April 2024

Signing Off

Like the place where a rainbow blends into sky, MANY’s work can barely be seen from our office on the banks of the Hudson River in Troy. It takes all of you to make what we do visible. I will never know the full extent of the impact I have made at MANY in my decade of service, first as a member of the board of directors and then as executive director.  But I do know that brilliant colleagues, creative problem solvers, generous collaborators, visionary leaders, and steadfast supporters of museums have served as my inspiration and my compass. 

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Inside the NYS Assembly Chambers on January 30 during the 2024 Joint Legislative Budget Hearing. Photo by Elizabeth Reiss, President & CEO, The Arts Center of the Capital Region

January 2024

Testimony of the Museum Association of New York Submitted to the 2024 Joint Legislative Budget Hearing

On behalf of the board of directors of the Museum Association of New York, our 750 members of every museum discipline and budget size in every region of our state, and our dedicated staff, I respectfully present this testimony with gratitude for the legislature’s steadfast support of New York’s museums. In doing so, I also seek your esteemed leadership in addressing three critical areas: 1) Providing financial support for museums, 2) Advancing the results of The Museum Study Act to tackle sector challenges, and 3) Securing funding for NY250 along with promoting inclusive representation in our cultural narratives. Your leadership in these areas is pivotal for the continued flourishing of our state’s rich cultural history.

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NYCRR Train Engine #999 Scale Model, 1952, Frank DeSantis, Painted metal, glass, wood.

Albany Institute of History & Art

December 2023

I think I can I think I can I think I can

"When I close my eyes, I can picture the small bookcase in the corner of the apartment bedroom I shared with my brother when we were young. It sat behind a low, round, brown, Formica table held up by chipped chrome legs. At unexpected moments, the words of the authors and pictures by the illustrators will still bubble up in my thoughts. I was fortunate to be raised in a home and a culture where education was valued, books were gifted on holidays, and our weekends included a trip to the public library. I strongly suspect that many museum people were raised in similar environments."

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November 2023

Full Moon and Sunrise

My heart is full with all you have done to support the Museum Association of New York, our programs, our staff, and the museum professionals who share their experience and expertise to keep us informed, connected, and relevant. I am grateful to our partners, sponsors, donors, and our board members who help make our work possible. I am writing now to ask that you make a donation to support our work in the coming year so that we can continue to offer opportunities for us to gather and learn from each other. 

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October 2023

Giving Voice to Value

I was reminded last week that in the Capital Region’s hardiness zones, tulip bulbs are planted in October and November – about eight weeks before a hard frost. They then need another 120 days of freezing temperatures before blooming in April. I can’t grow tulips. The deer that share our yard think they are fall snack offerings, so I forget that at this time of year so many friends have their hands in the soil and their minds on spring blossoms. 

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Trojan Greens Officer's Coatee, Troy, New York, wool, brass, silver, 1809-1815, Collection of Fort Ticonderoga

September 2023

Ask the Governor to Support New York's History

The strength of our combined voices is our superpower. When we come together to speak out on an issue, we can be loud and we can be heard. Sometimes advocating for New York’s history, art, and cultural organizations is the most gratifying part of my job. Other times, it is the most challenging work I do. Sue Storm bends light to become invisible, Superman steels himself with his cape, and Wonder Woman’s bracelets deflect projectiles. On days when I feel like there are huge obstacles separating our state’s history, art, and cultural organizations from those who can help, I close my eyes, and in my imagination, I put on the coat pictured above, tuck all of you in my pockets, take a deep breath, and start again. One of the biggest challenges I have faced in the past year is raising awareness of the critical need for a Semiquincentennial Commission in New York. I am asking you to add your voice now before New York’s contributions to our nation’s history are left behind in the 2026 commemorations.

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August 2023

Priority Item #1: NY250: Tell the Whole Story

Instead of a traditional Letter from Erika, this month Erika shares the text she wrote for the Museum Association of New York’s priority request to the New York State Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, and Asian Legislative Caucus’ 2024 People’s Budget.

