which the floor joists and ceiling joists
nestled, but they weren’t connected. So if the building were to sway or
to undulate, it’s possible that, on either side or both sides
simultaneously, the floors or the ceilings could have just disengaged
and dropped straight down. So the first phase of earthquake retrofitting
was to bind the exterior walls to the floor and the ceiling joists. And
you would often see these little --
JB:
The stars.
PHE:
-- stars or triangles on the outside of the building. And what that was,
was a bolt from the outside and a triangle or star was, in effect, a
washer to prevent the bolt from breaking the brick underneath. And that
would be bolted through the wall and into the floor joist--the vertical
element that spanned the space and held the floor above it or the
ceiling below it. The second phase was to do subterranean steel
reinforcing. In essence, the building now--which is still, in large
part, the original brick building--on the inside of it, has a steel
I-beam box so that there’s an I-beam that’s maybe 24 inches tall, and,
on either side, maybe 20 inches wide. And it goes in a concrete bed
about six feet under the ground under the floor and then it’s attached
to two vertical I-beams which are in turn attached at the top of the
building to another horizontal I-beam. So you’ve got, like, ribs of a
ship in the building --
JB:
Or a cage.
PHE:
--or a cage holding up the brick walls. And then they’re all totally
locked into all the floors and ceilings. And there are other reinforcing
elements, so that the brick becomes less responsible for bearing the
weight of the building than does the steel. It almost becomes like a
curtain wall. And so that is pretty heavy-duty stuff that you have to
do. Every (city) has its building codes. And a building is valid until
such time as the codes change. And then it has to be upgraded (to
current standard). And so we moved (to the May Company) because it was a
balancing act where we thought, “Should we build a new building?”
JB:
Which you were planning to do at the time.
PHE:
Or “Should we retreat for a couple of years to the May Company, continue
our programming, raise the money to build the new building, or should we
stay there (on Wilshire) and retrofit?” I think we moved to the May
Company in ’86 or ’87 --
JB:
’89 actually. July of ’89.
PHE:
’89. OK, well, still prior to the move, the economy was really humming
along. And in ’89, late in the year, I guess it went into the tank. And
if we would have known there was going to be an economic downturn, we
probably would have stayed there. You know, and retrofitted. But we
didn’t.
JB:
But you couldn’t retrofit while we were in the building. We would have
had to move.
PHE:
No, we might have just closed down for a while or something, I don’t
know. I didn’t even think about that (possibility) because we were
optimistic, you know. And we raised several million dollars to . . .
(construct the new museum with Ratkovich).
JB:
Oh yes, well I was about to say that the reason that it’s confusing, I
believe, is because, at the same time that the city was pressuring us to
do the retrofitting, you were in the middle of a huge capital campaign
to build this building. And, in fact, it was--I don’t have it right here
in front of me, but, I believe--
PHE:
Who the developer was? Ratkovich?
JB:
The developer was (Wayne) Ratkovich. What I was trying to remember was
exactly when we had the big press conference with the cake the shape of
the model--
PHE:
Oh, the cake (with) Tom Bradley (and other dignitaries).
JB:
And I think it was just a few months before we moved to the May Company.
(The press conference to announce the plans for the Ratkovich 22-story
“Museum Tower,” attended by Mayor Bradley, Councilman John Ferarro,
General Manager of Cultural Affairs, Al Nodal, Richard Weinstein from
UCLA (who was at that point the chief designer), and other dignitaries,
happened on May 9, 1989.) So the public--
PHE:
And that’s because the buildings were going to be demolished. They were
going to be demolished to make way for the new building.
00:45:00
JB:
For the new building, see--so that’s why it becomes confusing
in people’s minds, because it seems as if we moved because we were going
to start building the new building. At least, as soon as we had the
money. (But we also had to move out of 5814 Wilshire because of pressure
from the City to retrofit.) There was a woman named Judith Teitelman,
who would, after Mark Gallon had done the initial development, (be our
Development Director; she was hired in 1988).
PHE:
Aaron Paley’s wife.
JB:
Yes, Judith and Aaron. Judith worked . . . as our first real paid
Development (Director), and really got this project underway--the
capital campaign. (At first she worked 30 hours a week and then
full-time.) And then Sue Sirkus was (hired to be the Development
Officer).
PHE:
Well actually we had an outside firm who ran the campaign. (Judith
Teitelman acted as a liaison to them.) And they — (Marts Lundy)--were a
big Midwestern company who ran that campaign. . . . And we had our own
guy assigned to us. . . . We did our own fundraising brochure, that
little oatmeal-colored deal, and we outlined our vision. (Sue Sirkus,
who was the Development Officer after Judith, oversaw the creation of
the capital campaign brochure and portfolio, both of which were designed
by (Tish O'Connor and Dana Levy of Perpetua Press). I remember I raised,
you know, $1,000,000 from one contributor, and we got another million
dollars from another.
JB:
Well Ahmanson, I think, gave $1,000,000 and maybe the Getty did also.
PHE:
They gave a half million.
JB:
Half a million. But there were a number of others--Lloyd Cotsen, I
think, also gave.
PHE:
He gave a million.
JB:
And it was a very complex project, the whole capital campaign. And that
brochure--
PHE:
And the problem--and there’s still a problem with it--because the
museum’s money (given by donors for the new museum)--rather than the
developer’s money--was used to pay for the entitlements and the
architectural development. And as long as the project was going forward,
that was fine, but when the project terminated because the developer
couldn’t get the money, the museum was left holding the bag, and it
irritated some of the donors.
JB:
(And the reason the donors thought the developer should have paid for
the entitlements was that) . . . those entitlements were for the
development as a whole, not just for the museum.
PHE:
You know, in retrospect, I would have managed it differently. I wasn’t
too involved in that management, but it was something that could have
been done maybe a little differently.
JB:
Well your job at that point was--it had (always) been complicated, but
it seems to me that it was incredibly complex at that (point in) time.
Even granting that we had a company overseeing the capital campaign, you
were still very personally involved with all of the funders.
PHE:
Right, and then we were also--at the same time--we retained a consultant
named Marcy Goodwin to work on the development of our program.
