Sonoma County Museum, with Eric Nelson, Director

Sonoma County, a diverse county of over one million acres is famed for its agriculture industry and recreation boasting a booming economy and a unique lifestyle for its citizens described by the famed Luther Burbank as the chosen spot of all the earth. Sonoma County is the place

to live, work and play as we move into the 21st century. Led by the forward looking philosophy of its governing bodies. Sonoma County's 340,000 residents are a harmonious, successful blend of ethnic and economic backgrounds. We invite you to take a closer look at Sonoma County in

the nineties with your host Rich McGlinchey, how you doing everybody? Welcome to this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties and we're gonna talk about a fairly recent institution in Sonoma County. It's called the Sonoma County Museum. We're gonna talk to the executive director eric nelson

learn more about it. Uh, museum is pretty much a reflection of who we are and what we are, what we were in some cases what we will be and we're going to talk to eric eric, it's nice to have you here. Thanks for having me Rich.

Yeah, We're talking about an old friend of ours, Harry Latham who is now on your board of directors or something. Exactly. Harry has been a good friend of the museum ever since 1976 when the foundation was incorporated and I think you were familiar with those that

bicentennial commission and that whole effort to found a museum, nice to hear. The I haven't seen very much lately and it's nice to hear. Okay, first of all that will be very basic. Whereas the museum located right now. Sure, we're in uh, on seventh Street between

Mendocino and highway one oh one in what's been designated as a historic neighborhood or historic district, ST Rose Historic District. And we're one of the cornerstone architectural features of that. Of course, we're located in the old 1909 post office building, which was um saved from demolition

back in the late seventies. The thing that I don't know if you were here, I don't think you were here with us moving the post office became a major, major project. Remember gala. Baron Mr pd was constantly sort of policing what was happening and how it

moved down the street. But it is located very safely and soundly on. What is that street at Seventh Street? And cross streets are A and B. Just just north of the Macy's parking lot next to the Plaza Mall. It's kind of our our running joke that

we're in the shadow of that parking structure. But again, it's a wonderful location. Eric how would you describe the mission of the Sonoma cameras? Now the mission is really twofold. Rich. We've got our primary mission is to collect and preserve the artifacts and material culture that

belongs to Sonoma County's history, culture and art that includes photographs, documents, um, three dimensional artifacts as well as works of art. Um you know, we have our collection on site. It's rather extensive. We have nearly 20,000 items in that collection, which we care for professionally. We

have a recently hired a curator to main maintain that collection. The second prong of our mission is really education and exhibits. We run um probably 5 to 10 temporary exhibits every year that focus on a wide variety of topics primarily to highlight the collection. But also

we bring in other, other collections, other subject matters, other exhibits. Um but again, primarily our purposes for the edification of the community as well as visitors and then to preserve and protect uh, the collection's called the Sonoma County Museum. But are you run by the County

of Sonoma? That's an interesting uh, misnomer. I guess if you will not really a misnomer, we, our mission is to, to cover the entire county from the north to the south and east to the west. But actually we're run by a private nonprofit foundation. Um The

county of Sonoma does make some funds available to us through a granting process. So they do support us somewhat, but we are an independent, private nonprofit company or corporation excuse me, solely dependent on, I should say solely but again, greatly dependent on our membership who supports

us through dues and giving. Um I remember some of these things, but I'm quite sure our audience doesn't, how did the museum come into existence, interesting. Again, getting back to the 1976 in the bicentennial forever that we all remember. I know, I was graduating from high

school in 76. I don't really remember it, but I do remember all the patriotism that was going on at that point. And one of the things the county supervisors decided they wanted to do was establish, um, some kind of celebration for the bicentennial locally here and

celebrate the history of Sonoma County. They appointed a commission which got together and decided instead of having a parade and a big celebration that they should come up with something more lasting. At that point, we saw the development of the mission as a, the Mission Foundation

which established came into being after the Bicentennial Commission passed away and from 76, up until the museum was acquired by the foundation in 1980 for the goal was really to establish, establish a musician museum. It was not part of the county of Sonoma, so we know

it's not being taxed supported basically. How is the museum funded? You've explained that partly. What, what, what are the sources you count on? Sure. We have three main sources of income. The first and primary as our membership and again, people can join the museum and pay

dues of anywhere from $20 for students and seniors up to $100 annually to support our missions. The other um, ways that we bring in revenue are through grants, we have extensive grant writing um program. We apply almost a third of our revenue comes in through grants.

