Museum Being Reborn With More Space, Comfort
February 4, 2008
By JENNIFER COLTON
Index-Journal Staff Writer
GREENWOOD, SC - It’s hard to miss the construction going on at The Museum in Greenwood with sheets of plastic, tape and equipment covering the Uptown building.
Friday night, Matt Edwards, executive director of The Museum, revealed some of the plans for the complete remodeling of the historic institution.
“For people who have a pre-existing idea of The Museum, the people who grew up here, it’s a 180-degree turn,” Edwards said. |
Matt Edwards, executive director of The Museum, talks Friday at T.W. Boons about plans for The Museum’s remodeling. (Photo by Jennifer Colton) |
“Almost everything is different. The only thing that remains the same is it is a very long building.”
The projected date for the public grand reopening is June 14, Edwards said.
“The main floor will be a regional exhibit,” Edwards said “The upper floor is being converted to a natural history exhibit with all the rocks, fossils, critters and the science behind them.”
The Museum’s lower level -- an area closed to the public for almost 10 years -- will be unveiled in June 2009.
While the popular Main Street exhibit with its old-fashioned business displays will remain on the museum’s main floor, the exhibit is getting a major facelift and will include a theater, a schoolhouse, a general store and a train depot, along with a changing space that will probably start out as a post office or bank, Edwards said.
The new main floor will also include a seating area and new retail space.
“The biggest thing people will notice is that the heating and the air-conditioning system work, and we have a new elevator,” Edwards said. “It’s a big increase to both comfort and safety.”
In addition to a more modernized entry and lobby area, the museum will now feature an area for local artists, an enclosed kids play zone with a single entry and exit, and a 300-square-foot space dedicated to showing pieces of The Museum’s 45,000-piece collection that do not fit the exhibit storyline, such as the antique typewriters and tornado memorabilia.
“Conspicuously absent, you will not see any of our African stuffed critters here. While they are still part of our collection, and may make occasional appearances, they are not part of our focus,” Edwards said.
Another change for The Museum is an increased curriculum involvement with local teachers and state and federal education standards.
“We’re going to give a very clear storyline that relates to the standards and what kids are learning in school,” Edwards said, adding that The Museum will offer more hands-on exhibits and outreach programs.
How to help
But The Museum’s rebirth still has a major hurdle ahead -- funding the exhibits themselves.
“Right now, the renovation project as it exists, the building has been funded. What has not been funded is all the pretty things that go inside it,” Edwards said.
To fund all the remaining aspects of the project, Edwards said The Museum needs to raise $500,000.
“It’s also incredibly important as we launch this campaign that people understand this is not a publicly funded organization. The Museum is funded by the monies we can raise,” Edwards said. “A lot of people are under the misconception that we’re funded by the city or the county or both, but that’s not the case.”
Museum officials hope that by contributing to The Museum, people can have a sense of ownership in the organization and will become more involved in the future.
“We view this campaign really as an opportunity for grassroots development,” Edwards said. “It’s as much about building constituency as it is building a museum. It’s about getting folks involved at the school level, at the church level. This museum started as a community organization. It was built by volunteers, staffed by volunteers. Now we’re getting a rapid decline in our member base as the original generation of volunteers grows older.”
The project has other ways to get people involved past the money standpoint, however, Edwards said.
“There are two components to this campaign: There’s the financial aspect, then there’s the content. There are wonderful resources in this area, people who have an incredible interest in any number of these topics,” he said.
Right now, The Museum has a broad outline on what information should be part of the display focus, and officials are looking for people with information on regional or local history -- especially the pre-Civil War/cotton industry through post-Civil War industry -- to flush out those displays.
“I’m hoping the community will be excited about getting involved and telling the story, their story,” Edwards said. “It’s an opportunity to get involved on the intellectual level as well as the financial level. There are a lot of people out here with a lot of knowledge. We’re looking for people who have more depth in a subject to help us develop those specific areas.”
Different experts will create the information for each exhibit, and that information will be given to one person who will write the displays, so the entire museum has a unified voice.
Community members can also get involved with the actual exhibit construction, Edwards said. Typically, museum items and information are shipped to a designer who creates the exhibit for about $300 per square foot.
“We don’t have that to spend. With our campaign goal right now, we’re looking at $100 a square foot,” he said. “The designer is working with us to find local resources. Rather than ship the fabrication of the exhibit to a contractor in Charlotte, we’re looking for people who will work on site or in Greenwood. We’ve been very fortunate to have a number of businesses coming on line with heavily reduced materials at cost.”
Edwards said he hopes all the opportunities people have to help out with the remodeling project will help them connect with the institution.
“You get people involved on the front end, and they will continue to be involved in The Museum they built,” he said. “We’re hoping the project will re-invigorate the community to become more involved. The Museum is not just a place to store old stuff. We see ourselves as much more than that.
“This is the community’s museum. It was built by the community, for the community.”
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Museum Renovations February 2008 - The general contractor, W E Baker of Whitmire, SC, is shown below working to better weatherize of the basement of the Museum.
Museum Renovations February 2008 - Renovations to the Museum's warehouse are almost complete. Improvements include a new pitched roof and gutter system, humidity controls, and the installation of a new shelving system to better archive the Museum many artifacts.