JB:
Yes, the building program.
PHE:
(Which), for those uninitiated people, is the wish list and
organizational conceptualization that one gives the architect, and from
which the architect develops a plan. And so that was another major
undertaking.
JB:
Oh, yes. I was actually quite involved with that.
PHE:
I remember you were.
JB:
Because I had talked to, among others, Eleanor Hartman, the librarian at
LACMA. And we even had a meeting. I think, maybe, you were at that
meeting. Pratap (Pratapaditya Pal, LACMA’s curator of Indian Art) came
to it and Eleanor and a couple of other people from LACMA (who had just
gone through a major renovation and addition with the architectural firm
of Hardy, Holzman, Pfeiffer Associates and (at the meeting they)
basically told their horror stories about not being able to work with
the architect that they had: really very bad practical consequences of
the architect either not having the information or being unwilling to
communicate with the staff. So that (developing our building program)
was another whole project in and of itself that was very complicated,
(and) . . . we interviewed--there was a committee, a board staff
committee--and we interviewed several prospective planners or
consultants to work with us to develop the building program (before
finally hiring Marcy Goodwin). But it was a very exciting time.
00:50:00
PHE:
This is a point of reference. In my approach to management, I always
tried to be inclusive,
to make sure that the staff and the board and appropriate other people
were involved in decisions.
JB:
And that’s hard work to do.
PHE:
It is hard work, but in the end, you know, it pays off, I think. But we
were also dealing with a few acts of God or acts of government that were
beyond our control.
JB:
Oh, God, yes. Well, let’s move onto the May Company. We (the staff)
actually (did not get . . . into the May Company until the summer of
1990, but in the) . . . fall (of 1989 we) opened the first show which—
PHE:
It was of our permanent collection, I believe. (The CAFAM gallery at the
May Company opened that fall with a show drawn from CAFAM's permanent
collection, "Hands On! Objects Crafted in Our Time" (opened November 21,
1989), but when the 5814 Wilshire building was closed at the end of June
1989, the staff offices were moved into the Duplex and the staff did not
move to the May Company until June of the following year, 1990.)
JB:
Yes, and Laurie Beth Kalb had been hired by that time, as, I guess, the
first permanent curator. And she had a folklore background—. . . (With)
a special interest in folk art.
PHE:
Right, from the University of Pennsylvania, I think, (where she had
studied with the famous folklorist, Henry Glassie).
JB:
She was (also) fairly knowledgeable about contemporary craft. I mean,
considering that she was a folklorist. I was impressed by her--at least
she was a fairly fast learner, let’s put it that way. So she organized
that (first) exhibition (at the May Company). Let’s talk a little bit
about how we all fit into the May Company. You want to just describe the
different--where we all fit, physically, in the May Company?
PHE:
Well, we occupied at least two floors and had access to the basement
where there was a shop.
JB:
A building (or carpentry) shop.
PHE:
Yeah, a building shop. We had a gallery, I think, on the third floor or
the fourth floor. I forget which.
JB:
The fourth floor.
PHE:
The fourth floor. And my orientation--you know, we talked about John
Browse and Edith being (specialists in) folk art, and Laurie Beth Kalb
(also in) folk art and (Ann) Robbins and (Shan Emanuelli) being
(oriented more) toward the contemporary crafts. I was more toward the
design (area), and tried to, on many occasions and in many
presentations, make the argument that there was a continuum of the
relationship between the various art forms depending on where one
happened to find oneself in the world. And (as we discussed earlier,
design is) a--you know, industrial level of . . . development. But I
tried to always make sure that we had good designers for things. And the
entryway to the gallery in the May Company on the fourth floor was
designed by (the firm of) Charles Moore, who was one of the great
20th-century architects . . . of the postmodern movement. Taught at
Yale, taught at UCLA, designed some of the buildings at UC-Santa Cruz
early on.
JB:
He had been involved with that (citywide) vernacular architecture
project (“Home Sweet Home’).
PHE:
Yes, he had been a curator with Gere Kavanaugh on that (project). And
(it was his involvement with that project) that brought in a lot of blue
chip architects and designers, too, (as presenters at the symposium at
UCLA, produced in conjunction with "Home Sweet Home.") And so, even
though, as some said, we grew out of the (May Company's) lingerie
section, we were--
JB:
It was actually their (former) furniture department (that was where the
CAFAM gallery was placed), which was a good space, because it had that
lovely wooden floor already.
PHE:
Right. And we refinished it and we did that whole thing.
JB:
And (the designer), Joseph Terrell, I think--
PHE:
He did the lighting and the first installation, and that’s where . . .
Carol Fulton, now Carol--
JB:
I don’t remember (her married name), but yes.
PHE:
She got her start (as CAFAM's designer). So many people, by the way,
have peeled off of the museum to create their own businesses: Susan
Skinner, Aaron Paley, Katie Bergin, Carol Fulton. Many people did that.
JB:
I think that’s a sign of a healthy organization . . . They were
inspired.
PHE:
Yeah, (and) they moved on. Anyway, so we had our display space on the
fourth floor, and our offices up (on the fifth floor) on the same level
as the roof, I believe--as the Tea Room, but separated from it. We
couldn’t walk around the corner on the roof to get to it. We had to go
through the door.
JB:
But we had access to the roof itself, which was kind of nice for
(parties).
00:55:00
PHE:
And Jim Watterson, who was the president of the May Company Foundation
here in Southern California, was like our godfather, and he made sure
that we got everything we needed. We got, basically, room and board and
a generous
stipend to boot. I mean, in addition to the space, they gave us a couple
hundred thousand dollars each year for our programming. So it was a very
nice deal.
JB:
It was really a great deal. And I wanted to ask--I’m glad you mentioned
him--how did that connection (come about)? I don’t remember hearing or
seeing anything about Jim Watterson until we got (into the May Company).
PHE:
It was cultivated (and became a very long-standing friendship).
JB:
OK. PHE . . . I worked with him on a couple of projects and he liked
what we were doing. He knew other people in the organization. . . . We
sought that resolution. I sought that resolution. And had many, many
meetings at the main May Company offices out . . . in Laurel Canyon in
the Valley. And so I had to go out there all the time. You know, they
underwrote exhibitions. They gave us grants. And it worked over a two-
or three-year period.