The other most significant revenue is through fundraising and we have a variety of different fundraising activities of beer tasting in the fall of wine tasting in the spring and several other events would bring people into contact with the museum and also revenues into the, into the

institution which beer and wine have a long history and many years ago and the vineyards, right. In fact, that's one of the things we're somewhat tied to the mission of the museum being to help interpret the county's history. We thought that it was a natural tie

that we bring in the wine tasting and the beer tasting as two of our fundraisers. So again, it's not, they're not chosen just because we thought they'd be successful. They were chosen because they have a purpose and focus for that. When I was young, Hops was

one of the major, major product products of Sonoma County, I mean the multimillions and of course the Grace Brothers Brewery was a local brewery here and of course, nowadays, uh, I don't know how many wineries we have, but we've got a lot of, a lot of

wine producers. Um, you talked about support and how you're getting your funding in different ways like that, do you get? Well, first of all, there's been a rather severe administration back in Washington and taking a hard look at all the grants and everything. Do you get

any support from the National Endowment for the Humanities or the National National Endowment for the Arts somewhat indirectly. Um, the way the national Endowments work for the most part, at least the programs that support us come primarily through a block grant. Um, both the, the any

age, which is the National Endowment for the Humanities and the N. B. A. Have state organizations, the California County Council for the Humanities and the Arts Council. Through those two statewide organizations, we apply quite regularly for funding to help support our exhibit programs and some of

our collections programs. In fact, coming up throughout the summer, the NTH is going to be sponsoring a series of lectures at the museum every other weekend that relate to Sonoma County and during the warriors. Um, the next exhibited Sonoma County goes to war And they, they've

helped out with a small grant to help pay for some stipends and take care of them museums expenses to do that. So it's a wonderful opportunity thing that's being funded not directly from the National Endowment, but through the state Endowment. Again, well, we hope that source

won't dry up. We're gonna pause right here for an important message from the station after which erIC nelson director of the Sonoma County Museum and I will return first. This important message. Two warehouses. This warehouse is five stories tall and it contains £45 million pounds of

donated food that's enough food to feed every hungry person in America for one day hunger is eating America alive. But if you can make a call, you can make a difference call Second harvest America's Food bank network Together. We're Hunger's hope. Welcome back to this edition

of Sonoma County in the nineties and we're talking about an important Sonoma County institution, although it is not part of the county of Sonoma government. We're talking about the Sonoma County Museum. We're talking with the director eric nelson. He talked about how it came into existence

when, where it's located and some of the support they get indirectly from the national endowment programs. Eric what kind of things does the museum collect? That's a good question because I may apply for a spot. Just me, I don't know. No, no. Human remains were precluded

from that. But for the most part again, our mission is to focus on the history of the county, the culture of the county and the art of the county. Those are the three areas in which we collect most heavily. Um, as I mentioned earlier, we have

a collection of over 2,020,000 items close to 25,000. Right now, the vast majority of those are photographs and documents that the document, the history and early development of the, of the county up to recent times. Uh, you know, our history is not all the way back

into the 18 hundreds. It's, you know, as early as last year, yesterday. Um, we also have a large collection of, of art that relates to the county. We were given a large collection of early California are right when we opened up the museum back in 85

many of those scenes were painted of the northern California area, some Outside of the county. But what was important about the collection to us is the fact that each painter represented from Thomas Hill to Schaefer to William Keith all painted in this area in the 1800s.

So again, the main focus of the collection is to document the history, culture and art of the county and that's basically what we collect. That's that's a pretty good mission. We have some film I think that we shot down at the museum and I think that

if we show that to our audience about now you'll be able to comment on it. Absolutely. It's a wonderful overview of the museum. I could be happy to, we'll have that coming up here in just a second. The Sonoma County Museum is housed in the 1909

Post Office, Federal Post Office Building in Downtown Santa Rosa. It's dedicated to the preservation and conservation and interpretation of Sonoma County history, culture and art. This is a image of the main gallery going into the art collections in which houses a beautiful William keith, some gorgeous

bronze work And other western art. This collection was given to the museum by Ivan Hart who was born in Healdsburg and made quite a bit of money in Oakland and decided to give back something to the county, some brilliant paintings and again, most of these were

um completed in the 1870s and 1880s. Another one of the artists uh that we represent is Elwyn Norick, who sometimes referred to as the jackknife genius. One of his missions was to interpret the county's history using a pocket knife and carving it. This is a wonderful

scene of an early logging operations, would fall the trees in sections and haul them out from the river areas by oxen team. A few of the other wonderful pieces that were donated by Mr and mrs Hart, That's a beautiful Thomas Hill. We also acquired a large

collection from the county historical society and many of the historical artifacts had been collected starting in the 1950s and 60s and donated to the museum when we opened up. This is a wonderful model of Fort Ross which had been in the state fair in 1958 and

was donated to the museum. But again, other historical artifacts and photographs that are representative of it, of the county's history, um Canoes and photographs from the Russian River its heyday in the 20s and 30s, the rail is favorite. The railroad. Absolutely! It's a beautiful image. This

