Little Museum, BIG Ideas

By Amy B. Baldonieri with Judith H. O'Toole

What do you get when you combine Big Steel, fine art, folk music, a visionary film producer and international travel? You get a project that changes an organization.

The Westmoreland Museum of American Art once defined itself as a "little museum in Greensburg, Pennsylvania." Located about 35 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, it opened its doors in 1959 to serve both rural and urban audiences from the southwestern Pennsylvania region. Its focus soon became the collection and exhibition of American art and, because it was affordable, the museum also started a unique collection of art from its own region. Over the years, this "little museum" started thinking some pretty big thoughts—specifically, how to teach Americans about the art of their own country—and began putting together exhibitions and programs to do just that.

We hit the tipping point when a grant to increase our self-sufficiency through social enterprise allowed us to launch an awareness-raising marketing campaign, align our social venture (the museum shop) with our mission and give us the entrepreneurial spirit that allowed us to realize that all departments—and all staff—were really working together toward a common goal. The common goal was—and still is—that big thought mentioned above.

Although we didn't really know it at the time, we needed a big project to launch ourselves to the next level. And that's where a little bit of serendipity came into play.

* * *

Serendipity. Look it up in a thesaurus and you get the following:
Chance
Fate
Destiny
Karma
Luck
Fortune
Coincidence
Design
Accident

We had all of these things (some, at times, more than others) in a project that started with a simple idea to share images from our collection.

* * *

Imagine former steelworkers—clad in jeans and their union ball caps—dragging their wives to an art museum. Imagine that they came from all over—hill towns, river towns, coal towns and the (formerly) smoky city itself—to see an exhibition of American art that showed—in all its glory—the heyday of Big Steel in Pittsburgh, Pa.

They came in droves. They cried and laughed and spent hours writing about their memories. They thanked us. And then they shopped.

They shopped so much that in just 12 weeks, they spent $50,000.

Then imagine walking into an industrial museum in a small town in Germany's Ruhr Valley and seeing on the walls landscape paintings and works on paper depicting Pittsburgh. Imagine a German curator speaking so passionately about the connections between his region and the mightiest steel region of all some 4,000 miles away. Imagine a band of musicians from western Pennsylvania bowing to the applause of a bunch of Germans. Imagine the same thing happening in eastern Germany, Spain and Poland.

So, here's how it all went down.

The museum has amassed a collection of paintings and works on paper depicting scenes of Pittsburgh and its steel industry by nationally and regionally known artists. They date from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century (and the demise of the industry). It turns out Pittsburgh provided an incredible visual stimulus to artists looking for images of modern life.

The Westmoreland's museum shop receives a demo music CD from a local band, the Newlanders. Songs of southwestern Pennsylvania. Staff thinks, "Hmm, we have a collection of paintings of southwestern Pennsylvania—they could have used one of our images on the cover of their CD. We should call them in case they do another one."

The development director (also in charge of earned income and the museum shop) meets with staff from the nearby Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area to consult with them about increasing profits in their own museum store. She mentions the CD and the music group. The steel folks know of them and suggest a CD featuring steel era songs with images from the museum's collection of industrial landscapes. The steel folks suggest a partnership. A meeting is set.

Meanwhile, the museum is working with a new organization aimed at increasing unrestricted earned income through social enterprise. The organization, the Social Innovation Accelerator in Pittsburgh, is interested in taking the museum's successful retail operation to the next level through proprietary product development. One of the things they've shown great interest in supporting are products related to the museum's images of Pittsburgh's Big Steel era. The museum's curator jumps aboard immediately when she finds out the industrial collection catalogue she's always wanted to write is considered a "product."

The museum and its partners, Rivers of Steel and the NewLanders, begin moving forward on the catalogue (which we boldly decided to call a "book," so average folks would know what it was) and the CD. Meanwhile, the Westmoreland was chosen to be only the second cultural organization featured on The Visionaries, a public television series entering its 11th season that featured nonprofit organizations. The founder/producer of the series flew to Pittsburgh with his crew; his focus was the museum's various community partnerships. In addition to our work with regional artists and local schools, we suggested he focus part of the show on our work with the NewLanders and Rivers of Steel. He loved it. After viewing a prototype put together (at the behest of the Accelerator) for the project, he turned to our development director and said simply, "I want to make a film about this." She hugged him and set out to raise an additional $150,000.

Not long after that, the team from the museum—now including the director, the marketing director, the curator, the museum shop manager and the development and finance director—met with staff from the Accelerator for an all-day retreat to write a business plan for the project, which had, thanks to an awesome ad agency, become known as "Born of Fire."

We'd never shown the entire "Born of Fire" collection before. In fact, when our director arrived at the museum in 1993, it was stored in the basement because there was not enough gallery space to exhibit it and because it carried reminders of the region's "dark past," which some locals had not completely assimilated. After she brought it to light, it became wildly popular with the museum's southwestern Pennsylvania audience, and a catalogue, er, book, of the collection became the most requested item in the museum shop.

During the business plan meeting, the team realized we could make use of a 12-week hole in our exhibition schedule the following year. We'd been going back and forth at senior management team meetings for some months trying to replace a big exhibition that had fallen through. It wasn't until we were immersed in "Born of Fire" for a day that we realized "Born of Fire" itself could be the exhibition we had been searching for.

All 144 works (and counting), plus artifacts and a kiosk with the film and music. . . .

Boom. We now had a huge project that featured a book, music CD, documentary DVD, and an exhibition (which we also determined had to travel, maybe even internationally—although we'd never done anything like that before). This project now required a trademark, mechanical and sync licenses (Don't know what those are? We didn't either), product packaging, materials to promote a traveling exhibition and way more staff than we had.

