Craft, Folk Art Museum Lands at Crossroads

In yet another sign of troubled times for arts institutions, the Craft and Folk Art Museum is trying to reinvent itself to ensure its survival. One strategy under consideration is to establish “a working relationship� with its massive neighbor on the opposite side of Wilshire Boulevard, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, said Cleon T. “Bud� Knapp, chairman of CAFAM’s board of trustees and a LACMA trustee.

Andrea L. Rich, president of the L.A. County Museum of Art, confirmed that talks are underway, but only in an “information-gathering� stage. “From our point of view, we want all cultural organizations to be as strong and vibrant as they can be,� she said. “We will look at a wide range of options, but there are no conclusions yet.�

LACMA’s assistance might consist of anything from promoting the Craft and Folk Art Museum’s programs to taking charge of collections that are relevant to the County Museum of Art’s holdings, Rich said. In return, CAFAM leaders say their contacts with community ethnic groups could help the larger museum broaden its audience.

The revelation that the Craft and Folk Art Museum is seriously looking for help comes less than a year after it opened a $5.5-million expansion, renovation and earthquake retrofitting project on May 14. Although that scheme had been considerably reduced from a plan to build a tower--which took form in the prosperous 1980s but dissolved when the developer couldn’t get funding--the museum hasn’t bounced back as quickly as its leaders had hoped.

“It took an enormous amount of money to retrofit the building and reopen, and the revenues to support that have been slow in coming. There are not lines of ticket buyers waiting to get into the museum,� Knapp said.

Membership also has fallen--from about 3,000 in 1989 to about 1,000 today. Museum leaders attribute the drop to a loss of visibility during a three-year period when the Craft and Folk Art Museum camped out at the nearby May Co. and an additional 2 1/2 years of construction. The original museum, established in 1965 by Edith Wyle as the Egg and the Eye, derived much of its income from a restaurant. The new building has space for a restaurant, but the museum hasn’t had the means to install one yet. At the same time, arts institutions across the country have suffered from losses of public and private funds.

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Despite cash-flow problems, Craft and Folk Art Museum leaders contend that the museum--with an annual operating budget of about $1.25 million--is solvent and that its assets far outweigh its liabilities. “This isn’t so much a cost-cutting thing as an effort to refocus the museum’s missions and goals,� Knapp said. “We are asking how we can downsize our dreams to today’s economic reality.�

A fundamental aspect of strategic planning concerns the identity of the museum after Director Patrick H. Ela’s departure. He announced his resignation last week, ending a 21-year tenure by saying that he had agreed to stay through the museum’s reopening and transition but that it was time to move on.

“We need to have a very thorough review of what the museum has stood for and where it wants to go in the future,� Ela said, “whether it wants to change its orientation and become a very active collecting institution or maintain its programmatic emphasis, which has been my interest.� The board also is considering whether the museum should maintain its dual focus on crafts and folk art, and how it might better serve local collectors.

“There’s a lot of money in the wings, but it’s in the wings because supporters of the museum want to, need to and deserve to see what the priorities of the museum are before they commit,� Ela said.

Meanwhile, museum founder and director emeritus Wyle, who also serves on the board, is watching with considerable trepidation. “I have put 32 years into this, so I’m just hoping it will survive,� she said. “We have such great ideas. I’m hoping that we can hold onto them for the vast number of ethnic groups who feel that we are more accessible than other museums.