Tales from a Scenic Artist and Scholar. Acquiring The Fort Scott Scottish Rite Scenery for the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center, part 52.

Rewriting History

Two for one day today as Grand Lodge is tomorrow! This is a long installment that I simply didn’t want to divide into two parts.

When I left for the Fort Scott on November 1, 2015, the six galleries for the Ladd Museum and majority of text panels were both finalized and approved. There were only a few museum meetings left and they were to focus primarily on some small details and the interactive exhibits. The museum team needed these meetings to end so that they could create and submit their final proposal; one that would include all the estimated expenses associated for the opening exhibit on June 24, 2016. The date that decisions had to be finalized was December 1, 2015. Until that time, the museum team remained on retainer as the scope of the project had yet to be finalized or agreed upon by both parties.

Jump ahead to March 16, 2016, when the part-time curator for the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center emails me: “The objects planned for the exhibit galleries has changed pretty drastically and I have been spending all of my time cataloging the newly selected artifacts and developing new object lists for Mia and the preparators [sic].” Remember, the grand opening was June 24, 2016 – just two months away.

It is essential to understand the timeline for the initial exhibit design, artifact selection, thematic layout, and museum committee meetings from November 2014 until November 2015 in order to understand how continued changes jeopardized the entire endeavor and final deliverables.

When I was first hired as the historical consultant August 1, 2014, the CEO shared his dislike for all of the visuals that the museum team had presented to date during both the task force meetings and subsequent board of directors meetings. In November 2014, the CEO directed me to meet with Joel Woodward (Woodward Design) and Mia Schillace-Nelson (Outhouse Exhibit Services) to determine whether he should continue to retain their services or seek their replacement.

If we really needed to replace them, I needed to someone else to recommend for the design as we could not start a search from scratch. Therefore, I called Rick Polenek to see if he was available to work on the project, explaining my directive from the CEO. Rick was the designer for the 1996 touring exhibit “Theatre of the Fraternity: Staging the Sacred Space of the Scottish Rite, 1896-1929” and is a brilliant designer for a variety of venues, plus he was familiar with Masonic artifacts – a must.

However, during my meeting with the museum team, they explained that no one was providing any information about Freemasonry and they were solely “shooting in the dark.” It was at that point that I weighed all of my options and their enthusiasm, deciding to recommend that the CEO keep them on board, even though it would mean holding their hand throughout the entire process and assuming the role of Exhibit Curator myself. According to Schillace-Nelson, they were rapidly running out of time to design and build a six-gallery exhibit for a June 2016 opening.

By January 2015, I was working extensively as Exhibit Curator, creating timelines, mission statements, artifacts surveys, and thematic flow charts for each gallery. Schillace-Nelson and I spent long hours examining the entire Minnesota Masonic Historical Society and Museum collection; identifying potential exhibit artifacts, selecting and setting up a “staging area” for exhibit galleries, and recommending certain pieces for outside conservation work. Schillace-Nelson could not accomplish this work alone, nor select any appropriate artifacts as she was unfamiliar with Masonic memorabilia and the various fraternal organizations.

As previously posted in installment #40, I flew to Washington D.C. during February with the CEO, general director, and a local Scottish Rite Mason to present our project and select a Masonic Scholar to research and write all of the exhibit texts and object labels.

In April and May 2015, I wrote extensive thematic layouts for each gallery, identifying every item within a gallery and pairing objects together in specific areas.

Other than myself, our assembled museum team included Art De Hoyos (Masonic scholar for national and international content), Brent Morris (Masonic scholar for national and international content), Mark Campbell (Masonic scholar for local content), Terry Tilton (Masonic scholar for anti-Masonic sentiment area), Mia Schillace-Nelson (Exhibit Construction), Joel Woodward (Exhibit Designer), Steve Johnson (Exhibiit Video), MMC Director of Communications (Script writer for videos and in-house museum text editor), the general director, and the CEO. I also intended to have one non-Masonic scholar who could look at the exhibit with fresh eyes as Campbell had recommended Janet Wolter, unfortunately she was never brought on board.

