Rallying for Arts & Culture, Part One
Showcase Interviews Redlands’ Nelda Stuck
Nelda Stuck served as Community and Arts editor of the Redlands Daily Facts for 22 years, and when folks talk about movers and shakers in Redlands, CA, her name tends to turn up. Among her projects, she and Liz Beguelin took the idea of an historical museum in January 2000 to the Redlands City Council who encouraged them to form a committee and do a feasibility study. Since then, the Redlands Historical Museum Association has worked 22 years, resulting in today’s nearly-complete construction. We asked her about launching cultural institutions in the current economic climate, or even attempting one at all.
Showcase: When and why did you undertake this project?
Stuck: My husband Monte and I in 1998 visited some 15 history museums in Southern California to see how other cities achieved their goals, how long it took, what kind of museum building and how they acquired it, who owns the contents, what kind of board runs it, how they raise funds/charge for admission, and how and what they display etc. Then we took Monte’s slide show of these museums to a dozen service and community organizations with the message “Redlands is a museum without a museum” to begin raising the awareness and support we needed. Liz Beguelin (then president of the Redlands Area Historical Society) and I then gained the support of the A.K. Smiley Public Library who also wanted a place to display the100 years of historical objects they had been accumulating.
Showcase: What challenges have particularly slowed you down?
Stuck: Two major areas: Finding a suitable location. Over 15 years we seriously considered five potential sites, pondering them, waiting for decisions which didn’t materialize. And a second challenge is that when you finally do acquire the building, the concept of turning it into a museum is one of tremendous magnitude, not only the finances, but meeting all requirements for professional museum environmental standards for collection temperature and humidity.
Showcase: Have you seen changes in attitudes toward funding the arts?
Stuck: Redlands has always supported the arts, continuously from the very early philanthropists who came from the East Coast at the end of the 1800s and brought their culture to enjoy in our year-round temperate climate through the years to the present. Redlands became known as “The Jewel of the Inland Empire” as various educational and performing arts institutions were built and took hold and thrived. This is a “giving” community. In our Museum of Redlands Capital Campaign we purposely sought private rather than public funding, and count more than 1,000 donors to date.
Showcase: Redlands has a reputation for cultural icons. Please expand on this.
Come back next showcase for the answer
in Part Two of “Rallying for Arts and Culture.”