Top Drawer : 150 Years of Bittners in Theory and Practice. Wesley Elizabeth Spencer University of Louisville
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University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 8-2016 Top Drawer : 150 years of Bittners in theory and practice. Wesley Elizabeth Spencer University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Part of the Cultural History Commons, and the Fine Arts Commons Recommended Citation Spencer, Wesley Elizabeth, "Top Drawer : 150 years of Bittners in theory and practice." (2016). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 2514. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/2514 This Master's Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The nivU ersity of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The nivU ersity of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TOP DRAWER: 150 YEARS OF BITTNERS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE By Wesley Elizabeth Spencer B.A., University of Louisville, 2009 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Louisville In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Art(c) and Art History Department of Fine Arts University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky August 2016 Copyright 2016 by Wesley Elizabeth Spencer All rights reserved TOP DRAWER: 150 YEARS OF BITTNERS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE By Wesley Elizabeth Spencer B.A., University of Louisville, 2009 A Thesis Approved on June 17,2016 by the following Thesis Committee: _______________________________ Peter Morrin ________________________________ John Begley ________________________________ Daniel Vivian ii DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to my wonderful parents Carol & John Spencer IV You are my inspiration and my strength. I would also like to dedicate this paper to my late grandmother Mrs. Mary E. Webb Thank you for your faith, love and support. and to my dear friend Andrew Kelly Thank you for sharing your insight, wisdom and wit. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisors Peter Morrin and John Begley, for their guidance and patience. I would also like to thank Dan Vivian for his involvement on my thesis committee. Also, many thanks to my mentor and friends Dr. Madeleine Burnside for her encouragement, support and guidance during this process. iv ABSTRACT TOP DRAWER:150 YEARS OF BITTNERS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Wesley E. Spencer June 17, 2016 This thesis is a practical summary and theoretical analysis of the development and execution of the exhibition Top Drawer: 150 Years of Bittners, held for public view at the Frazier History Museum in Louisville, Kentucky in November 2012. The thesis further discusses Top Drawer in the broader context of the regional, national and global contemporary museum environment, as well as its impact on the development of the Frazier History Museum's new institutional plan. These examinations are followed by a detailed practicum of the exhibition. This thesis is divided into four chapters covering the areas of museum history, theory and practice, and concludes with a consideration of the institutional future of the Frazier History Museum. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.............................................................................................iv ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................v LIST O FIGURES.........................................................................................................viii INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................1 CHAPTER ONE: GLOBAL IMPACT ON THE FRAZIER HISTORY MUSEUM....14 CHAPTER TWO: MUSEUM PLANNING....................................................................22 FRAZIER’S 2010 INSTITUTIONAL PLAN.....................................................23 FHM PLAN AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF TOP DRAWER .......................37 CHAPTER THREE: PATHWAYS TO EXHIBITION DEVELOPMENT ...................41 INTRODUCTION TO TOP DRAWER……………………………………….42 EXHIBITION BRIEF………………………………………………………….42 INTERPRETIVE PLAN ………………………………………………….…....43 CONCEPTUAL DESIGN………………………………………………….......51 THE BIG IDEA & THE AUDIENCE RESPONSIVE APPROACH………….55 DESIGN DEVELOPMENT…………...……………………………………….57 MARKETING PLAN………………………………………………………….66 vi WORK PLAN………………………………………………………….......69 EVALUATION METHODS……………………………………………....70 CHAPTER FOUR ANALYSIS, IMPACT & LESSONS LEARNED……....…...75 ANALYSIS OF TOP DRAWER………………………………………….75 IMAPACT OF TOP DRAWER……………………………………...…....86 LESSONS LEARNED FROM TOP DRAWER………………….……….97 CONCLUSION BRINGIG IT TOGETHER.………………………………...........101 REFERENCES….………………………………………………………………….111 APPENDICES...........................................................................................................117 CURRICULUM VITAE............................................................................................150 vii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE 1. Sheraton Buffet with Knife Boxes…………………………………………………124 2. Bittner Scaled Drawing of Chippendale Highboy…………………………………124 3. Bittner Custom Table Top Wall Mounted………………………………………….125 4. Chippendale Style Grouping in Exhibit……………………………………………125 viii INTRODUCTION INSTITUTIONAL EVOLUTION With the significant social, demographic, technological and economic shifts that have been transformative of the global community in recent decades, museums around the world now find themselves facing a fast-evolving and highly complex environment. As Graham Black notes in Transforming Museums in the Twenty-First Century: “We are living through a period of profound change in Western society, underpinned by a rise in new media and a fundamental shift in Western economies to a globally interconnected information economy.” 1For museums, this repositioning has been marked by periods of rapid growth and facilities expansion, financial uncertainty, and even economic crisis. Contending with issues of relevance, leadership and sustainability, museums in most developed countries are reexamining core missions and reevaluating their future. For some, the traditional museum model has never been more fundamentally challenged and in need of creative reimagining. For others, the call for reinvention is more a matter of modest adaptation. Regardless, one thing is abundantly clear: it is incumbent on cultural institutions to pursue structured initiatives in innovation and transformation in order to remain relevant in the lives of their audiences, meaningful to the larger culture, and responsive to the demands of their funders at every level of giving. This call for change is by no means a death knell for the traditional museum 1 Graham Black, Transforming Museums in the Twenty-first Century. (New York: Routledge, 2012) 1 model, it is a call for a reawakening, a renewed opportunity to evaluate and adjust how they work to achieve their visions and missions, and by virtue of their function the vast majority of museums are positioned to have such stories of success, as Gail Dexter Lord correctly points out in the Manual of Museum Planning: “In our era, which is dominated by the communications revolution, museums have become highly valued outside the traditional cultural realm as providers of content, leisure destinations, community forums, magnets for knowledge workers, and brandable entities that can revitalize communities large and small.”2 Still, the role and value of museums in contemporary society, as well as their worthiness of sustained support, are the subjects of an ongoing and open-ended dialogue. In 2012, the American Alliance of Museums launched their first summary of emerging trends shaping the future of museums: TrendsWatch 2012: Museums and the Pulse of the Future. The purpose of this annually-issued summary is to provide background context for new dynamics and directions in the museum field; to discuss ways in which these are in evidence in the larger international context; to comment on their significance to society in general and museums in particular; and to suggest how museums might be better poised to respond to them in their planning and execution. The public fascination and increased interest in large museums has changed the ways in which organization leaders regard existing and prospective sources of support. Museums are now being scrutinized for their potential as sources of popular entertainment and venues for social engagement. The recent history of capacity audiences and earned revenue derived from blockbuster exhibitions has created an 2 Gail Dexter Lord, “Institutional Evolution,” in Manual of Museum Planning.(Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 2013), 25 2 unrealistic expectation that properly-managed museums can be sustained by paid admissions and memberships alone: a business model that places more emphasis on the institution as a form of diversion as opposed to one of higher learning and stewardship. Additionally, the idea of the museum as a public, social or festive gathering place, historically the purview of arenas, forums, town squares or cathedral plazas, is beginning to gain currency. Today museum leaders are championing this notion of the museum as a versatile multiuse public space as a new tool in their arsenal to attract and capture the interest of a younger generation of audience and donor. An event such as the Young