In 1992, when David Fairbanks Ford opened the doors of the Main Street Museum in the Lena’s Lunch building in White River Junction, he had an unconventional idea for a museum that would celebrate the kinds of objects that many people would consign to the dust heap.
The 20th century museum and art world have been built on hierarchy and pedagogy, with taste dictated from the top down by powerful museum directors, curators and gallery owners.
That approach yielded a canon of artists, although, until recently, it all but ignored artists who were women and/or people of color. This blind eye has also extended to the objects and lives of people who weren’t well-to-do.
And when you do that you miss an opportunity to learn about people’s lives from objects that were once prized, either by an individual or society, but are now considered too oddball, anomalous or offensive to try to make sense of.
In some ways, Ford is as much an archaeologist, digging into the historic record to find that potsherd or piece of glass that might tell us something valuable about a society, as he is a curator or museum director.
And his model for a museum isn’t necessarily the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Smithsonian but the 18th and 17th century kunstkammer, or cabinet of curiosities. You never know what will strike his fancy, but whatever it is, it will, in most cases, also be of interest to you.
“The whole point really was to approach our culture as if you were an alien from outer space,” Ford said in the first of two interviews he gave this fall. Further, the museum would celebrate “ordinary, flawed people,” Ford said
The museum had a number of iterations in buildings in White River Junction and Hartford Village until it moved in 2003 to its current home in the old fire station on Bridge Street.
In many ways, the art world, and historians, are now catching up with Ford’s approach by looking more closely at everyday objects from a given era — studying from the bottom-up rather than the top-down. “It’s been a long time coming,” Ford said.
Where else in the Upper Valley would you find in one place that is open to the public the following items: Numerous examples of the taxidermist’s art, including bobcats, deer heads and a passenger pigeon (which went extinct in the early 1900s), thousands of books on art and other subjects, the skeletons of creatures, real and perhaps imaginary, old toys, 78 rpm records, sheet music, curios from all over the world, as well as objects from Tsarist Russia and the former Soviet Union, which happens to be one of Ford’s many interests.
And the museum has also “played a significant part in the transformation of downtown White River Junction, from a depressing, obsolete community center to a vibrant, artsy, happening place,” said Mary Nadeau, chair of the board of the Hartford Historical Society.
“It has contributed all the way through to the things that make White River interesting. From a curatorial standpoint, it’s really interesting. It’s not your typical museum, but it’s a perfect example of a museum,” said David Briggs, owner of the Hotel Coolidge. “A lot of things happen there that rev up and inspire the creative arts of the community.”
The next step, Ford said, is to put into place the kind of financial and administrative stability that will keep the museum moving forward.
“An austerity program: it’s a bad thing to do to a country or a museum,” Ford said, deadpan.
To commemorate its upcoming 25th anniversary the museum has launched a fundraising campaign that would assist in hiring an administrator who could also begin the lengthy process of cataloguing the collection. The museum also needs more exhibition and storage space.
“Without staffing and money we just can’t catalogue it all,” Ford said.
Mark Ezra Merrill, the museum’s assistant director, has in recent years orchestrated publicity and fundraising. The museum received a $10,000 grant from the Byrne Foundation in Hanover in 2015, and this year was awarded a $1,000 matching grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Those grants, welcome as they are, are not enough to do what Ford envisions.
The goal is to raise between $45,000 and $65,000, Ford said.
Yes, the museum is an extension of Ford’s interests, but it’s not only that, and it can’t be only that, he added.
After surviving damage resulting from Tropical Storm Irene in August 2011, the museum has continued to expand its offerings.
The museum has collaborated with such entities as the White River Indie Festival, Revolution and Vermont Adult Learning to host film screenings, fashion shows by local designers and art classes. The museum regularly hosts musical and theatrical performances and also features exhibitions by artists from the immediate area, and the Northeast as a whole. And there are talks on historical subjects of interest, and forums to discuss LGBTQ rights.
“The Main Street Museum is a place for boundless freedom of expression and I feel it has been an anchor of the creative renaissance of White River Junction,” Susanne Abetti, the president of the Hartford Historical Society, wrote in an email, adding that the museum has taught her “so much about subjects I didn’t even know existed.”