JB:
Apparently, they had underwritten at least a couple of the Festivals of
Masks previously.
PHE:
Right, and they were . . . (already on our side). And that landmark
building was sort of a dinosaur to them. And so (our presence there) was
a way to, you know (enhance their space) --it was not pure altruism.
They thought that it would increase traffic to the store and increase
sales. And, now, of course, LACMA’s there, and LACMA’s got quite a large
presence there on the corner.
JB:
Oh, they really have taken over the whole thing. You know that the
(CAFAM) library collection is (now) there on the third floor. And that’s
probably a better space for it. Well, actually, it’s probably going to
be dismantled now--just temporarily, because they’re going to build out
that building. Unless the current recession interferes with that.
PHE:
All in all, it (our residence at the May Company) was a pretty sweet
deal given the knowledge we had at the time. As I said earlier, had we
known there was going to be a recession, maybe we would have gone there
for (just) one year, and retrofitted the building--which we ultimately
did--but maybe we would have tried to buy the building on the corner,
because, you know, we lost that building on the corner by (a mere)
$25,000 because they were just nickel- and dime-ing. The (trustees in
charge of the building program—and, indeed, the Ratkovich people) . . .
I think, should have been more aggressive in buying the building.
Because, ultimately, the rent that we had to pay, subsequently, was just
strangling, you know.
JB:
$17,500 a month.
PHE:
It was outrageous. If they would have paid $300,000-400,000 more at the
beginning and financed it, the rent would have been ($4,000-5,000) a
month to pay off the mortgage.
JB:
Well, I really do want to get into that, because that’s a whole other
very complicated, kind of baroque--I think--story.
PHE:
Yes, there were decisions that were made and opportunities that were
lost on several occasions. And people did what they thought was best at
the time. And then that was it. I’m not faulting anybody. I’m just
telling you.
JB:
No, I really want to talk about that. I’d just like to finish up about
the May Company (first). Because we were there for three and a half
years, and the library was on the mezzanine. PHE . . . Yeah . . . it was
on the mezzanine. How did you like it?
JB:
Well, I liked it a lot. And Michelle Arens, who worked with me, and who
I was able to interview a few months ago, confirmed that it was really a
very good space from a practical point of view.
PHE:
Yep, I remember. Forgive me for not mentioning it earlier.
01:00:00
JB:
Oh, that’s OK. I just wanted to mention that because that was kind of an
interesting space to be in. Because being on the mezzanine--it was the
same level as the May Company administrative offices, and the personnel
office. Almost everyone that had business to do with the May Company
managers had to pass by my office, which was right there. And it was
really interesting and actually very sad when the May Company
Corporation decided to close down the building, and we had to leave. And
I
had to overhear some of the very sad conversations, because there were
May Company employees--
PHE:
Lifers.
JB:
--who had worked there for thirty years or more. I would like to talk a
little bit about this—really--schism between the experience that I think
most of the staff had when we were there, and the knowledge that we had
that--you know--this was a great deal--considering our circumstances, it
was a great deal. And the spaces worked very well. And there were
problems, because the May Company employees never really did understand
what we were all about. And people would come in to visit the museum and
be misdirected and so on, but, nevertheless, I have found, still, in
interviewing people (now) and talking with them at the time—(there are)
board members and other members of the museum who did not have a
positive impression of the May Company situation. And it’s always
bothered me, you know, just seeing the difference in point of view.
PHE:
I think people misunderstood it. I think (many) people were lackluster
in their enthusiasm about it. (But) I remember Bob Ahmanson . . . who
gave us $1,000,000 subsequently--he loved it. (The donation came from
the Ahmanson Foundation.) He said, “This is fabulous. Why do you even
need a new building? This is fabulous, you know.”
JB:
The Japanese have had museums in (department stores for many years).
PHE:
Oh, the top of the Petersen Museum (building), when it was a Seibu
(department store), used to have a museum and a gallery in it. You know,
on the (southeast) corner of Wilshire and Fairfax. But it was a little
bit ahead of its time, or behind its time . . . . My own opinion is that
The Egg and The Eye (Gallery) and the Craft and Folk Art Museum were . .
. (perceived as being) top drawer . . . (with some) snob appeal, (albeit
with the more populist) Festival of Masks and other public programs. And
I think that the perception of the May Company--and that was before it
was Robinson-May, I believe--was that it was sort of déclassé. I
remember Mike Kaiser saying that . . . (the name of the "May Company
Budget Store"—which was in a separate building next door to the
department store--was redundant). . . . . He said that the whole thing
(the whole May Company store) was a budget store. And that was his take
on it. And I remember people saying, “Oh, we’re going to die. The museum
will die a slow death behind the lingerie.” You know, "lost in the
lingerie." And even people like Aaron Paley were down on it. I guess
most people who were down on it came off somewhere around the idea that
the institution was "making do" instead of leading, and being reactive
instead of proactive.
JB:
Well, I wish some of those people had--
PHE:
I . . . thought it was a very enlightened move, myself.
JB:
I agree with you. And I enjoyed it a great deal, in spite of, you know,
these problems. And I just wish that some of those people (who objected)
had been willing to give us a deal like that!
PHE:
It was very nice. And after we opened in the new space on Wilshire,
subsequent to the May Company, and I don’t know, was that in the ‘90s
then?
01:05:00
JB:
We were in the May
Company (from July 1989) until the end of '92. They announced the
closure in November, and we had to be out by the end of the year.
PHE:
Yes. But those first years after we moved in . . .
JB:
To the May Company?
PHE:
No, to 5814 again.
JB:
(We moved) to 5800--the corner building—(in January1993 while the
renovation work on 5814 was going on and then, when the 5814 renovation
was done--in May1995--the two buildings had been merged
architecturally). PHE . . . Post-Hodgetts + Fung--before I left the
museum (that last year (1995-96) was) all in balance in terms of the
budget. We had a modest surplus. . . . We were not running at a deficit.
