Jackson Hole Art Blog

Eighty-six artists make up Heather James Gallery’s Post-War and Contemporary roster alone; the gallery specializes in six other art categories: American, Design, Impressionist & Modern, Latin American, Old Masters and Photography.

In Jackson Hole, that’s some mighty glittery gallery fireworks.   The Heather James Gallery’s mix of past and present art periods is unique in this art market.   The gallery’s presence on re-shuffled, re-designed Center Street buttons up what feels like a newly defined “arts capsule” in Jackson. Center Street’s “Gallery Row” is creating new identity for the Town of Jackson; the block establishes a dynamic focal point, positioned as it is across from a large tourist staging and parking area.

Center Street is its own “draw,” a block mixing regional and international art.

Heather James owners Jim Carona and Heather Sacre plan an opening celebration in June; a grand opening takes place later this summer, on August 21, with the blockbuster show Wyeth, featuring the works of N.C., Andrew and Jamie Wyeth.

Gallery director Lyndsay Rowan McCandless is at the fore.  This is also a good thing. She’s joined by long-time local Molly Hawks.   The gallery’s collection is curated by Los Angeles based curator Chip Tom, and renowned architect Dianna Wong designed the space.

Notes McCandless, “Heather James Fine Art has been created to complement their current two galleries located in Palm Desert, CA and to honor and support their love for Jackson, WY. We are looking forward to the merging of our creative ideas and visions in order to bring you the most vibrant and diverse art experience that you can imagine in the Tetons.”

Jackson photographer David Swift opines that Tom’s curatorial skills are original and vital.   None of that “undisciplined angst-splatter…that most people think of when they think modern art.”

Swift already has a favorite Heather James artist, Carlos Mérida. “I’ve never heard of him.  Turns out he was one of the cool guys hanging with the Cubists from the 20’s, on.  He’s as good as his old pals, and there is a piece hanging in the gallery I want really, really, really bad.”

Swift and others familiar with Jackson’s arts agree that having McCandless back at the fore of a contemporary gallery is beyond happy.  She’s the valley’s “art angel,” says the photographer, and understands the “art-swoon gland kicks into overdrive once when we get around works created at the dawn of the 20th Century, on.”

How to find and reach Heather James Gallery:

P.O. Box 3580, 172 Center Street – Suite 101, Jackson, WY 83001     Phone: 307.200.6090

Item #2:

Sotheby’s May 19, 2010 American Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures Auction brought these results:  

Thomas Moran’s “Coconino Pines and Cliff, Arizona” :  $746,500 with Buyer’s Premium

Winslow Homer’s “Return of the Gleaner,” :  $2,210,000 with Buyer’s Premium (estimate was $400-$600,000)

Frederic Remington’s “The Mountain Man”:  $1,082,500 with Buyer’s Premium (estimate was $700-$900,000)

Childe Hassam’s “Harney Desert”:  $446,500  with Buyer’s Premium (estimate was $200-$300,000)

Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Inside Clam Shell”:  $3,442,500 with Buyer’s Premium

Marsden Hartley’s “Berlin Series, No. 1″:  $1,762,500.

For full auction results, click here.

The first part of this series (planned as two parts, it is now a three-part) touched upon landscape designer Walter Hood’s cursory views on Jackson’s approach to its own landscape. This second installment addresses Hood’s vision for a new NMWA sculpture garden and connective earth design.

“It is not the stuff you have. It is the stuff you no longer have. A lot of planning is too much about “what we need” v.s. “what we have.” In a reciprocal way, planning should be about the things that connect us-how to connect us. That makes us special.” – Walter Hood

Walter Hood has travelled to Jackson Hole to consult with the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA). In a recent edition of NMWA’s member publication Call of the Wild, Hood described the beginnings of his collaboration with NMWA that will, ideally, result in a new museum sculpture garden.

It’s not as if Hood’s work to date has included an ongoing interest in wildlife museums, but the environment and how people use it drive his work on the project. Process and progress, inspiration ignited by how people choose to make “place.” On a certain level, he says, it’s all the same, whether one is talking about a sculpture garden or an entire community.

