Objects can be a powerful testament to our culture, and that's why museums matter

When I first attended school to learn about material culture (physical objects made or modified by humans), my professor — a fantastic combination of Elmer Fudd and Vizzini from “The Princess Bride” — asked the class what we found so interesting about museums that we wanted to pursue a career in the field.

Shyly, the students looked at each other. This was not a question most of us had even asked ourselves.

One by one, however, students raised their hands to answer. Some said they wanted to be able to preserve objects for generations to come. Most liked touching “actual history.” In every case, each student had a slightly different answer to the professor’s question, but all focused on the objects themselves.

Our poor professor sighed, took a deep breath, and then informed us that we were all wrong.

Our answers were why most people think museums don’t matter, provide nothing for a community or are for only certain people.

For decades, people visited museums — especially fine art museums — where objects were displayed in glass cases or on platforms behind barriers. All objects were in neutral environments with labels that too frequently just shared the title, artist/manufacturer, what it was made of and when. We call these “tombstone" labels or the “lazy”’ label.

(Perhaps whoever named it tombstone appreciated the humor that those are the types of labels where visitors go to die of boredom?)

Other labels spent paragraphs telling the visitor what they should see when they look at the painting, somehow missing the point that art is in the eye of the beholder, and every visitor will see something different.

Our professor showed us an image of a chair on display and pondered: If a visitor walks into a museum and sees this chair, what do they take away from it? It’s not in its original environment. Why is it even interesting to the visitor? Very few will care or appreciate the work that the often anonymous craftsman put into making that chair. The display presumes that the visitor knows and cares about furniture-making.

The importance of a museum, he said, was not necessarily in the museum itself or even inherently in the objects themselves. The point we all missed was that the chair was not the most important thing.

The stories and history the chair represented of the people who lived with, made and used it were one of the two most important parts.

The second important part was the visitors' reactions to and connection with those stories.

The chair was important because it was the Lincoln Rocker, and the chair in which President Abraham Lincoln was sitting when he was assassinated at Ford Theatre in April 1865.

Once the visitor knows that, the chair takes on an entirely new life because it transcends its form to become about the events of that night. It is the staff who need to understand that, and then help the visitors put themselves in the past and imagine the events of that fateful night.

What was it like? What play were these people watching? Why was Lincoln there? Was he enjoying the play? Why was he assassinated? How did that impact American history? And so forth.

Museums, especially art museums, have often had the reputation of being elitist. The shining institution on the hill, or a place meant only for certain people in a community or they only represent a few in society and not the majority.

Since that day long ago when I sat in that classroom, things have changed. Today, museums often distance themselves from being called “museums,” preferring to rebrand and drop the name museum in favor of centers, changing from donor names in favor of something that represents the community they want to serve.

Whatever they call themselves, museums serve the community and should be places where people go to grow, where they can learn not only about their own communities but about the larger world.

In a museum, visitors can see objects from the past and learn from them. People who visit museums also engage in creativity, empathy and connection. For that reason, museums are instrumental to a community, and that is the part I love most about working at one.

The Washington County Museum of Fine Arts hosted the “Childhood Favorites: 100 Years of Children’s Book Illustration” exhibition, which closed in March. The exhibition was a powerful reminder of what museums can do. Multigenerational families came and spent hours in the gallery, talking to each other about memories invoked by a particular artist, creating illustrative characters together or reading in our treehouse environment.

Recently, I have been asked how the museum chooses what exhibitions we will develop or host. For me, the important thing is finding a topic that will create meaningful experiences that engage, entertain and help people grow into their best selves while challenging them to think about things from a different perspective.

Our upcoming exhibition, “Art, Fashion, Symbol, Statement: Tattooing in America 1960 to Today,” is such an exhibition. It opens in June.

The stereotype is that only sailors, bikers and gang members have tattoos and that it is not a real art form. Since the 1990s, this has rapidly changed. In a Pew Research Center Survey, 58% of millennials (ages 18–29), 38% of Generation X (ages 30–49) and 22% of baby boomers (ages 50–64) have a tattoo. Today, 32% of all Americans have at least one tattoo.

This exhibition is so much fun for me to work on because advances in technology and changes in societal perceptions have allowed tattoos to evolve into a true art form, with deep personal meaning for those who choose to get them.

This is one of those exhibitions where the objects are not from decades and centuries ago, but are contemporary. It has the opportunity to create a space where our community can engage in meaningful, thought-provoking experiences — one my professor hoped his students would go out into the world to create.

Art is more than decor: It's about coming together, preserving traditions, making memories

Sarah C. Wolfe is collections registrar and exhibition coordinator for Washington County Museum of Fine Arts. The museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. Go to wcmfa.org for more information.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Those objects in museum displays have a story to tell