We had started to gain our support base back . . . subsequent to (being
at) the May Company. And after I left, things started to
deteriorate--and, for a variety of reasons, not only financial, but
health reasons of some of the principals. That’s when they decided to
close the building and close the museum. (The Hodgetts + Fung-renovated
museum reopened in May 1995; PHE resigned in June 1996; the museum
closed one a half years later at the end of 1997.)
JB:
Right, well we certainly want to get to that. Let’s talk about the
interim period, from the time that we moved out of the May Company (at
the end of 1992). The decision was made (to lease the 5800 Wilshire
building), and I’d really like you to talk about this, because I was not
privy to everything that was going on. As a staff member, I learned only
a little bit.
PHE:
Are you saying of the period where we occupied the corner building while
the other building was being rehabbed?
JB:
Yes, exactly.
PHE:
And then we rehabbed the corner building.
JB:
Yes, it was two and a half . . . years (January 1993 – May 1995) before
we were able to occupy the new merged space designed by Hodgetts + Fung.
And I guess what I’d like you to talk about is--you started to talk
about the . . . attempts to purchase the corner building (at 5800
Wilshire). That building, of course, was part of the original deal for
the Ratkovich development. It (and the 5814 Wilshire building) would
have been torn down if that development had (moved forward).
PHE:
Right, and during the (negotiations for that) development, right around
Christmastime (1992), we tried and tried and tried to buy it from
Thrifty Oil, which owned it. . . . . But I remember Ratkovich and Frank
Wyle were negotiating on the opposite team from . . . Roy Ventress (and
his team). And (Ventress's team) won . . . (with a bid) in the range of
like $1.3 million. It was not that much. And they won by $25,000, and
for some reason, we didn’t (stay in the bidding). We should have just
sort of done a pre-emptive bid, in my opinion. Because I remember one of
the arguments was, we should rent the other building and remodel--I
remember, Thomas Rupert, who was on the board at the time, and a real
estate guy--commercial real estate--he thought that we should rent the
building and remodel the other one and then--
JB:
Rent the 5814 building?
PHE:
No, the corner building. Because we owned the 5814 building.
JB:
I thought you meant rent it out to someone else.
PHE:
No, no. I’m sorry. Rent (the corner building—5800 Wilshire). And so,
ultimately, that’s what we did, but I was always afraid of that big rent
number, you know. It was really, really disproportionate. I remember the
catchphrase at the time was “We’ll be back on the street,” as opposed to
on the third floor of the May Company--or the fourth floor.
01:10:00
JB:
Yes, and the other catchphrase that I kept hearing, that the staff kept
hearing, was (the 5800 building) was "leased with an option to buy." And
I know we all assumed that the 5800 building was going to be purchased
in order for us to occupy this merged plan that Hodgetts + Fung were
designing. For one thing, the plan included this lovely courtyard, which
was created out of what had been our small but still serviceable parking
lot between the two buildings. And the 5800 building
had this enormous parking lot out in back, which was included in the
deal. So it made a big difference, not only in terms of the use of the
Hodgetts + Fung plan, when we lost that building, but it also made a
difference in our parking.
PHE:
I honestly don’t remember there was an option to buy, but I didn’t
negotiate the lease, so I don’t know.
JB:
Well that’s what we were told, and it does appear in some of the
documents that I’ve seen, but I didn’t know what that meant.
PHE:
At one time, that building could have been bought for $325,000, you
know.
JB:
Oh, yes. Back in the late ‘70s.
PHE:
It was just unfortunately something that was--there was a lack of vision
on that particular issue.
JB:
Yes, I have to say that I did not have the impression that Frank Wyle
was terribly enthusiastic about going after that building, and I always
wondered--
PHE:
Yes, and I think if he had been, he would have gotten it. But that’s the
hand we were dealt. And we leased it with an option to buy, I guess, and
we did some minor renovations to (the 5800 Wilshire building), so that
it would be suitable to our purposes. . . . But I don’t remember
(exactly how it was laid out). I remember (some) offices (including) the
Festival of Masks were on the bottom floor. And some offices were along
the front in the top (second) floor. And I know that the library was on
the second floor in the final configuration. But I don’t know if it was
always there.
JB:
Yes, it was. In fact, it was the first department to move into that
building. And I ended up really working quite directly with Van
Holland’s company, the construction (crew for the remodel). I guess they
were related to the Van Holland who was on the board, is that right?
There was a Van Holland who was on the board.
PHE:
No, no, no.
JB:
No they were not related?
PHE:
The contractor’s name was Marvin Van Holland. The other guy . . . was a
controller for Wyle laboratories, whose name was Van, and his last name
was Holland.
JB:
Oh, that’s interesting. I made a false assumption there. So anyway,
Marvin Van Holland was on the job. I guess he had done some work for
Frank Wyle, and he and his crew ended up more or less camping out, at
least during the week. They were from Riverside. So rather than go back
and forth, they (brought in an RV and slept on the construction site
during the week).
PHE:
Right. And one thing that we haven’t addressed is that we had a very
interesting selection process for the architects before we settled on
Hodgetts + Fung. . . . Antoine Predock was considered, Barton Myers,
Barton Phelps, Frederick Fisher, and Hodgetts + Fung, all of whom were
top, top-drawer architects. We settled on Hodgetts + Fung, and I think
they did a very credible plan, you know. It was a little clunky, I
think, in retrospect. The building was a little funky.
JB:
Well, it worked beautifully with the 5800 building.
PHE:
Yes, and they integrated them very nicely. But I don’t know if it
ultimately functioned as they had hoped. They had this sort of
reflecting--not a reflecting pool, but a . . . (concrete box) with an
I-beam --
JB:
The water feature, yes.
PHE:
The water feature. Water features are always problematic.
JB:
I had the impression, actually, that it was kind of added at the last
minute. And the engineering was not as good as it should have been. It
was beautiful when it worked.
PHE:
That building--that whole area’s geologically active, and it’s actually
situated above a subterranean tar flow, and there are active--
JB:
Yes, remember the elevator (in the corner building) that always smelled
of tar?