“The museum is interesting in that there are these cultural artifices, pieces of art, that are trying to represent nature,” says Hood. It’s a bit ironic that bronze elk are stationed at the base of the Museum’s driveway right across from the Elk Refuge; the installation seems an attempt to convince the public that there is a connection between NMWA and the Refuge.

“If the landscape itself was powerful enough it could move people in fantastic ways. That is what I am interested in. Standing out on NMWA’s hill, is there a way to allow a visitor to be in the Refuge? It is possible. NMWA’s architecture builds on the idea that it is “with the landscape,” and ironically that is one of the issues they are dealing with.”

Hood believes he could scale and shift existing landscape, so that art as well as the landscape is legible. “Attempt to eliminate design dichotomy, the experience of being either here, or there – either at the museum or in the landscape; either in Jackson or in the landscape.”

Check out parking lot ratios to the buildings they serve, suggests Hood. Looking at the Museum’s site, the parking lot stretches incredibly far, perhaps taking more space than the building itself. Part of the lot might be converted to trail, and a pervious surface is healthier for surrounding growth than asphalt, an oil-based material.

Rarely filled, and within a couple of miles of town, a reduced parking lot would be no problem if more mass transit options existed. “You don’t even want to know what asphalt is doing the environment; pervious surfaces would change our world drastically.”

Will NMWA pursue traditional design for its sculpture garden? Hood thinks both representational and contemporary design will be utilized.

“As a designer I have my own preferences, but when I do work I accept that scope,” he affirms. “What they are interested is figurative art with a long tradition, pre-Renaissance. But they had a show last year with Picasso and other contemporary artists rendering wildlife. Fantastic! Jane (Jane Lavino, NMWA’s Sugden Family Curator of Education) talked about the possibility of having contemporary installation in the landscape that would talk about wildlife in very different ways. I think then the project becomes broader in scope.

It is not about placing things; it is about creating more of a visitor experience where you can have permanent and temporary pieces co-interacting in the setting. Helping people make discoveries without bringing in the artificial. We have some strong ideas on how that might be achieved. It is my job to provoke. NMWA has the ability to create amazing indoor and outdoor experiences, and those are what museums are about today. It could be fabulous!”

It’s all already there. It’s only a question of how to make it visible.

Two things tend to happen when I’m away from Jackson and checking out cultural venues in other cities: I compare our arts scene to those of the places I’m visiting, and I talk a lot about our arts scene to the people I’m with.

I talk a lot about Jackson’s arts because my friends and family ask me about them.   Many of them have never been to Jackson Hole or either of our neighboring parks, and they want to understand more about what an arts culture in a town our size, in a magnificent and relatively remote region is like.   It’s not easy to describe, but when I finish trying to paint a picture (as it were) of all Jackson’s energy, initiatives, venues and artists, listeners seem impressed Jackson’s art scene is as vibrant as it is.

I’ve just returned from St. Louis. I attended my high school’s reunion, and we had a blast.  I and my friends spent an afternoon exploring the Best of Missouri Art Fair, at the St. Louis Botanical Gardens. Nori Obata, a classmate and a member of one of St. Louis’ most prominent arts and architecture family legacies, had a booth.   St. Louis has a bit of a stodgy rep, but let me tell you:  that city’s arts scene is ripping.  Over the past couple of decades millions of dollars have been poured into building the city’s public arts and gardens. And the city’s public has responded enthusiastically. They are engaged, and the Best of Missouri was mobbed.  It was such a big venue, we literally could not find the end of the thing.  And people weren’t just milling, they were spending.   Money was changing hands all over the place.

We weren’t just happy to see a successful art fair, though.  We were all enchanted by the setting, the Botanical Gardens, a bit of Paris in the heart of the Midwest.  Acres of landscaped gardens are made even more magical with the addition of Dale Chihuly glass sculpture installations.  Rather than detract from the traditional and contemporary gardens and plantings, these bubbly, fantastic sculptures enhance.  They are unforgettable.   We didn’t want to leave.

