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Photos Vincent Guadazno
The Eagle stern piece from the schooner Lotta Belle. |
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“After the Storm,” by John Whorf. |
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Exhibit looks back through the eyes of the collection
By Sue Harrison
Banner Staff
As the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum approaches the 100th anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone for the Monument, it decided to mount a season-long exhibition honoring this centennial event. The show opens from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday and will remain on display throughout the summer.
PMPM has an amazing collection of everything from world class art to children’s toys, stamps, sailors’ creations and memorabilia. To put this show together, co-curators James Bakker and Laurel Guadazno reached into all aspects of the collection and designed a show that looks back at Provincetown and all the aspects of the people who lived here.
They decided to remove the half walls that normally divide up the room where rotating exhibitions are held and create a large airy space that invited visitors to walk completely around objects to see them from all sides. Artwork lines the walls along with photographs and memorabilia, and 3-D objects sit on pedestals in glass cases inviting close scrutiny.
“Part of the excitement is the breadth of the show,” Bakker says. “We picked some of the best of the dolls, toys, stamps and created an archival case. We have a photograph of Gertrude Stein taken by Carl Van Vechten taken in ’34 or ’35 with a letter by Alice B. Toklas to Catherine Huntington, one of the founders of the Provincetown Playhouse.”
Looking at the eclectic collage of memory on display, Bakker noted that each piece has great historic if not aesthetic value.
In making their selection, he and Guadazno brought out some items that have never been displayed. They had paintings cleaned and a grandfather clock repaired.
Doing research for the show also revealed some new information about items that have long sat in safe storage. Looking back in old newspaper accounts, Guadazno figured out that a cloth banner bearing the image of a cod was carried by Provincetown soldiers during the Civil War. And there is a large frame containing the photographs of all the Provincetown members of the Grand Army of Republic.
Paintings and photos of ships line the walls along with stern pieces and other decorative elements of ships that sank off the coast. One case has a number of “souvenir” pieces that were hand-carved or constructed locally from wood salvaged from shipwrecks like the Jason or the steamer Portland.
Hannah Shrand, an expert on antique dolls, came in and helped them go through the dolls to make selections.
Other cases hold stamps and even money issued by the town. There are books and documents, including a deed signed by Peregrine White, the first child born to the Pilgrims in America. That deed, dating to 1695, is the oldest piece in the show and the most recent is the Betty Button, a campaign button for Elizabeth Steele Jeffers when she ran for selectman.
“We need all this,” Bakker says, gesturing to the array of items on display, meaning that the museum needs to have a wide cross-section of items that represent the place and the people.
What’s important now is that the years that may seem not so far removed from today are rapidly lining up to take their place as “history,” and memorabilia from more recent years needs to be collected and preserved.
“What’s missing from the collection is out there in the homes,” Bakker says. “We want people to think of us as the right and appropriate repository for this history.”
He says he wants people to think of the museum when they are going through their basements and attics and the contents of old dresser drawers. And while PMPM welcomes any donations of artwork because of the history and importance of the art colony, it also wants to receive so many other kinds of things.
“Photography, family albums, things that help identify other things, letters, furniture, diaries, logs, almost anything with a clear connection to Provincetown history,” he replies when asked what sort of things the museum is interested in. “Things that appear not to be important may be very important.”
“It doesn’t have to be things from well-known people,” he says. “It’s all part of who we are. It’s our museum. We care about what we have and we take it very seriously.”
artseditor@provincetownbanner.com
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Looking for love’s last frontier
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May 17th, 2007