01:15:00
PHE:
Yes, tar and methane, and they never took into consideration
the fact that all that stuff would come bubbling up.
JB:
Oh, it did.
PHE:
And it did (come up) through that nice patio, you know. But all of those
things . . . as successful as they were, they were plagued by a series
of missteps. And I think we made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear (the
"sow's ear" being the 5800 building and the parking lot). I think (. . .
Hodgetts + Fung) did a good job. I do think it was a little funky, but I
think it was a great job. I respect them tremendously as architects. You
know, I think they’re wonderful people and wonderful architects. . . .
JB:
Yeah, well the whole idea that this building on the corner, which was
(an integral) part of the plan, was not actually owned yet!
PHE:
Yes, I mean, I wouldn’t have done it quite that way.
JB:
Now, I just want to mention, since the earthquake retrofitting did
happen before the remodeling started that, on January 17th, Martin
Luther King’s birthday of 1994, we had a 6.7 earthquake. And luckily,
the (retrofitting) work had been done before that earthquake happened.
What was your experience of the earthquake? I mean, it was the first
time that I ever really thought I was going to die. (Beny and I) were in
Santa Monica. You were in--
PHE:
Studio City. It was a pretty good shake. It cracked the floor of our
home. Bricks fell out of our fireplace.
JB:
It was early in the morning. (The quake occurred at 4:30:55 am.)
PHE:
Yes, I remember my youngest son, Spencer, came running through, and I’m
sure, you know, he could have been hit by a brick, you know, (but) he
wasn’t, (thank goodness). But they were scared. That was a good jolt.
JB:
It was a very big jolt. In Santa Monica, and also up where my son lived
(in Santa Clarita).
PHE:
That (was) the Northridge Quake. (It was centered in the north-central
San Fernando Valley; it had a duration of 10 – 20 seconds and "ground
acceleration that was the highest ever instrumentally recorded in an
urban area in North America." --Wikipedia)
JB:
All of the staff came back to the building the next day wondering what
might have happened (to the building or the furnishings). (The
Northridge quake happened before the Museum reopened to the public; the
work was not completed on the 5814 building, so CAFAM facilities were
only in the 5800 building at the time.) And I was amazed to find that,
except for one bookcase that had not been tied into the wall, nothing
was damaged in the library. . . . So that was a happy thing. (Now I
would like to mention that, at about that time in 1994, during the
Primavera Ball, which we had continued to have every year--it was a--
PHE:
--a fundraising ball.
JB:
Right. I found a speech that you read during that ball. And you said,
“Our goal is to raise $8.5 million for the purposes of building and
furnishing the museum, acquiring adjacent real estate through exercising
our option --“
PHE:
OK. Well then there was an option.
JB:
“And establishing an endowment.” And you went on to say that, of the
$8.5 million, we have raised approximately half. So that was pretty
impressive. Now, about that time, Sue Sirkus, who had been the
development officer, resigned. And Kim Litsey was hired (to take her
place). And I don’t remember exactly when the actual building began to
take shape--the Hodgetts + Fung building--but it wasn’t too long after
that. But (in 1995) we planned this gala. We called it a “Homecoming.”
Because that’s what it felt like.
PHE:
Yes, and it was a good event. It was a very nice event. I remember it.
That was held in the parking lot of the corner building.
01:20:00
JB:
Yes. A big tent. So that was in May of 1995. And that served as the
annual fundraiser. We didn’t call it the Primavera. But that whole
weekend was quite amazing. The dinner dance was on Friday night. Well,
it wasn’t a dance, but the gala opening and dinner. And it seemed like
everybody was there, everybody who had ever had anything to do with the
museum.
PHE:
I remember a lot of people came, even antagonistic support groups.
JB:
Wouldn’t like to mention any names?
PHE:
No, no, I wouldn’t. But people who both believed in the museum and put
their money behind those beliefs, but (also people who) were at polar
opposites of the political spectrum.
JB:
Oh. Well, from a staff point of view, it really did feel wonderful. It
had been such a long time. We had been looking forward to (the
completion of our home).
PHE:
(We had been) wandering in the wilderness.
JB:
Yes. And I think I mentioned to you last time that, in terms of the
abandonment of the Ratkovich plan, the staff kind of was relieved, in a
way, to not have to be concerned about the much larger staff and
security that that would have entailed. And the Hodgetts + Fung plan
just seemed so much more practical. You know, as you say, maybe it was a
little funky, but it worked with the 5800 building. We had another
gallery.
PHE:
I think the key to (the failure of) that plan was the (non)-ownership of
the building, and I think that was a mistake not to acquire the
building. I really do. I think that was one of the major problems.
JB:
Yeah, that was sad. But that hadn’t really--
PHE:
Played out yet.
JB:
--played out. Well, I guess you should tell that story, because I’m not
sure of the timing.
PHE:
Well, it’s not all that long after this timeline of yours that I hung up
my spurs and rode off into the sunset.
JB:
Right, yes, (you resigned) about a year later (in June 1996), after the
reopening.
PHE:
Right, and I don’t know if that had finally played out prior to my
departure or not, but I know that I had felt it was important to get
that building. And I had been, by that time, with the museum for 21
years, and I wanted to try out some other things.
JB:
Yes, well there were several minutes of board meetings that are in the
archives where you made very definite statements that “You must buy the
5800 building. We have to have that.” But you were around when the final
negotiations attempting to buy the building happened.
PHE:
I was? . . . . I don’t know. I mean, that is not ascendant in my mind at
this time. I can’t remember in my mind’s eye looking at this meeting. I
can’t visualize it. (Actually, the "final effort" to buy 5800 Wilshire
took place around May 1997; Patrick had resigned a year earlier.)
JB:
Well, I’m not clear about exactly when it became final. I remember one
time . . . when Frank and Edith came into the building. We were still
there in the 5800 building. They had been to a meeting, and I remember
Frank saying to me, “He wouldn’t accept it, he wouldn’t accept it.”
Frank had made Ventress what I guess was a final offer. And Ventress was
just incredibly hard-nosed about it. And I always wondered why Ventress
wasn’t more accommodating. I mean, of course it was a business deal, but
he just seemed as if there (was perhaps some personal issue).
