A look back at the reborn Museum of Monterey (aka MoM) suggests it’s cleared the storm that nearly wrecked it.

Make Yourself: Incubus singer Brandon Boyd’s December appearance at Museum of Monterey was met with rock star frenzy.

A look back at the reborn Museum of Monterey (aka MoM) suggests it’s cleared the storm that nearly wrecked it.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Just a few years ago the former Monterey Maritime and History Museum, run by the 82-year-old Monterey History and Art Association, was close to becoming Monterey history.

It was hosting lectures and exhibits on Hotel Del Monte, Monterey’s whaling and fishing industries, historic buildings, Jo Mora and Commodore Sloat, model ships, Cannery Row, naval campaigns. The 17,800-square-foot museum, built in 1992 on Custom House Plaza, hewed close to the mission of highlighting Monterey’s maritime history. But it had problems.

“It was a very contentious situation,” says current board president Mark Baer, speaking of the 18-month closure for renovations and re-organization. “Relationships between staff and board and membership were bad. [It was] one misstep after another.”

Those missteps included the museum dipping into its own endowment to pay monthly bills, declining membership and attendance, board in-fighting, assets being sold off to stay afloat, allegations and political maneuverings. Supporters were getting angry. City officials were getting worried.

“This was before the revolution,” Baer says. That revolution included the recruitment of Lisa Coscino, who had lived on the Peninsula since 1994, and most recently ran a local nonprofit and an art gallery in Pacific Grove. Beginning in August 2010, she brought in a large scale Bryant Austin whale photo for a BLUE Ocean Film Festival after-party at the still-shuttered MMHM, made them a short promotional film, and guest curated the exhibit for the reopening. After the museum reopened in June 2011, renamed Museum of Monterey, then-executive director John Bailey left.

“I said, ‘I will keep this place open until you find somebody,’” Coscino recounts. But in August 2011 they offered her the job of director. She accepted.

“We had to clean the cabinets in the kitchen,” she recalls. “We went over policy and procedures. I had everyone read [Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History director] Nina Simon’s book The Participatory Museum.”

She gleaned curating lessons from the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in her former town of L.A. (Baer also suggests moving their substantial library into their Casa Sorrano property and turning that adobe into a “jewel box for smaller gatherings” like Monterey Museum of Art’s La Mirada.)

Coscino called on well-placed connections: “Who wants to be an advisor, a historian? Who knows cooler stuff than me? Who has brilliant ideas?”

She began programming exhibits that didn’t look like anything that had come before, beginning with the re-opening salvo, Flows to Bay. It was a progressive, contemporary art exhibit of 13 artists including Chris Jordan, David Edgar, Susan Thacker and Incubus frontman Brandon Boyd, with film, lectures, tours, video, online content – with buzz.

“It set a tone for things to come,” Baer says. “We were making a statement.”

It signaled a reinterpretation in the mission of the museum from a narrow one to a broader one, from strictly local to more global, from dusty to modern.

“It had sex appeal,” Coscino says. “We’ve been in Huffington Post. When Brandon [Boyd] publicized [Flows to Bay] online, we had 1 million hits.”

Other dynamic shows followed, including Cheech Marin’s Chicanitas painting collection, with Marin coming to meet big crowds – including young Latinos – at opening and closing. Music, Love and Flowers, a look back at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival, followed and is adding a component of psychedelic poster art this Saturday. In their theater they’re showing Henry Miller Library’s Big Sur International Short Film Series and the Monterey County Film Commission’s film series for the Monterey Pop exhibit. The deep cache of video segments on art, history and culture called the 100 Story Project was just completed and is on their website.

In an email sent last October to the community and media, Coscino sounded elated but realistic in her state of the museum: “We receive many rave reviews about MOM and some criticisms. At this point, the raves out number the critiques… a step in the right direction.”

The museum’s opened 14 exhibitions as of June 2011, Coscino says. She provided a progress report outlining “9 projects” that purports, from June 2011 to June 2012, an increase in membership from 93 to 400, and an increase in admission revenue from $230 to $3,145. Grants, private donors, partnerships and corporate sponsors (including the Grammy Museum and Levi’s) are being sought. Some exhibition highlights next year include Monterey Fire Department History, a local cartoonist and illustrator show, paintings by Lockwood de Forest and Planet Ord, a Fort Ord history-based exhibit.

“Every exhibit starts here, goes around the world and comes back, branding with the city of Monterey,” Coscino says. “That’s the plan to take over the world.”

THE MUSEUM OF MONTEREY is open 10am-5pm Tuesday-Saturday, noon-5pm Sunday, at 5 Custom House Plaza, Monterey. $5-10. 372-2608, www.MuseumOfMonterey.org

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MOTHER OF REINVENTION

Dear Walter,

I am a big fan of yours and always look forward to reading your take on the art scene in Monterey. As a former treasurer and bored member of MoM I took great interest in your piece of August 9, “Mother of Reinvention”, which states that “A look back at the reborn Museum of Monterey (aka MoM) suggests it’s cleared the storm that nearly wrecked it”. This assessment makes things refreshingly clear...or does it?

When I joined the board in September 2010 the MHAA endowment fund was about $750,000. About the same time the Association sold the Perry-Downer house and added another $850,000, bringing the total reserve to $1,600,000. Today the endowment stands at roughly $550,000. Evidently, the “revolution” described in your article has not extended to fund-raising activities.

Museum director, Lisa Coscino states that she has increased admission revenues from $230. to $3,145. What does this actually mean? Is it $3,145. in revenue per day? Per week? Per month? Or all year? If it is per day, then the museum should take great satisfaction in the programming successes of the past year. If it is per week or more, then the programs are doing only as well as those of the old Maritime Museum.

These are tough times for non-profits and it will be difficult to support MHAA from $10 admission fees alone. Here is an idea: Ask the beneficiaries of the MOM programming to contribute. A few crumbs ($) from the LA success of Brandon Boyd (“front-man for Incubus”) and Cheech Marin (comedian-actor turned art collector) would go a long way towards filling the deficits. And those stars would get much needed PR from contributing to MoM. By contrast, why should MoM expect anything from the Grammy Museum or Levi Company in the way of support (as suggested in the article)?

Where are the funds going to come from to turn the Casa Serrano property into a “jewel box for smaller gatherings like Monterey Museum of Art’s La Mirada” (the MHAA Board president’s Idea)? As I recall from a recent dinner held to raise money for the Casa, the plumbing for the bathrooms were in need of drastic repair. I am embarrassed to say that I had to go into the kitchen to wash my hands. And, this is nothing compared to cost of retro-fitting the house and bringing it up to handicapped accessibility standards.

And finally, Walter, what does Coscino's closing remark mean? She says “Every exhibit starts here, goes around the world and comes back, branding with the city of Monterey. That’s the plan to take over the world.”

Hmmm.....I interpret this idea in the same way that Howard Finster, the well-known Georgia folk artist and visionary once told me, "I've worked on perpetual motion all my life until I can travel around the world in four minutes.”

John Enns, Monterey