Just thought I’d mention it.

So what happened here in Jackson?  Good stuff!

Results came in from the third annual Jackson Hole Art Auction, for one.  Because I was asked about the auction so much (its reputation is growing, growing!), I’m posting that info.  Seventy-six percent of the 235 lots sold, and the auction–which features Western Art and is jointly hosted by Trailside and Gerald Peters galleries–realized just under $6,000,000 total.   The auction says collectors represented more than 30 states and several foreign countries.  Highlight sale: Bob Kuhn’s painting, “Like the Down of a Thistle,” estimated at $75 – $100K, sold for $299,000.

You can view all the results on the J.H. Art Auction website, www.jacksonholeartauction.com.

Lynday McCandless SLAM update: More artists needed!  Send the word out to your peeps, she says.  Use the Facebook, use the email, Twitter.   Time slot will change to afternoons, 1-5 pm. Additionally, LMC gallery will host artfilm screenings every weekend this month.    PBS’s Art 21 series has a new season, and LMC will screen them Fridays at 6 pm, and Saturdays at 2 and 4 pm.   The series features interviews with contemporary artists working in all mediums. Themes include: compassion, fantasy, transformation and systems.

And, artists, you have homework:  Watch at least one of the videos, then create a work in response.  Next month’s First Friday will feature your creations.   For information, email lyndsay@lmcontemporary.com.

Onion Skins…

National Museum of Wildlife Art Chief Preparator Ron Gessler sends this arts related spoof from “The Onion.” Anything to jump start the arts economy…now, it’s o.k. to touch, scratch and smell the art at the Met.  Read the article here.

Dance it Up!   An exception to my visual arts rule today:  Check out Dancer’s Workshop schedule of extraordinary events through June 14, as they celebrate their First Annual Summer Dance Celebration. DW is a frequent collaborator with Jackson’s Visual Arts community.    Here’s a schedule, and see ya’ll at Zydeco! :

Adult Dance Classes
Monday-Saturday, June 8-13
Dancers’ Workshop Studios
FREE
All ongoing adult dance classes are free this week. Classes include pilates, yoga, ballet, Zumba, Modern, Hip Hop, Capoiera, and Dance Fitness. Most classes are open to all levels and there are no limits on how many classes you take during the week…or during the day! Please see www.dwjh.org for class details or call 307.733.6398.

The “Square Series” Public Dance Performances
Wednesday, June 10, 3:30-5:30pm
Town Square
FREE
Bringing dance into perhaps one of the most public spaces in Jackson, the Town Square, Dancers’ Workshop will offer short performances of salsa and Zumba with Manny Sanchez, modern dance with the Junior Repertory Company, and breakdancing with Pasha.  This is a wonderful opportunity to watch dance for free and even partake yourself if the spirit moves you.

Master Classes with Elisa Monte Dance
Thursday & Friday, June 11 & 12, 3:30-5:30pm
Dancers’ Workshop Studio 1
FREE
Local dancers have the special opportunity to work with Elisa Monte dancers from New York City for free. These classes are geared to the Intermediate/Advanced dancer.

Open Rehearsals with Elisa Monte Dance
Thursday & Friday, June 11 & 12, 5:30-7:30pm
Dancers’ Workshop Studio 1
FREE
Open rehearsals offer a wonderful opportunity to view dance intimately and witness the interaction between choreographer and dancers. You see muscles flex, sweat drip, and emotions on faces up close. Additionally, during the Friday open rehearsal, Zydeco band Jeffery Broussard & The Creole Cowboys will rehearse with Elisa Monte Dance.  This free evening of dance and music is not to be missed!