In 2026, our nation will mark the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Ten of the original thirteen states along with 25 others have fully seated, active commissions, New York remains without. New York needs a commission and legislative action that will promote this opportunity as a priority and will allocate funding so that museums, historical societies, historic sites, and historic battlefields can begin to share their cultural resources with their communities and beyond. We must take this opportunity to welcome and incorporate equally the stories of Indigenous Nations, BIPOC, and new Americans.

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July 2023

How Are You? How Are You Really?

At a friend’s birthday party last week, I had a conversation with someone who works at a food co-op about what it was like to be an essential worker at the height of the pandemic. After a rambling discussion, they said “can you believe we made it through that?” and since it was a party, I smiled and replied that I felt lucky to be here. What I didn’t say is that I know that many of us have mended, but have still not “made it through.”

As the MANY staff traveled around the state this year, we heard first hand that attendance at most museums has not returned to 2019 levels, that many are having trouble filling staff positions, and that operational changes are essential for the future of museums. We learned that recovery remains inconsistent from city to city, region to region, and discipline to discipline. We also learned that federal relief funding, grants from the state and private foundations, and community support made a real difference.

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June 2023

Semper Gumby

When I was 36 years old, my mother bought me a three inch-tall Gumby. For those without much gray hair, Gumby was a claymation TV show character who had a horse named Pokey. The Gumby Show was one of my childhood favorites, especially once we were able to afford a color television and I could see that Gumby was green and Pokey was orange. Eddie Murphy dressed as Gumby in costume on Saturday Night Live in the early 1980s (I don’t remember many of those episodes) and Gumby had his own 1995 feature film.

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May 2023

Courage and Vulnerability

When we read responses to annual conference surveys we find at least one lamentation about how someone could not attend one session or another because one session conflicted with another in the schedule. It is truly impossible for anyone who attends a MANY conference to attend every session. The conference is purposefully structured with concurrent sessions to appeal to a range of people at different stages of their careers who are employed by different size museums of different disciplines. We strive to create an environment in which people can talk to each other and think deeply about new ways to work together to advance the field. The conference cannot happen without people who are courageous in their choice to speak out, vulnerable in the face of challenge, and willing to share the spotlight and the microphone with others. 

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Eleanor Roosevelt voting in 1936, less than twenty years after the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteed women the right to vote. FDR Library Photo

February 2023

First Vote

I don’t remember who was on the ballot the first time I voted, but I remember the challenge of finding my polling place - a community meeting room in the basement of an apartment building - on a rainy night in New York City. The room was lit with flickering fluorescent bulbs and the floor was covered with gray linoleum tile. It took the poll volunteer who sat on a metal folding chair behind a metal folding table a long time to find me in a very large register. I signed my name and waited behind a stanchion until a booth with a curtain opened up and someone walked out. Only then was I allowed to cross the room and enter the booth. I remember pushing all the little levers and then pulling the big lever that recorded my vote and opened the curtain.

Those machines are long gone. Now I vote using a black marker on a printed form scanned into an electronic reader. My polling place is the back room of a volunteer fire station located at the second of two traffic lights in my hamlet. My vote feels very meaningful in this purple district and I have been known to be among the first at the polling site. My faith in our nation’s democracy is tied to my commitment to vote.

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January 2023

Preparing for Winter

I admit to being one of those people who perhaps overly prepares for winter in Upstate New York. We have a generator for our 200-year-old home because we live in a place where the power goes out. I have a “winter bag” with blankets, flashlight, water, and granola bars as well as a very large brush and ice scraper in my car. In the MANY office, we keep extra jackets on hand and cover the windows with plastic to hold back wind blowing off the Hudson River.

We learn each winter about weather-related disasters that have damaged museums, historic structures, and collections. I have spoken with museum directors dealing with flooded basements because nearby creeks overflowed their banks; fire and smoke damage because electrical systems were compromised, and roofs that caved under the pressure of snow or fallen branches.