PHE:
Yeah, he was very wily. Not to use a pun. He was from New Orleans, I
believe, Cajun background. And he was in partnership with Lena Longo,
who was the widow of (the guy who had owned) LongoToyota.
JB:
Were they related? Ventress and Longo?
01:25:00
PHE:
No. Roy Ventress’s wife is Italian. And Longo is Italian, and they were
very much involved in things Italian. They were just business partners.
And, you know, I think he could have been more accommodating than he
was, I agree.
JB:
And they were involved with some of the museum activities for a couple
of years.
PHE:
Yes. But (in the negotiations) he didn’t give an inch. And I guess in
the bigger picture, the way (the Wyles) looked at it, it wasn’t worth
going more. But that would have then been the third occasion where they
hadn’t gone for it.
JB:
There were several other offers before.
PHE:
The building was offered to the museum in the ‘70s for $350,000. It was
offered for a little more than $1.3 million in the Ratkovich plan, and
subsequently, I don’t know, maybe it had gone up to $3,000,000, I don’t
know.
JB:
No, I think $2.3 million was the highest.
PHE:
That Frank would not go above?
JB:
Well I don’t think Frank wanted to go to $2.3. $2.3, I believe, was
Ventress’s asking price. And for some reason, Frank didn’t want to go
that high. He had gotten a lot of advice, apparently, that the building
was not worth $2.3 million, so he was hesitant.
PHE:
Well, when you’re doing appraising, there are three approaches to value.
There is a market comparison approach, the cost approach, and the income
approach, which is typically used in commercial real estate. And the
value of a property is predicated on how much income you get from it on
an annual basis. So it’s a multiple of your income. And if you’re making
. . . $200,000 a year in rent, which is what they were getting from the
museum, you multiply that times 12, that’s $2.4 million. And that’s the
asking price of the building. If you get it for $2.2--I mean, the
multiple can be anywhere from 10 to 20, depending on where the property
is. And, you know, using a traditional commercial real estate evaluation
based on the income approach, maybe Ventress wasn’t that far off in what
he was asking. I don’t know. But anyway, all those things . . . were at
play, I guess, in my decision to move on. I always thought it was like
being a priest or a minister or a rabbi or a college president or
something, where you were the skinny part of an hourglass, where you had
all these people above you wanting things, and telling you their
opinions, and all these people below you, and all these people sort of
at the same level, or close to the same level, and everything had to go
through you. Up and down, up and down.
JB:
It was too much.
PHE:
Well, it wasn’t too much; it’s just that there was a cyclical nature to
it, a repetitive nature to it. And that was good and motivating against
a backdrop of planning and realizing a vision of some type of a
permanent home with a collection and with publications and, you know, a
legitimate, bona fide museum. But once that got truncated, then it
became more . . . (a matter of) just completing the annual cycle. You
know, if you don’t have the space, how do you grow the library? If you
don’t have the space, how do you grow the collection? How do you grow
the publications and the footprint of the museum, the historical
footprint of what it can accomplish? So, in a truncated state, despite
all the best efforts to try and keep it going, you know--
JB:
It must have been very tiring. Very wearying.
1:30:00
PHE:
Well, it was. But it was also exhilarating. And as I also said earlier,
the last two fiscal years--one of the things I did was change the fiscal
year from a calendar year to one that began, like many governments do,
on July 1st and ended on June 30th, because the bulk of our money
always came in the final quarter.
JB:
Sure, Christmas. Holidays. (For tax purposes, people want to wait until
just before the end of the year to make their donations.)
PHE:
Yes, and if your money comes in the middle of the year, you can better
plan for the rest of the year, whereas before it was always at the end
of our year. And so we were always scrambling. But my memory is, and I’m
pretty sure it would be borne out by the financial documents, that we
completed those last couple of years I was there in balance, even with
that big nut of renting the space.
JB:
Well that must have felt good.
PHE:
That was a good accomplishment. I felt good about that. And I thought
our program quality was good and high.
JB:
Well, is there anything else you’d like to say about that last year or
last few months before you resigned?
PHE:
You know, that I hoped that I had left it in better shape than I found
it. And I think I did. I think I did a lot of things that people never
necessarily knew I did, or needed to know. . . , but I was involved in
very, very many things, and facilitated their happening. So I felt good
about the quality of the work that I did. And I think I was very
involved in directing the board. And I had more of a partnership with
the board than being sort of a subordinate to the board, even though,
technically, I served at their pleasure. And I was pretty proactive, I
think. And many board members acknowledged that.
JB:
Yes, and just your longevity there, of course, as well as the longevity
of some of the board members. They must have been aware of what you had
accomplished. And I have to say, after looking through the archives, the
files, of everything that went on, it’s quite amazing to me, that you
were able to balance all of those things. I don’t think that most board
members, let alone staff members, realized how many different aspects
there were to the museum. We did realize that we were stretched a lot of
the time. We were (all) really scrambling. But you know, you look at
other museums, talk to other museum staff, and everyone has the same
complaint, related primarily to needing to get financial support for
everything that one does. Very few museums have endowments that actually
support basic operations.
PHE:
I remember having to hustle on more than one occasion to make sure
everybody got paid on time. And that was one of my great preoccupations
on a semi-monthly basis.
JB:
Yes, and you also worked to get a retirement plan going.
PHE:
Even though it wasn’t always implemented as it should have been. But I
tried a lot of things, and I just think that the board, for a major
city, I think somehow, we never got as much money as we should have
gotten, or we had every right to expect that we would have gotten--given
the fact that we’re in L.A. I mean, if we were in Riverside or
Porterville or somewhere, I can see it, but you know, this is like the
Big Orange, or whatever they call it. I think that we were hampered by a
lack of commitment and success in major fundraising.
01:35:00
JB:
Now some people have said, on more than one occasion, that as generous
as Frank Wyle was--and Edith Wyle were--that, in some respects, the fact
that they were willing to give every year so much
was actually discouraging to some other board members.