Elisa Monte Dance
Co-presented with Center for the Arts
Saturday, June 13, 7:30pm
Center Theater
Tickets: $55 balcony/ $45 orchestra/ $20 students
Call 733.4900
The Summer Dance Celebration culminates with a fun and fabulous weekend. Saturday offers an elegant and inspiring performance by the world-renowned company Elisa Monte Dance at the Center Theater. Elisa Monte Dance, one of New York City’s most respected contemporary dance companies, has gained recognition at home and abroad. A favorite in the valley, Dancers’ Workshop is delighted to have Elisa Monte Dance return to Jackson and headline their Summer Dance Celebration.  The company will present their newest work, Zydeco Zare, choreographed to a musical score that features the six-piece Zydeco Band, Jeffery Broussard & The Creole Cowboys. Quick, physical, and highly emotional, this piece fits appropriately with the stunning repertoire of Elisa Monte Dance’s past work. Tickets for this 7:30pm performance are available at the Center Box Office 733.4900 or online at www.jhcenterforthearts.org. More information about Elisa Monte Dance is available at www.elisamontedance.org.

Zydeco Music and Picnic with Jeffery Broussard & The Creole Cowboys
Sunday, June 14, 5:00pm
Center Theater Lawn
FREE
On Sunday at 5pm kick off your shoes and join us on the Center for the Arts lawn for FREE Zydeco music. Jeffery Broussard & The Creole Cowboys will throw down irresistible, foot-tapping rhythms that are sure to provide enjoyment for listeners and dancers of all ages. One of the most influential accordionists and vocalists in modern Zydeco music, Jeffery Broussard has continually been an innovator, beginning his career at age eight playing drums in his father’s traditional Creole Zydeco band. Later he formed the nouveau group, Zydeco Force, before returning to a more traditional Zydeco sound with his band, Jeffery Broussard & The Creole Cowboys. Cajun food by The Kitchen at Pai’s Place and drinks by Snake River Brewery will be available for purchase.

For more information on any of the Summer Dance Celebration events, please call Dancers’ Workshop at 307.733.6398.

Memorial Weekend Monday as I write this.  Earlier today I took a walk around town.  It was an extremely pleasant walk because I was able to stroll easily around the Town Square, able to find a bench to sit on, able to browse lazily in a few shops.  It was mellow out there.

It’s not supposed to be this mellow in Jackson Hole on Memorial Day.  Earlier in the weekend, a friend emailed me to find out what was happening in the arts over the holiday.  My answer was….not much.  No big parties or receptions.  No extravaganzas; I wasn’t even certain all the galleries would be open.

Our galleries are gasping for breath.  I’ve posted an idea about window art being utilized to fill and brighten empty storefronts; sent a letter to the editor at the Jackson Hole News & Guide that has yet to appear.   Which is o.k., because we’ve got some mega-issues going on with our revised Comprehensive Plan.

We need some stop gap action, though; simple, non-political gestures to shore us all up while the economy writhes and we search for a livable future for Jackson.  Our Center for the Arts needs a loan, galleries have closed, artists are scrambling. Artists are leaving, too. Comprehensive Plans include internal solutions, solutions that don’t have to do with sketching out a building, but that include using our hearts, minds and space in the most giving ways.

Ok, enough.   In the end, Jackson’s future is about how we decide to act in this community.

Earlier this spring Bruce Richardson, Chair of the Wyoming Arts Council, spoke on the subject of the importance of arts to our economy.   Richardson, a board member of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, takes the elusive, often seemingly quirky and odd aspects of art, and boils it all down to sensibility. Here’s Richardson’s essay, taken from the Wyoming Arts Council Blog. Note his point about the number of people working in the arts in Montana.

Arts Mean Business
By Bruce Richardson

I am here to talk about the ordinariness of arts and why include them in job bills and economic development. Simply put, arts are business and the arts business, both for-profit and non-profit, is a substantial part of the Wyoming economy.

People tend to think of art as odd and special, a separate, realm of elevated, difficult and unusual activities done by talented, but eccentric, flaky people. People remember Beethoven’s genius and bad temper, Vincent Van Gogh’s ear-chopping, and think of starving writers not paying the rent (as in the musical Rent).