is unloading the tourists I think ATM Honorio, wonderful motorcycle trip and we also highlight some of the more prominent individuals in the county. There's an image of Luther Burbank. There's not a gorgeous piece, some of his documents and artifacts and we work closely with many of

the other historical agencies in Burbank Home and garden and some of the state parks as well. It's a wonderful portrait of thomas lake Harris who founded the utopian community up in fountain Grove fred Wiseman early aviator delivered the first airmail which went from santa rosa, petaluma

robert Ripley of course, raised here in santa rosa. He, he was hearing absolutely baptized in the church of one tree. So again another little right. But again, the agricultural industry, which has really been the heart of Sonoma County has also interpreted through our exhibits. Watch out

your chicken dude. Absolutely fascinating material. Again, it's wonderful. There's something for everyone who was interested in history. Are beautiful dress in china of the old courthouse in santa rosa High School. Early plaque from a Harry. Dixon was a metal Smith who was trained in San Francisco

at the turn of the century and moved up to Sonoma County in the late 40s, early 50s and we were given a large collection of his work. Beautiful. Yeah. But again, not only did he do metal work and jewelry but also was very talented uh worked

in marble and wood as well. Some of his jewelry and silverware. There's a major retrospective of California arts and crafts artists in Oakland Museum a few years ago and they borrowed extensively from the collection. Yeah. Again, it's a wonderful collection. Wonderful institution. Some more of harry

or excuse me more of Ellenville rick's carvings. Mm hmm. Well worth coming. And we rotate these types of exhibits uh fairly regularly. And these are all they're currently, there are on exhibit and we have a collection of about 50 of L1's carving. So quite often we

rotate different ones in and out to try to give people. So one of the challenges we have the fact that the size of the museum is somewhat small and were limited. Uh This is an example of one of the temporary exhibits that we have currently. Um

This was an exhibit that we borrowed or actually um came to us from the Smithsonian institution's traveling exhibit service. This was another program that was supported through the California council for the Humanities. They provided a small grant to help out with the shipping and also some

special programs to discuss um political cartoons and how the environment, the environmental issues. So again, some wonderful uh descriptive images. And this is has been up for about six weeks. And the other you would ask about revenue. One of the other revenue sources at the museum

is the gift shop and we have a book shop with some gifts as well as souvenirs that is open during the museum's regular hours, which is Wednesday through Sunday from 11-4. We highlight we had a chinese exhibit this. Uh this christmas And these were some items

that were brought in for that exhibition. We try to make sure there's some items in the gift shop that related to the exhibits that we haven't seen any of that film. And ladies and gentlemen, as eric said this is at the museum. These things are during

the summer and it's certainly, if you can tell by that, it's certainly something you ought to go see. Well, we talked about the, I was gonna talk about the history of the house museum, but we know it was the 19 9 post Office. Anything you want

to add to that? It's an interesting history, you know, in the 19 oh six earthquake, santa rosa was pretty much leveled flat into the ground. And as, as one of the federal programs to help rebuild the area after the earthquake money was given and the, the

post office building was built. So plans and construction really started as early as oh six or after the 06 earthquake and they're about 15 of these same same post office buildings that were built throughout the state. So it's not necessarily unique. Each building is slightly different.

They all use local contractors and local material suppliers. So it's unique and interesting facility and building. And again, you know, the, the exciting part of the history I think was back in 79 when the, when the building was actually hoisted up and moved the book, it

was three or four blocks. I'm not sure just how far it was, but the building had to be raised like that and then rolled almost into the time all the way down here like this few blocks and back over and then anchored on there. And then

there was a funny story. One of the Bay Area television stations was contacted during the, during the move of the of the building. One of the museum volunteers and publicity chairman had called up KPI X I think it was and they came up and set up

their camera equipment to film this, this monumental undertaking, moving this huge structure across santa rosa. And they set up and they sat for hours and hours and hours. And finally uh finally the cameraman looked over at Toby smith who was representing the museum and said, well

when is something going to happen? And they went down and talked to the people that were actually moving the building and they said, well it's moving, we've already moved three ft, what are you talking? So they packed the cameras up and went back to the there.