Ford has plans to do more shows focusing on Russia, but he is also thinking about perhaps devoting a show to what he calls the Heather Diaries, a 1980s teenage diary found by a student from the Center for Cartoon Studies. And then he recently found a journal from the 1840s belonging to an ancestor, Ebenezer Foote, who fought with the U.S. Army against the Seminole people in Florida in the decades-long Seminole Wars from the early to mid-1800s. Cuba excites his interest as well.
Next summer, the museum plans to host a fundraising concert at which the noted composer and musician Nico Muhly, (the son of painter Bunny Harvey and filmmaker Frank Muhly, who live in Randolph) will play.
The multi-pronged effort is all part of Ford’s ongoing experiment to ask us to think about what is of value to us, and how we decide.
“All cultures have their magical objects. As we record and create our own history, we create our own museum,” Ford said.
For information or to donate, go to mainstreetmuseum.org or call 802-356-2776.
BigTown Gallery in Rochester, Vt., holds a reception on Saturday from 3 to 6 p.m. for its exhibition “Figuration,” which features the works of Lucy Mink Covello, Mark Goodwin and Fulvio Testa. The show runs through Feb. 25.
Arabella, Windsor. The gallery exhibits works by local artists and artisans in a variety of media, including jewelry, oils, acrylics, photography, watercolors, pastels and textiles.
AVA Gallery and Art Center, Lebanon. The annual holiday exhibition and sale continues through Dec. 24. The gallery will offer additional hours on Monday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 24 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Center for the Arts, New London. The Center is sponsoring the 2016 Regional juried art show on exhibit at the New London Inn at 353 Main St. The show runs through Jan. 28
Chandler Center for the Arts, Randolph. The annual Artisans Holiday Market runs through Dec. 21.
Converse Free Library, Lyme. “Paul Klee: The World Through My Lens,” work by the Lyme-based photographer, continues through Dec. 23.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon. The photography of Nicolas Doak; acrylics and pastels by Norman Rhodes; work by members of the Upper Valley Ship Modeler’s Guild; fiber art by Dianne Shullenberger; digital art by Gloria King Merritt and oils and acrylics by Prabhjot Kaur are on view throughout the hospital through Dec. 31. For information call the Dartmouth-Hitchcock arts program at 603-650-6187.
Hanover League Fine Craft Gallery. The autumn exhibition features work by ceramicists Robin Ascher and David Ernster, textile artists Rachel Kahn and Kathleen Litchfield, and photographer Rosamond Orford.
Howe Library, Hanover. “A Life in Watercolors,” a show of work by Marion Kummel, runs through Jan. 3.
Kilton Public Library, West Lebanon. An exhibition of work by Enfield painter Penny Koburger continues through January.
Library Arts Center, Newport. LAC’s annual holiday Gallery of Gifts is open through Dec. 23.
Long River Galleries and Gifts, Lyme. “Of Transcendent Joy,” an exhibition of landscape paintings by the late Deborah Frankel Reese is on view through Jan. 8.
Osher at Dartmouth, Hanover. Photographer Thomas Urgo shows his work in “World Views” at the Osher offices at 7 Lebanon St., through Dec. 20. Also showing photography are Anne Baird, Janice Fischel, Nora Gould, John Lehet and Lilian Shen. Hours are Monday-Thursday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Fridays, 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Royalton Memorial Library, South Royalton. A show of work by 20th century commercial artist Louis Chap is on view through Feb. 18.
SculptureFest, Woodstock. The annual celebration of three-dimensional art continues. “Grounding,” a show of site-specific work curated by sculptors Jay Mead and Edythe Wright, is on view at the King Farm. For more information, go to sculpturefest.org.
Tunbridge Public Library. Anne and Mitch Beck, of Royalton, exhibit their mixed-media collages through Jan. 13.
Two Rivers Printmaking Studio, White River Junction. The Holiday Print Show, where prints by studio members are on sale as unique presents for the holidays, runs through Jan. 31.
Two Rivers member-artists are also exhibiting work related to Northern Stage’s productions of Macbeth and A Christmas Carol in the lobby of the Barrette Center for the Arts, through December.
Nicola Smith can be reached at nsmith@vnews.com.