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January 2023

My Kitchen Sink of Hope

I want to wish everyone a healthy and happy new year and thank all who made a donation to the Museum Association of New York in 2022. Your generosity helped us close the year on a high note. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at our annual conference and at gatherings around the state. I’m excited to learn about all of the great things you have planned for 2023.

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December 2022

Welcome Spring!

It may be a cold December day outside of the MANY office with holiday lights filling the streets of Troy and ice beginning to form on the banks of the Hudson River, but inside we are celebrating new growth bursting through buds on tree branches. With a record number of proposals for conference sessions, more scholarships to award than ever before, and leaders of the field nominated for Awards of Distinction, we are focused on our 2023 annual conference “Finding Center: Access, Inclusion, Participation, and Engagement” that will be held in Syracuse from April 15th to the 18th. Mark your calendars, conference registration opens on January 23!

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November 2022

Support MANY/Support Museums

The last weeks of 2022 bring MANY’s sixtieth year of service to the museum field to a close. Despite the recent hardships we have all experienced, we stand stronger now than ever before. As I look back over all that we have accomplished, I am proud of the ways we brought museum professionals together in person and virtually for critical discussions about contemporary museum practice. I am continually inspired by my colleagues who generously share their time and expertise and I write now to ask for your financial support.

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October 2022

Communicating Value

Last week, the American Association of State and Local History published their 2022 National Visitation Report. The report illustrates that although some history organizations saw as much as a 75% increase in attendance in 2021 over 2020, overall visitation remains well below pre-pandemic levels. With hard data like this, organizational leaders and stakeholders can gain insights into the progress of the sector’s ongoing recovery.

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September 2022

Finding Center

Born in Trinidad in 1932, the Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul struggled while trying to write his autobiography. After multiple drafts, the threads he found to weave his story did not lead to his birthplace, but to a moment in time when he faced tremendous challenges. He described the process as finding center.*

We are all working to find center as we face, embrace, and grow beyond challenges and changes in our lives and our institutions. Many of you know that my husband and I have a ceramic studio in our home and that I work with clay as an avocation. I have learned that I can’t create until I am as centered as the material in my hands.

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April 10, 2018 Naturalization Ceremony at the New-York Historical Society. Photograph by Howard Heyman. Courtesy of the New-York Historical Society.

August 2022

MANY Supports Museums that Support Democracy

As summer comes to a close and we begin to gear up for a busy fall, I am excited to report on “Museums Support Democracy,” our webinar series produced in partnership with Museum Hue and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and Humanities New York. The seven programs featured fifteen museum professionals from around the nation discussing Citizenship, Environmental Justice, Ethical Collecting and Deaccessioning, Expanding Interpretive Lenses, Healing Historical Legacies, Museums and Civil Rights, and Protest Through Visual and Performance Art. 869 people from 48 states, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands, as well as Barbados, Canada, China, Hungary, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom participated in the webinars.

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Beatrix Farrand Garden, Bellefield, Hyde Park

June 2022

What If? Grant Applications as Acts of Hope

For the past couple of years my summer calendar has been decorated with patterns of red circles. The red circles represent the dates that applications for funding are due to private foundations as well as federal and state agencies. They also represent hours of writing, conversations, calculations, and a lot of hope.

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"Quiet as It's Kept" 2022 Whitney Biennial

May 2022

Seeing and Making Change

Two years ago today, George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer. Yesterday, nineteen elementary school children and their two teachers were shot to death in Texas. Eleven days ago, ten Black people were murdered in a mass shooting in Buffalo. In our nation alone, over one million people have died from the coronavirus. Numbers like these can become meaningless without connections to people and actions that move us to change.

As our cultures, institutions, and educational systems attempt to respond to the devastation wrought by the pandemic and systemic racism, every one of us needs to play a role in changing our society and our museums. Our museums need to promote truth and dignity, to encourage every person on staff to take ownership of their work, and to respect the work of their colleagues no matter their position or title.

