Arts Council and Museum are a net gain to CNMI

To set the record straight, and perhaps enlighten Mr. Curt Klemstein, while the Flame Tree Arts Festival is a grand and very public activity, it was only one of hundreds that the Arts Council held annually. It may not have even ranked as the most important. Annually, the Arts Council facilitated well over 100 in-school, after-school and summer programs for students and youth, and other community grants activities. The Arts Council provided arts programs for the kids at the detention center. The Arts Council coordinated teacher development programs. The millennium canoe voyage, the Festival of the Pacific Arts traditional canoe voyage, and numerous classes on navigation and canoe sailing, were facilitated by the Arts Council. The construction of the traditional Utts of the Chamolinian village and at the Carolinian Affairs Office were supported by the Arts Council. Theater and drama performances were supported by the Arts Council. The Tinian and Rota Arts Festivals were supported by the Arts Council. The first CNMI Film Festival was possible through the Arts Council. The participation of CNMI artists at the Festival of the Pacific Arts and Cultures in New Caledonia and Palau was coordinated by the Arts Council. Exhibits of artist work and performance in Korea, Japan, Hawaii, the mainland U.S., Guam, Palau and New Caledonia were coordinated by the Arts Council. Youth center arts programs, Scouting arts workshops, mural projects, ports exhibits, hotel exhibits, gallery exhibits, in-coming passenger performances, Man’amko center activities, coordination of the Garapan Street Market, and many other activities were all carried out by the Arts Council.

This information may all be new to you. Despite your perception, the Arts Council was incredibly active, and we were usually very busy juggling any given number of activities at the same time.

With regard to the Museum, you are correct in stating that our primary duty is service as the repository of historic material. This duty does not mean simply tossing historic material into a vacant warehouse. Inherent is the responsibility to ensure these materials are responsibly stored and cared for. Logically, there is also a responsibility to have them reasonably accessible. Which brings us to the lion’s share of the expenses of the Museum, which are the utilities to run necessary air-conditioning, humidity control and security systems essential to the basic maintenance of these materials. Photographs, documents, and textiles especially, will deteriorate rapidly without this maintenance. Many of the collections come with specific requirements that the CNMI government or the museum agreed to, with respect to their management and care. The storage facility is the major cost of the museum. It is a cost that will remain even if the museum closes its doors. This would also mean the likely return of a number of collections.

I think it is wise to review the past history of collections that were simply stored, prior to the opening of the museum. The history is, we have very few of these collections that were once in storage. For whatever reasons, they walked away, they were lost, they deteriorated, or were burned in fires. The museum did not inherit a large collection of locally stored historic material. As I stated in my previous letter, the museum has worked hard to obtain the collections it has, and as a result of the existence of the museum, owners of collections of historic materials are willing to turn them over. This will cease should the museum close its doors.

There are a great many other considerations to be made as well, when advocating for the closure. The revenue generated locally by the museum for example. There are the visitor entry fees, there are the expenditures of the researchers and visitors who come specifically to work with the museum, there is the enhancement of the activities available to off-island visitors, and there are the funds the museum brings in outside of the CNMI in the form of grants and assistance. There are the thousands of CNMI students who benefit from the museum.

In short, closing these programs would be absolutely counterproductive to the CNMI. The CNMI would be a poorer place economically and generally, should these programs shut down.

I would argue that we haven’t invested even close to enough in our arts, our culture, and our cultural tourism infrastructure. This I believe is one of our problems where our identity as a unique visitor destination is concerned. This is a point that has been made by our off-island visitors over the past decade. You are right to point out the problems with the gallery at Capital Hill. An average exhibit would see 100 to 300 people, a mere fraction of the audience they should have garnered. This is probably more the case now, with the cost of fuel and the climb up the hill. A public gallery in an accessible area is long overdue. These are not programs that will be picked-up by the private sector.

With regard to your popping in to meet with me, I offer an apology. My work at the Arts Council often required me to survey Arts Council community grant activities, to conduct workshops, to attend meetings in the community, to provide grant applicant assistance, to meet with potential donors, to pick up supplies, to get quotations, to meet with program vendors, to sit in on a variety of planning meetings, and as we were subjects of the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs, to attend many departmental meetings and departmental programs and activities. Needless to say, I was required to be out of the office to attend to these things. If you were to have popped in to the museum in the morning yesterday and today, you would have missed me as well, as I had to attend to a meeting with our Board Chair, deliver documents to Finance, take inventory of, pack, and transport eleven boxes of historic material, pick up a donated item, and pick up supplies for the grounds maintenance equipment. So it is not a future point of contention, the documents were printed on donated paper, from the personal printer of a museum employee, I used my own vehicle, my own fuel, and purchased the oil for our bushcutter out of pocket. Tomorrow morning I will be down at the American Memorial Park, to load up donated display cases and transport them to the museum. It is always best to schedule meetings in advance.

I’ll end by again posing the question, with a revised and more accurate figure, that takes into account funding the museum has brought in through grants, assistance, donations, ticket sales and commissions on gift shop sales over the past year. Would it make any sense to close down these programs for what amounts to 4.8 hours of CUC costs per year? If you figure the direct and indirect economic benefits, and the educational, cultural, and social benefits of both of these programs, you’d find their closure to be a huge net loss to the CNMI.