Thus began one of the most exciting years any of us had experienced in our careers—and also the most hellish. As the launch of the project in June 2006 grew near, everything just intensified. Certain staff members couldn't sleep; others couldn't not sleep but were plagued with recurring dreams about everything that could go wrong, like paying almost $9,000 to ensure that copies of the book (which was printed in Hong Kong) made it to the museum in time for the opening (that actually happened).

Everyone pitched in during the last few months—from the housekeeper on up. A big "steelworkers picnic" was planned to launch the project, complete with a screening of the film at the school auditorium across the street and a live performance of "our" band. We even grilled food outside on the street between the school and the museum. And people drank their beer directly from the bottle.

By this time, we had raised almost $600,000 to support the project, which our business plan projected would bring at least that much in income over the next five to ten years, much more if one considered possible second printings/pressings.

As mentioned above, the first 12 weeks yielded a gross of $50,000 in sales. Combined with exhibition fee income, this would provide the museum with nearly $75,000 in unrestricted funds during that fiscal year. That's $75,000 that we didn't have to request from donors, foundations or corporations, $75,000 that went directly into operations. And it's only increasing as time goes by.

And then the next thing we knew—we were going to Germany.

* * *

When we decided a portion of "Born of Fire" should travel, we compiled a list of U.S. museums in industrial regions that we felt would have a strong interest in the content of our exhibition. Instead of our normal letter and sleeve of slides, we decided to produce a handsome notebook that included the letter, a four-color brochure about the exhibition, four-color images of eight works from the collection and a CD with a greater sampling of images. We sent these packets out to 36 American museums, and we waited for responses.

None came.

Our curator made some follow-up calls. A perfect example of the battle we were facing is when she talked to one curator from a region in the South that was well known for its industrial might in past years:

Our curator: We sent you the proposal because of UNNAMED CITY'S important industrial past.
Their curator: UNNAMED CITY never had steel mills.
Our curator: Yes, it did.
Their curator: No, it didn't.
Our curator: Yes, it did.

You get the picture. Not one U.S. museum responded favorably to our exhibition proposal. We began to worry that our big idea wasn't as big as we thought.

However, a few months earlier, we began work with a board member and his wife (both natives of Germany's Ruhr Valley) on translating our exhibition materials for prospective German museums. Mrs. Board Member also did some legwork while she was in Germany, visiting and collecting brochures from museums she felt might be interested. We sent proposals to 18 museums. On Dec. 2, 2005—after realizing the U.S. just wasn't going to bite and feeling very dejected about it—we received an e-mail that would not only boost our confidence but would become a very important aspect of the entire project.

Dear Barbara Jones,

We have got your exposé concerning the exhibition project "Born of Fire." The Rhineland Industrial Museum, situated in the ruhrtown of Oberhausen and dealing with the history of heavy industrie, is very interested in this project. More than that: "Born on Fire" has fired us with enthusiasm.

And there seem to be lots of exciting relationships (and occasions for comparison) between the Ruhrarea, the main German Region in steel production and the American steelregion(s). So it could be a wonderful chance to let our audience know more about a transatlantic equivalence.

So we should schedule the possible presentation, available 2007 to 2010, as quick as possible.

Soon after, we made a formal contract with the Rhineland Industrial Museum for the exhibition to make its European debut in Oberhausen from Feb. 4–May 1, 2007. Over the course of the next year or so, our relationship with Oberhausen would grow into a full-blown partnership. Their curator has become fond of saying that we are building a "transatlantic bridge," and he has become instrumental in securing two other venues (one in Chemnitz, Germany, and one in Zabrze, Poland) and another possible venue in Spain. Once "Born of Fire" travels to all of these places, Oberhausen will host a second exhibition featuring not only "Born of Fire" but paintings from all the museums it visited during its European tour. This "grand finale" will coincide with the Ruhr Region's year as the European Cultural Capital in 2010. In addition, after staff visited Oberhausen, we agreed to present an exhibition here at the Westmoreland of works from the Rhineland Museum's own collection—comparing them to "Born of Fire" (part of which is always on view here) in much the same way they did in Germany.

We've attracted the attention of consulates and diplomats—we've become intercontinental (we prefer "global" but feel we need another continent to use that word) and can happily report that we now get spam in German.

So, it's now over a year since the project's launch and the anniversary of our European debut. Now what? Well, as we prepare for the future venues (and continue to try to get more—we originally had four, but one has fallen through), we are finally seeing some interest from U.S. museums. And we are still feeling the effects of the phenomenon of "Born of Fire." As much as our advertising efforts, that exhibition and its related products really put us on the map in our own region. People still come to see the collection here, still buy the products (including a nice boost in sales around the holidays) and still get a little cranky when they realize their favorite paintings are still in Europe! We like to say that the fire is still burning.

Last year we entered into sessions for a new strategic plan, and the whole "Born of Fire" experience played heavily in that process. What's our next "Born of Fire"? How do we keep the momentum of "Born of Fire" going? How can we apply the "Born of Fire" model to everything we do? And the word "global" is now in our vision statement. Not bad for a little museum in Greensburg, Pa. . . .

We do have our next project (it's still a secret!). It's in its embryonic stage, but we're not naïve enough anymore to think that it won't once again change what we do, how we operate and how we think. We're going into it this time with our eyes wide open. We still haven't decided whether that will make it any easier. Or whether it will feel the same without the chance, the fate, the destiny, the karma, the luck, the fortune, the coincidence, the design or the many, many accidents.

To experience "Born of Fire," visit www.bornoffire.org. Enjoy the journey.

Amy B. Baldonieri is director of development and finance and Judith H. O'Toole is director/CEO at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, Pa.