In fact, most art workers are pretty regular people. They take and sell photos, repair instruments, plan buildings, design websites, make and sell jewelry, build hand-crafted furniture, teach guitar, fiddle, oboe, make and market sculpting tools, sculpt antlers into beautiful objects and sell them over the web, frame pictures, paint portraits, play Mexican dance music at your wedding, do entertaining and uplifting concerts, make fine pottery, do leathercraft, sell paintings in a downtown gallery and design your building.

All of these are businesses in Wyoming. The owners rent or own property, buy supplies, pay insurance and taxes, pay salaries, buy groceries and furniture and participate in the local economy just as do the owners and employees of manufacturing companies or coal companies.

So the arts portion of the stimulus bill makes good sense. The grants that will go out in Wyoming must be used to preserve significant jobs in non-profit arts organizations facing cutbacks. As reported in The Casper Journal, arts organizations such as the Symphony and Nicolaysen Art Museum have suffered from decreases in their endowments, donations and fund-raising.

The Arts are taking an especially big hit as philanthropy moves their diminished resources to others areas. Layoffs and canceled programs are a likely result that can hit small towns as well as large. We want to see the robust Oyster Ridge Music Festival in Kemmerer or the Basin Art Center continue to thrive. In the performing arts, a cancelled concert is similar to a layoff. Musicians lose work and money, the audience loses a program, and the organization loses the ticket and sponsorship income.

The small stimulus allotments contemplated by the Wyoming Arts Council will be out there fast and function as a short-term bridge to preserve jobs in the arts. The program will not remove all the threats to jobs, but it is timely, targeted and temporary.

Some may be surprised how many people in Wyoming make their living from the arts. In Sheridan there are 1,123 people (5.8% of the labor force) working in the creative, arts-based economy according to a recent, very careful study, “Tradition, Expression and Recognition: Creative Opportunities in the New West.” Stuart Rosenfeld, the author, gets his data from on-the-ground counts that find the self-employed and others not listed on the standard sources. He also found a cluster of leather and saddle artisans.

The study (available from the Center for Vital Communities in Sheridan) is of significance to the whole state and our efforts to increase economic diversity and attract top creative talent. There is much here already that we can nurture.

For example, the arts economy in Jackson, according to a recent study by Americans for the Arts (Arts and Prosperity III), is one of the largest in the nation. While the study, using Dunn and Bradstreet lists, misses much of the activity, it does allow comparisons and they are staggering. Jackson has ten times more arts spending per-capita than Boulder, Colorado, and twenty times more than Boise, Idaho, both places that promote themselves as arts centers. Cody, not included in the study, is probably not far behind Jackson, and clusters of activity can be found in many Wyoming communities, including Casper.

This matches national trends. Rosenfeld found that the arts economy in Arkansas was the state’s third largest employer and that in Montana, astoundingly, there were more people working in the arts than in the energy industry. It’s no surprise then that arts councils are often part of state offices of economic development, as is the case in Louisiana and Connecticut and that many towns actively recruit artists and promote themselves as arts destinations. Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a decaying manufacturing city has made a huge comeback by stressing music, pottery and food. Each night the downtown swarms with young shoppers and music lovers having a good time and spending money.

We know that appealing towns have lots of arts and that arts draw people and businesses. We also know that arts are fun, that they give pleasure and meaning, that strong art lifts the soul and unclutters the mind.

As a friend once said to me, “Looks like I’m somewhere I don’t like being–out of the loop!”

Though I’ve known Lyndsay McCandless’ gallery might close, it wasn’t confirmed for me until I checked out Henry Sweets’ article in today’s Planet Jackson Hole. (Nice new format, Planet! I didn’t recognize you.)

As Henry points out, Lyndsay’s First Fridays are Jackson’s own “first” tradition; having a “first” day of the month art celebration is becoming a popular venue around arts-oriented communities.   Selfish me.  When Lynsday began her First Fridays, I talked to her about her vision.   I told her to keep what was hers, to own her great concept for community art happenings, that it was hers and she should be clear and proud about it.