PHE:
I can see that argument, and I’ve heard that argument, but when we were
affiliated with, or supported by Tosco, the oil shale corporation, and
Mort Winston was our primary benefactor at the time, the Wyles gave just
as much as they ever did, but relatively, that amount was less then,
proportionally, you know. And the Wyle money, after Wyle Laboratories
was sold, changed quite a bit and diminished.
JB:
OK. I know we’re running a little short on time, and you need to get on
the freeway, but your life at CAFAM did not end forever in May or June
of 1996. I don’t know that we really need to get into the history of the
museum in between, but what I’d like to do is skip . . . (ahead almost
two years), I think it was, to when the board decided to--the museum had
closed at the end of 1997. And then, in just a few months after that,
March 26th, 1998, they had decided to sell the permanent collection in
order to raise money.
PHE:
To pay off their debts.
JB:
To pay off their debts. And so there was an auction. And I think you
said that you did come to that auction.
PHE:
I did. I thought it was very sad. I think the whole thing was very sad.
I think it’s important to note that there were four long-time financial
supporters of the museum, like (Lloyd) Cotsen, and Frank and Edith Wyle,
(and) Dan Greenberg, and (then) Frank had a heart attack, Edith got
cancer, Lloyd got something, Dan had other--I mean, he was the president
of Reed College, and I don’t know what else. And all those glass
collectors, Sonny Kamm and Dan Greenberg, a lot of others, in that
earthquake you mentioned, they just were devastated--a lot of their
holdings were broken. Anyway, the core support group for the museum
became infirm. And Edith subsequently passed away of her illness. (Edith
Wyle passed away on October 12, 1999.)
JB:
I just want to say, it occurred to me that, during that time when the
board and Frank were trying to buy the museum there at the end, Edith
was already ill at that time, and I would imagine--
PHE:
Buy what museum? You mean the corner building?
JB:
Yes. I’m sorry, I misspoke--when they were trying to buy the 5800
building. You know, we were talking about maybe Frank’s not having a
huge amount of enthusiasm, and I could imagine that some of that was
because of Edith’s illness at that time.
PHE:
Yeah, could be.
JB:
So, at any rate, the auction happened, it was sad, I was there. It
seemed more like a wake to me--
PHE:
Yes, to me too. I was there. And of course, it also, in some quarters,
turned the museum into a pariah. What kind of institution would sell its
permanent collection? The archive was given to UCLA. The library was
given to LACMA. And there were discussions about merging with LACMA
prior to my departure.
JB:
Yes, that’s right.
PHE:
I met with Andrea Rich. I remember having lunch with her in her office.
Anyway.
01:40:00
JB:
Yes, when I went over there to work (in September 1997), the day after
my first day at the LACMA Research Library, at that time, the merging
was going ahead, and a day later, it was announced that
Frank Wyle had pulled out of the deal.
PHE:
Well, and LACMA was--they were driving a pretty hard bargain. They were
going to basically reduce the museum to a plaque on Wilshire Boulevard
that said, “Here lies the Craft and Folk Art Museum.”
JB:
I know that’s what Edith feared.
PHE:
So, at any rate, going forward--I read in the paper that the museum was
closing. I didn’t know it was closing.
JB:
Oh, you didn’t.
PHE:
I was long since disassociated.
JB:
Yeah, but you were occasionally in touch with the Wyles, weren’t you?
PHE:
Oh, I was in touch with the Wyles, but I was disassociated from the
museum. And I guess the point being that I was a private citizen. I was
in no official capacity--neither a staff member nor board member nor
consultant. And I thought--that (the museum closing) didn’t seem right,
even hampered as it was from having sold its collection. And so I had
been part of some of the (preliminary) discussions with LACMA. And I
knew that the City of Los Angeles (Cultural Affairs Department) lacked a
Westside presence . . . even though (CAFAM is) mid-Wilshire--to most of
L.A., it’s more on the Westside than anything (the Cultural Affairs
Department) had. I think the farthest west they were was on Adams or
maybe the Municipal Art Gallery. So, I called up Al Nodal, who was my
friend.
JB:
Yes, you had known him for a long time.
PHE:
Long time. And head of the--
JB:
(City of L.A.) Cultural Affairs.
PHE:
--Cultural Affairs department, the (General) Manager. And I invited him
to have lunch. And we just talked, and I said, “What do you think about
taking over the museum?” And he would say, “It’s a shame, you know, that
it would close,” and he just asked me how it would work, and I told him
how it would work, at least one way. He said it sounded interesting. So
I basically got the City to agree, in principal, to take over in a
joint, private-public partnership. Not take over, but go into a
partnership with the board to run the museum. And I had that in my
pocket, basically, and there was a (planned) board meeting, and I guess
it was one of the final board meetings. And I called up Frank, and I
asked him if I could address the board with an idea. And I hadn’t told
the Wyles about it beforehand. And so I told them, and they were sort of
interested. I mean, they were sort of shocked, and I think, pleased. And
(at) that board meeting (they) agreed to consider my plan. And then one
thing led to another, and I negotiated the agreement. It was a ten-year
agreement.
JB:
Do you remember the deal points?
PHE:
Terms? Well basically, it was that a lot of the operational costs--the
security, the utilities, part of the staffing--would be paid for by the
city, and there would be some grant monies in it. The board would be
responsible for running the programmatic aspect of it.
JB:
The exhibitions.
01:45:00
PHE:
Exhibitions. There could be a shop. There would be this and that. I
mean, there were lots of provisions. But the bulk of it was that the
operational costs would be borne by the city. And it would be an arts
center of the Cultural Affairs Department. The Municipal Art Gallery is
a (city) arts center. The Banning Museum is an (L.A.) art center . . .
And so, part of the City’s acceptance of the deal was that I would be
made the chairman of the Board of Directors. And I couldn’t afford to do
that as a private citizen. Because I was a consultant. I mean, I made my
money doing work for people. And so they offered me the chairmanship,
the board did, and
I said, “That’s nice, I can’t do it unless you pay me.” And so they paid
me, not a lot, but they paid me. And, in that capacity, I oversaw the
re-emergence of the museum. And the first . . . director--was Joan de
Bruin.
JB:
And she had worked in the Cultural Affairs Department.