In June, July and August of 2015, I headed all of the weekly museum meetings. These “Museum Roundtable” meetings included a conference call for those unable to journey to Bloomington every week. At every meeting went over my artifact recommendations and thematic layouts for each gallery. My documents were posted to a website where all of the committee could view gallery information, objects, floor plans and graphic designs. After the meeting, I would condense the notes and include my minutes, emailing Schillace-Nelson for her to distribute my corrected documents. Our exhibit designer Woodward created a website to distribute and update information; it still appears to be up and running at http://www.theladdmuseum.com/index.php.

After each gallery was approved, Woodward would then start to design the physical layout and stylistic appearance of each exhibit space to place objects in their specific topic area. Similarly, I would selected individual authors to write text panels and object labels, based on their past research and specialty.

By September 2015, the entire museum team gathered together in Bloomington for a final meeting; there, we would all read and edit the text written by De Hoyos, Morris, Campbell, and Tilton. During that same visit, De Hoyos and Morris would also examine all objects so that they could start writing each object for Gallery 1 (History of Freemasonry), Gallery 3 (The Fanciful History of Freemasonry) and Gallery 6 (Extensions of Freemasonry). Tilton would write both the text panel and object labels for anti-masonic sentiment, whereas Campbell would write the object labels for Gallery 2 (History of Freemasonry in Minnesota) and Gallery 5 (Minnesota Masonic Charities). Johnson and Johns would assist Campbell with additional content for the Minnesota Masonic Charities gallery. Unfortunately, it was evident that the quality of writing among the scholars greatly varied. We asked our in-house editor to rewrite the text of Tilton and Campbell, attempting to unify their work with De Hoyos and Morris. To the group we announced that our in-house editor would “tweak everyone’s writing for uniformity” to avoid any hurt feelings.

Jump ahead to November 2, 2015. This was my first day working with the scenery in Fort Scott. This same week, the in-house text editor and CEO started to rearrange the placement of objects in various topic areas, even altering the written text by De Hoyos and Morris. The previously approved galleries began to change dramatically. For example, the Minnesota Masonic Charities Gallery swapped places with the Extensions of Freemasonry, putting it in the place of greatest prominence and ending the inclusion of a transitional space for touring exhibits.

By March and April of 2016, Schillace-Nelson and Campbell were still identifying new artifacts for the various galleries. I knew this, because Schillace-Nelson would stop by with daily updates, often parking her minivan in the driveway attached to my office/library processing facility due to continued construction.

It is crucial to note that the first “drop dead date” for artifact selection, text, and graphic images was June 1, 2015. The intent was so the production team could then estimate the expense with ample time remaining for construction. The museum team repeatedly explained, they needed an entire year to manufacture the exhibit. The June 1 deadline was then shifted to September 2015. After that, December 1, 2015; they didn’t meet that deadline either as the museum began the redesign process at that point. So when I entered the Ladd Museum on June 24, 2016, the exhibit appeared a mere shadow of its September 2015 vision; I was mortified for not only my sake but that of De Hoyos and Morris.

It was not until we left the building that my husband shared his indignation on my behalf; the museum brochure listed me as simply a historical consultant – nothing more. Furthermore he grew even more angry as he explained to Paul Jacob Roberts and myself, “And I counted seven – SEVEN – pictures of the CEO in the museum exhibit!” I shrugged and smiled at them both, “It might all be for the best as that exhibit is nothing that I had hoped it would be.” I simply couldn’t send the promised pictures of the museum to De Hoyos or the museum brochure that listed him simply as “historical consultant” and not a principle author for the exhibit text.

I then understood why neither Art De Hoyos nor Brent Morris had been invited to the Grand Opening; they would notice the substantial changes and possibly comment on them. There were only a few of us who notice the discrepancy between what had been approved in 2015 and what was actually built in 2016.

The story that I have told lives only in the minds of those who worked on the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center museum exhibit from 2014-2016. The museum’s history was re-written on June 8, 2016 and is available as a Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center link: http://www.masonicheritagecenter.org/2016/06/muscle-making-museum/

To be continued…