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April 2022

Letter from Brian Lee Whisenhunt and Erika Sanger: 2021 Annual Report

We are pleased to share this annual report and express our sincerest gratitude to our members, donors, and sponsors who helped us find spaces and places to gather, create, and support each other’s work in 2021. Together, we faced the challenges of operating in both virtual and in-person environments and treasured the rare moments where we could pause, assess our work, and share our achievements. We are pleased by the progress we made this past year and honored by the new partnerships we forged that will help us shape a better future for museums and museum professionals.

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March 2022

Data-Driven Decision Making, A Call to Advocate for NYS Museums

If I had a personal FAQ sheet, “How many museums are there in New York State?” would be at the top of the list. Believe it or not, it is a hard question to answer. MANY uses 1,400 as an estimate, but I have learned that to be an effective advocate and to counter inaccurate, commonly held beliefs and perceptions, we need to use precise and relevant data about who we are, who we serve, and what funds make our work possible.

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February 2022

Less Than or Yes, And: Why We Advocate

On Wednesday, February 16th, I had the honor of testifying at the New York State Legislature’s 2022 Joint Budget Hearing on Economic Development. I have testified at hearings called by the Assembly Standing Committee on Tourism, Parks, Arts, and Sports Development, but this was my first time at an Economic Development Hearing. Although I only had three minutes to speak, with my comments, those of others giving testimony, and the questions asked of us, I am certain the word “museum” has never been said more frequently at a New York State Economic Development hearing.

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January 2022

Doing Community Differently

This winter the Hudson River has frozen over so hard that Ice Yachts are sailing across and down the River. It is a tradition that dates back to the nineteenth century. On January 25, we marked sixty years of the Museum Association of New York serving our state. I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about our traditions.

I was going to write this letter about our past and recount all we have accomplished for our museum community. But news of the pandemic this morning reminded me that we can not repeat the past, we can only move forward differently.

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January 2022

What Are You Learning?

When I was young and was asked what I wanted to do when I grew up, I didn’t have an answer. I tried being a park ranger, an artist, and a teacher before I found museum education. At the time, being a museum educator encompassed everything I sought in a career. But the thing that kept me motivated in the face of innumerable challenges was that I was able (and required) to continuously learn new things.

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December 2021

Light in the Darkest Days

I wake early this time of year to see the glorious colors of winter sunrises. All of us have worked so hard over the past two years, it may be hard to remember that we are just a few days away from the solstice when we can welcome the increasing light. Last week I was in Corning, NY for meetings about our 2022 annual conference. I woke up in our conference hotel and for a moment didn’t quite remember where I was - this tends to happen after a lot of travel. I crossed the room, lifted the shades to watch the sunrise, and was gifted the sight of a bald eagle flying up the Chemung River.

We have been challenged this week to keep up with all the announcements of funds granted to New York museums for 2022. There is good news from so many of our funders that renewed my hope for 2022 being a brighter year.

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Building Capacity Workshop at the Museum of Arts and Design, October 26, 2021

October 2021

People in Actual Rooms Talking About Museum Work

I write from the Museum of Art and Design in New York City. The twenty-five museum professionals with us are bouncing energy around the room. My heart is filled with joy to be here among such passionate, and dedicated people. In this fall’s Forums, we are learning how partnerships help museums reach new audiences, grow resources, and interpret collections. Today, the New York City Building Capacity program participants are sharing their successes, challenges, and hopes for the future.

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The Rockwell Museum's Art Lab in Downtown Corning, NY

September 2021

More than Destinations

I write from Great Camp Sagamore on day two of the Museum Institute. It is sunny and cold by the lake. By the end of the week, most of the green leaves on the trees will turn red and gold. The remarkable presenters are challenging us to believe in our power to create positive change in partnership with our fellow arts, history, and cultural organizations and with our community.

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IMLS Building Capacity workshop for NYC museum participants at Fraunces Tavern Museum on August 11. Photo by Alex Cassetti

August 2021

Arrival is Unpredictable

I was recently in a city that had their bus schedules on scrolling LED boards in their bus shelters. As I waited for my route to be posted, the LED board began flashing on and off with the words “ARRIVAL IS UNPREDICTABLE.” The other folks in the bus shelter gave me side glances as I burst out loud laughing. It seemed a metaphor for my state of mind as I once again masked up to meet the world safely.

