Fearn, you've opened a subject here that causes my gut to turn over. Yes, you're talking about a museum in the USA, but from my observations things are not much different anywhere in the world.
Let me tell you about Sydney, Australia.
We used to have a magnificent old Victorian style Museum; it was called the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. It was housed in an old Victorian era building that was a museum piece in itself --- beautiful brickwork, internal staircases and timber fittings that were worth a visit , even forgetting the exhibits. This museum had display cases crammed with exquisite examples of applied art, including two good sized sections of weaponry.
In this display of weaponry was a small section of Javanese bladed weaponry that had been collected during the Java Wars.It was out of stain and slowly turning to rust. This was in about 1968. I contacted the curator for this section of exhibits and offered to train him or his staff in how to conserve or restore the blades. My offer was accepted, I spent a number of hours over several days in dictating notes and overseeing a conservator work on a blade. When the exercise was completed I was assured that the entire collection of these Javanese weapons would be conserved over the next year or so.
Up until the time this museum was replaced by the Power House Museum nothing was done with these items of Javanese weaponry.
The Power House Museum was built as an updated version of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. It is a wonderful facility to entertain children for an afternoon. Its exhibits in my opinion, and the opinion of many people of my generation, are pitiful. There is virtually no weaponry on display, and the wonderful Javanese pieces have disappeared altogether.
In about 1994 I was given access to the Museum's storerooms, and was able to view the weaponry that they still had and that was in store. There was very little, and what they did have was very, very inferior. The S.E. Asian bladed weaponry was in appalling condition.
Once again I offered to train a conservator in the traditional Javanese restoration and conservation techniques. I spent a number of hours over a number of days demonstrating how to clean and stain a keris blade. The conservator I trained had a good understanding of how to do the job, but she herself did not work on a blade under my supervision.
Until the time this conservator left employment with this Museum no other blades were touched.
In about 1985 the curator in charge of the relevant section in the Australian Museum in Sydney became aware of some of my abilities. She asked if I would be interested in assisting museum staff to go through the museum's collection of S.E. Asian weaponry and identifying it. None of this collection was on display, it was all in store. I agreed to this proposal. Over the next several years I had a couple of further contacts with this curator, until the time she left employment with this museum. I never ever got to look at the collections in store, let alone work with staff to identify the items.
This situation relating to weaponry in museums is caused by two factors:-
lack of funds and current societal attitudes.
All weaponry of whatever type is now considered to be politically incorrect, and is most certainly not the sort of thing that you place on display for little children to view on Sunday afternoons.
The funding problem is tied to the political perception that dollars spent should generate votes:- dollars spent on museums do not generate the quantity of votes that dollars spent on roads and hospitals do.
This is a world-wide phenomenon.
In about 1995 a world famous curator from a world famous museum visited me specifically to discuss keris. While he was with me he saw some of the newly carved Javanese keris hilts I had and asked if he might buy half a dozen or so for addition to the museum's collections. He selected what he wanted, and asked me to hold them until he returned to his museum and obtained permission for the purchase. A few weeks later I received a letter from him apologising for the fact that he could not go ahead with the purchase because there was no money left in the budget to cover the cost.
We are talking about one of the major European museums here, and the amount of money involved was about the cost of dinner at a good restaurant.
Museums have no money.
The broad community cannot see value for money in the funds eaten up by museums.
Politicians provide the funding for museums from funds collected from the broad community, ie, taxpayers.
Politicians will not allocate more than the barest of minimum funds to any museum whilst there are identifiable deficiencies of funding in other areas.
It is politically unpopular to raise taxes.
This whole problem of inadequate care of items housed in museums is symptomatic of community values as they apply at this point in time.
We cannot blame the museums:- the politicians will not give them sufficient money.
We cannot blame the politicians:- the community demands expenditure in areas other than museums.
I suggest that we should all treasure whatever little we have now, because in the future our children's children will have nothing.
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