Imitation might not be the most sincere form of flattery, but it is certainly flattery.  Now, First Fridays are a Jackson phenom. In Jackson, we’re all competing for limited turf, in a variety of venues.  There are posers, there are the real deals.    Ironically, with so many galleries jumping on the First Friday bus, crowds are sometimes a bit diluted.

Openings are wonderful; they’re not the best venue for thoughtful perusal of art.  So my request to all of you who attend these parties is, please go back and spend time in your favorite galleries REALLY LOOKING at the art.  Think about what you are viewing.  Write something about it, even if just for yourself.

Developers:  Do something to save Jackson’s arts.  You need them.  The arts have powerful marketing value for you and to ignore them, to pay lip service only, isn’t enough.   It’s also not very smart, very current, or very prescient.

Lyndsay, you are a town treasure.  That’s why I nominated you for last year’s Award for Creativity, and that’s why you won, baby.   You are not a poser.  You are the real deal, an original, and you are all heart.   See you soon.

Love, Tammy

Photographer Robert Turner’s large format, color landscape photography show “Rare Places in a Rare Light” is on display at the Buffalo Bill Cody Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.   It remains on display in the BBHC’s John Bunker Sand Photography Gallery through July 31.

Forty-three images make up the show, which has traveled to notable natural history museums at Harvard University and the Mumm Napa Fine Art Photography Gallery. The exhibit showcases Turner’s landscape shots of vistas in Utah, California, Maine and New Mexico…and of Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest and Yellowstone National Park.

“There are times when my camera frames a scene that sweeps 50 miles to the horizon without a trace of human life. Those times are rare and thrilling,” says Robert “Bob” Turner. “More often, I work to frame out the footprint of man on the landscape.”

I’m not familiar with any mantras saying human beings should be included in wildlife photography in order to show scale, even though Turner says one exists.  If it does, he’s not a disciple of that photography sect.

” As a species, we have the capacity to respond to the essence of wildness in a place, even if that place is only an island in the larger sea of human commotion,” says Turner.  “When [a photograph] works, it is often because I’ve managed to capture a fleeting moment of light, color, motion, or stillness that gives the image a sense of heightened reality. I’m left feeling that I have witnessed something that has transcended the realm of ordinary experience.”

The historical center’s education department is working with Turner for lecture and workshop opportunities in late July. Details will be forthcoming later this spring. Monitor www.bbhc.org for more information.

An affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the BBHC is open 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. daily.  For general information, visit www.bbhc.org or call 307.587.4771.

Public Art and Placemaking are, as many of us in the arts community have been saying, inextricable from contemporary, smart, even green, urban growth.  Right now, the Teton County Comprehensive Plan is available to for the public to review.  This is our chance to comment on the way we will grow, not only quantitatively, but qualitatively.   Quality urban growth must include public urban spaces and public art.

If Jackson Hole’s citizens do not make reviewing this plan a priority, we essentially determine not to vote.  And those of us determining not to vote lose a lot of “street cred.”   Writing letters to the editor is a crucial public right;  writing them when you’ve opted not to be a part of the process by showing up at town meetings or workshops is a bit fraudulent.  The Comprehensive Planning process has been activated for many, many months.

YOU are the Plan.

I know it’s hard; but make this a priority.  Here’s a way to start.

TUESDAY, MAY 12, beginning at 5:30 p.m., attend a public meeting at the CENTER FOR THE ARTS. The meeting takes place on the Center’s third floor, in Teton Art Lab’s new space.  The Art Association’s digital photography studio will be available for those wanting to contribute comments electronically.   Members of our arts community will ask questions and submit comments on the inclusion of public art and placemaking in Teton County’s Comprehensive Plan.  Please try and make time to study Themes 3 and 7, in particular.