PHE:
Yes, she did. And so, (after) a while, I don’t know, she became ill and
decided to retire or something.
JB:
Yeah, she was there for several years. (Joan de Bruin was appointed
CAFAM Director in February 1999 and she resigned in April 2001.) I was
going to ask you when--and you continued as chairman of the board during
that whole time.
PHE:
Yes, as chairman. I think I was chairman for two or three years. (Ela
was board chair from January 1999 – April 2002.) And then she was
leaving, and she counseled me to get a director from the outside. And
during the time between when Joan left and the new director came in, I
was retained by the City to be the acting or interim director of the
(CAFAM) art facility, the art center. So (for one year) I was
simultaneously the paid consultant to the board acting as chairman and
the director. So I was like a Chief Executive Officer, basically.
JB:
That was a really unusual situation.
PHE:
It was an unusual situation.
JB:
So you oversaw the process--the search process?
PHE:
I oversaw the programs for one year in my capacity as director. And I
oversaw the fundraising and the board committees. I ran the board a lot
differently than Frank did, by the way.
JB:
Well tell us about that.
PHE:
Well, I respect the way he did. He came from a more corporate
perspective, and I came from a more collegial perspective.
JB:
And more of a programmatic perspective.
PHE:
Programmatic. And I would invite a lot of discussion at board meetings.
Both ways are valid. But at any rate--
JB:
Your way sounds a lot more interesting.
PHE:
Well, it was interesting. I mean, Frank’s was interesting, too. And
then, I got involved, toward the end, with the selection of the new
director. And I wasn’t particularly enamored of the choice of the
selection committee.
JB:
You were, or you weren’t?
PHE:
I was not.
JB:
This was Peter Tokovsky.
PHE:
This is Peter Tokovsky, yes. And upon his appointment, I told Frank that
I had already been here 21 years, and now I’d added another four or five
years, and, given that I might not be seeing eye-to-eye with the new
director, I certainly shouldn’t be the chairman of the board, and I
probably should get off the board. And so then I rode off into the
sunset a second time.
JB:
And Frank, then, resumed the chairmanship.
PHE:
He resumed the chairmanship. So that’s the end of my story, although, I
was on the board for a little longer, and then they got another director
. . . The next director, I helped select was Jim Goodwin, and I was very
happy and very involved. And (then when) his successor (was hired),
that’s when I finally demurred. She who shall not be named. (Laughter)
(Patrick resigned as Interim Board Chair--while remaining on the
board--when the board began its search for a new director in April 2002;
he oversaw the exhibition programs as Interim Director until Tokovsky
was hired at the end of 2002; Patrick remained on the board until July
1, 2005.)
JB:
Well, you certainly did yeoman service in several areas. And I think,
one of the best things that you did was to rescue the museum before
Edith died. I get emotional just thinking about it.
PHE:
I felt really good about that for her. I did, too . . . and they named a
square after her. And Al Nodal did that, by the way.
JB:
I wanted you to tell about (that).
01:50:00
PHE:
Well, he was aware that she was in failing health, and he respected her
tremendously. And we talked about it. And he said, I’m going to get the
city council to dedicate that corner to Edith Wyle, officially. And I
mean, (Alexander) Sokurov and some of these other great Russians and
great people all over the world get squares named after them. And so
Edith got it--right
on Wilshire Boulevard (on the corner of Stanley Avenue and Wilshire).
And I think she was really happy that the museum was saved.
JB:
Oh yes. She had died by the time the Edith Wyle Square was named, but
all of the Wyle family came for that occasion. Beny and I were there.
PHE:
Yeah--it was a big deal. It was a big deal.
JB:
It was a very big deal. And I think that must have been very satisfying
to you.
PHE:
I was very gratified for her, and for the museum. Because it shouldn’t
have died, you know. And now, to the present day, I’m in no way involved
with it. I don’t know what its current mission is, and I can only assume
from the programmatic activity I see (published) that it’s quite
different from what she initially envisioned--
JB:
It seems to be.
PHE:
--and what I envisioned. It doesn’t seem to be based in folk art, craft,
or design. I mean, certainly, it’s tangentially tethered to those
things. But they have, basically, whatever exhibition they want, I
guess. And I’m not putting it down. I just am not involved anymore.
JB:
As far as I can tell--and I, also, am not involved, (but) I’m still a
member, so I get their literature--but I’m not involved at all. I
believe that--I don’t know what the written mission statement is, but it
does seem as if the exhibitions are, to use the term loosely,
culturally- related.
PHE:
Really. Sounds like a very loose use of that word. (Programmatically,
CAFAM became somewhat more aligned with the original mission after
Suzanne Isken became the Director in February 2011.)
JB:
I agree, it is. Well, Patrick, I really, really am glad that we got
these three sessions done and that you contributed (so much to this oral
history).
PHE:
Well, thank you for your yeoman efforts. I mean, this is a great thing
you’re undertaking to preserve the oral history of the museum, or, at
least, certain aspects of it.
JB:
Well, I think the museum is definitely worth it. And you were such an
important part of it for such a long time.
PHE:
As were you for such a long time. I mean, we’ve both been in the
trenches.
JB:
Yes, we have.
PHE:
In the valleys and on the peaks.
JB:
But it was fun. We had a lot of good times, too.
PHE:
I agree. And I think the museum resonated with the city during its
prime. And I think it was a really good union. And I think that Al
Nodal--him being open to joining the museum with Cultural
Affairs--basically ratified that view. And made it tangible. And, I
guess, actually, 2008--this (currently) is the year where there’s the
first tenure option to renew. I think we made the agreement (for ten
years) in (1998 or 1999). So it’ll be interesting to see what they do.
JB:
Yes, I guess Wally Marks is the chairman now, so it’ll be up to him.
PHE:
He’s well-connected with City Hall. So that’s not a problem now . . . .
JB:
Well, I know that we can’t have another session, although there is
(still) so much that we could . . . talk about. But this has been
fabulous, and I really appreciate it.
PHE:
Well thank you for all your time and your patience. I know it’s hard.
JB:
Thank you very much.
PHE:
A pleasure. (End of Session 3)