But that was about the end of that. Alright, we're gonna pause right here eric for another message for our audience And ladies and gentlemen eric nelson, the director of the Center County Museum. And I will be right back and we'll talk about some of the exhibits

that are presented some of which you just saw at the museum with first this important message. What happens when you combine the world's finest german hawks with rare Canadian malted barley and add the cool clear waters of a shimmering spring fed lake. How about big trouble,

how you doing everybody? Welcome back to this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties were talking about the Sonoma County Museum which is located in the 1909 Sonoma County Post Office santa rosa post I guess it was which was moved several years ago about four blocks

at the rate of about 30 inches a day I think. Uh And now is on 7th street. That's beautiful edifice. You saw a moment ago if you were with us some of the the exhibits that are there now. But but I want you to cover that

a little more right now. What exhibits are currently being shown at the museum through the summer. The museum is divided into three galleries for the most part and as we saw downtown or down a few minutes ago, the downstairs galleries house the permanent exhibit on the

history of Sonoma County. Another exhibit downstairs houses or another gallery downstairs houses the exhibit of early California and western art, the heart collection. Um We have an upstairs gallery as well which is rather extensive and in that we have several exhibits planned for the summer. The

first is the political cartoon exhibit that we small saw a small clip from. Um Opening up in july is going to be an exhibit on Sonoma County during the Second World War, which is something that we're very excited about brings back a lot of nostalgia. As

you know, Sonoma County really got a big bump as far as development and growth after the Second World War. All of the military service men and women who came in to either work at the air base exactly. Once they got a taste of Sonoma County, they

sat. So that's going to be an exciting exhibit that's coming up Following that show, we have an art trails preview that we put together with the help of the um Sonoma County Cultural Arts Council as part of their art trails open studio program. It's a preview

of all the artwork that's going to be on the open studio. And following that we're gonna have an exciting exhibit, A Children's art of Indonesia. It's uh it's entitled the dragon that swallowed the moon. It should be a lot of fun. And we're also working on

an exhibit that will open up later on actually the first part of next year, which will be a focus on the african american heritage in Sonoma County in the North Bay, which we're working with a large steering committee of local african americans, the 100 black men

in the double A. Where does the museum obtain the materials that you used in these exhibits. That's a good question. And from a variety of sources, we like to use a lot of material from our own collection that people donate. Obviously if someone donate something to

the museum, they like to see it in the, in the exhibits. And so primarily we use our collections. We also make an effort to contact collectors and institutions. Um, and that includes libraries, museums and universities, um to borrow items. There are occasions when we borrow entire

exhibits from uh institutions like the Smithsonian or the Oakland Museum. Again, a wide variety of different sources for the material and a lot of it comes from word of mouth. Someone will find out that we're doing for example, the exhibit on World War Two and the

home front. The next thing we'll know, we'll have half a dozen phone calls of people who have different items of, of interest and focus. So it's sometimes we spend a great deal of time trying to track down those types of items. What are some of that?

We've got about three or four minutes. What are some of the museum's special upcoming events in the summer and fall? Right in the lecture series, which will be held this summer. That will be at the museum. We have a small presentation room that holds about 50

or 60. Gaye Lebaron is committed to come in and talk. We have a few professors from Sonoma State and the Junior College. They're going to come in a song and dance program that will be there as well. Yes, I know. She told me she received her

doctorate or honorary doctorate at Sonoma State, which is a lot of fun. I was really happy for her. She was, yeah. Anyway, congratulations to her on the other big event that we're having. I also mentioned earlier is our beer tasting this fall. And again, that's one

of our major fundraisers and put in a plug for that. That's going to be september the ninth at the vet's Memorial hall. And again, we're gonna have probably 35 microbreweries from northern California represented. And last year we had almost 13, yeah, 1300 people showed up for

that. So it really packed the place and we're hoping to repeat that again this year. The wine is in the spring actually, it's a valentine's event. So we try to do that. That valentine's day weekend. It's normally held at the museum. We're down to not very

much time. Volunteers are very important, I'm sure very important. Uh, how are they important to you And how can I get in touch with you? You know, volunteers are really the backbone of the museum. We have five staff members and we have over 100 volunteers that

really keep the place going where we rely on volunteers for just about everything from help with the exhibition preparation. Um, working the front desk, um, greeting people working in the gift shop, helping out in the office, helping with the fundraisers is another big way that we

use use volunteers. The board of trustees also is made up of volunteers. High profile volunteers for the most part that help out specifically with fundraisers. 57915 oh 579. Exactly. We've got a few seconds. About a minute. What are some of the challenges that you face right

now? Money? Well, money is always a challenge for non profits. I think anyone will tell you that that's involved with another challenge that we're facing is where we want to expand. Certainly for our collection area, the city of santa rosa owns the post office building and

gives us a wonderful lease arrangement practically takes care of us that way. And it's very supportive. We're in the process right now of trying to identify another offsite storage area for our collection of artifacts. So those are probably the two major things that we're working on

right now we found out of time. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we've been talking about a very important, wonderful cultural institution we have in this county Sonoma County Museum. It's on seventh Street talking with the director ERic NElson. I'm Rich McGlinchey.

The program, Sonoma County in the nineties. I'll be back with you next week and we'll talk to another member of the county government family or perhaps an interesting agency. I think you'll find it interesting. So be sure to join us till then. Good night, Good luck

and good health to each and every one of you Now let's see.