Preserving environment and quality of place, managing growth, and creating a more viable, broad-based economy are Jackson’s great challenges. Most crucial is ensuring we promote and protect our wildlife, its habitat and other environmentally sensitive areas.  In our region, the arts are a keystone in preserving place.  Although our Town Square’s monument,  various land art and myriad creative educational projects provide continual reminders of our inherent love for the arts, we’ve so far not included researching and moving towards making the arts a part of our “constitution,” as it were.   We can remind ourselves and all visitors of this history by including beautiful and lasting public place making in our Comprehensive Plan.   Such planning aids in building tourism and strong market values. Think logo.

Art captures the essence of the places dear to our hearts.  Successful public art resonates on a national level.   Our traditional themes may be translated traditionally; they may also be translated using contemporary aesthetics and materials.

We must not only include the words.  We must decide upon a logical process of implementation.  Without implementation any plan is simply an exercise.

For information, contact Don Kushner at don@jhcenterforthearts.org or Carrie Geracie at carrie@centerofwonder.org.

“Hearing Our Voices,” a film written, directed, filmed and edited by Girls Actively Participating! ( GAP! ) debuts Tuesday, April 28, 4:30-6:30 p.m. at Lyndsay McCandless Contemporary. The film explores the interests and talents of middle school girls.

A tough age, those middle school years.  Back in the day, a middle school girl’s voice was often ignored, if not downright muffled. Or duct taped.  GAP! promotes the well-being of adolescent girls through active participation in self- discovery, community building, and service to others.

April 28th’s festivities are open house, free!  Everyone is welcome.   The film project was made possible by the Wyoming Women’s Foundation. Learn more at www.gapjh.org.

Lyndsay McCandless Contemporary is located at 130 S. Jackson Street, in Jackson.  For information, contact Amy Manhart, (307) 734-8528 or amanhart@teton1.k12.wy.us.

The Buffalo Bill Historical Center (BBHC ) in Cody will receive $190,000 to study and digitize William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s personal papers.   The earmark, part of the 2009 Federal Budget Bill, also known as the Omnibus Bill, was introduced by then Representative Barbara Cubin.   Cubin left office in January.

Lee Haines, BBHC’s Director of Public Relations, says it will most likely take several months to receive the funds.  Once received, the money will be used to create three new jobs: an editorial assistant and two researchers.

“We anticipate that the entire project will be completed within three years,” says Haines.  “That said, we don’t plan to wait three years before we begin to share what we have found and make information available online.”

What shape the information will take as it is presented to the public is unclear, but Haines says it will probably be organized much like chapters in a book.

Why is a bill sponsored by an out-of-office representative still alive?

Federal budgets are planned two years in advance.  Budgets are combed over and passed on to the Administration, which then submits it to Congress.   The idea is to get it ironed out before the fiscal year the money is to be spent.  It all bounces around, is adjusted, and moves from agency to Congress to the Administration and back before being signed.

“Museums everywhere are trying to realize such projects so that people can have access to information,” says National Museum of Wildlife Art CEO Jim McNutt.  “We have our collection online, and any such project is worthy no matter where the funding comes from. I can’t comment on the BBHC’s process, but I’m very much in favor of such projects.”

The earmark has been widely questioned.  “Taxpayers for Common Sense,” a watchdog group, singled out the BBHC funding, gaining the project national attention.   Critics, including Republican Senator John McCain, tagged it as typical wasteful pork barrel spending.  Proponents argue Bill Cody’s papers are a national treasure and should be preserved via federal funding.

In other fundraising efforts, the BBHC has secured $310,000 from private donors and $300,000 from the Wyoming State Legislature.

In a February 25 statement, House Representative Cynthia Lummis said, “Congressional leaders are turning a blind eye to the plight of millions of Americans by passing this bloated pork-laden spending bill.”

The BBHC takes issue.  “This funding request is a normal part of the process that museums and many other institutions go through to secure funding, not only for particular projects, but for general operating support,” Bruce Eldredge, Buffalo Bill Historical Center Executive Director and CEO, said. “This request will provide additional support for what we consider to be important scholarly work. It’s unfortunate that some people appear to regard scholarship as unnecessary.”

End.