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Glacial Erratic Trail, Settlement Quarry, Stonington, ME*

July 2021

Pathways

From March 22 to April 26, 2021, MANY gathered data on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on NY’s museums. The report that we will publish later this fall will paint a picture of a field grappling with tremendous change. Like the way glaciers deposited boulders from afar onto the granite ledges of the Maine coast 16,000 years ago, COVID-19 dropped into our society and caused us all to change direction.

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MANY staff at Fort Ticonderoga, June 24, 2021

June 2021

Remember Going Places with People?

On June 23rd, MANY’s board of directors met at the Hart-Cluett Museum in Troy. During a break, we toured the Hart-Cluett’s exhibition galleries and the historic “Marble House” at 59 Second Street. The next day, MANY staff visited Fort Ticonderoga where we saw their new virtual program delivery studio and gained a deeper understanding of how the Fort, located between Lakes George and Champlain, played a pivotal role in history. Today, an image of the Everson Museum of Art from June 2019 popped up in my Facebook “memories.” We were in Syracuse to launch the New York tour of the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street Water/Ways exhibition at the Erie Canal Museum.

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The Water Hole, Hall of African Mammals, American Museum of Natural History

May 2021

Creating New Collective Memories

Many of my childhood memories were formed in New York City’s museums, zoos, and gardens. In those places I came to know the world outside of my constructed environment - about things that grow in fertile soil, not between cracks in concrete; places where fish swim in rivers unbounded by sea walls; creativity beyond paint on canvas; and how people live close to earth, not in boxes twenty stories above the ground.

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April 2021

The Big Picture

When I looked out my window this morning, I saw maple leaves unfurling, sunlight on the river, and men fishing from small boats floating south on the falling tide. After living with uncertainty for so long, I have stopped trying to see beyond what is in front me while keeping the pursuit of a more inclusive, sustainable museum sector tied to my optimism for our future.

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Student Installation, Teacher's College, Columbia University, April 8, 2017

March 2021

Our Incomparable Museums

At an exhibition opening almost twenty years ago, I was chatting with a group of people when a woman I didn’t know asked me what I did all day while my husband was at work. When I replied that I was the director of education at the museum; her face broke into a big smile and she said that it sounded like I had the best job because I got to spend my days making art with children. I smiled back and agreed that was part of the job, unsure of how to make the real answer comprehensible. Her comment was a familiar disconnect between what many people think museum professionals do and what our jobs actually encompass.

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February 2021

Growing Toward the Future Stronger

I’ve had an awful case of cabin fever for a couple of weeks and I know I’m not alone. The past year has left those of us who have dedicated their work to the museum field tired, isolated, and grieving. 500,000 Americans have died, an estimated 30% of New York’s museum professionals lost their jobs, and our physical and mental health has deteriorated. The vaccine is the hope on the horizon, but I am concerned that in our haste to recover financially, we will lose the opportunity to make the changes necessary to reach our audiences with relevant content whether they are on site or in their living rooms, to deepen our role as essential community partners, and to develop a workforce that reflects all New Yorkers.

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March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, August 28, 1963 by Rowland Scherman, Courtesy of NARA

January 2021

Democracy and Advocacy

On January 6, as I watched the white supremacist, fascist mob breach and defile the halls of Congress, learned about the stabbings at the Capitol in Albany, and read about the Confederate flag tied to the door of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, I was stunned. After a couple of anxiety-filled days and mindless activity, I moved to a place of outrage and renewed my commitment to take action and speak out.

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December 2020

History Will Read Us Loud and Clear

As we prepare to put behind us a year that changed our lives, I am filled with gratitude for our museum community. Your calls, emails, notes in chat boxes, and social media comments gave us the hope and energy to face an unknowable future together with resolve and resilience. 

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FANTASTIC FOUR #52 July 1966, First Appearance Black Panther, Collection of John A. Vasquez

October 2020

Tell a Good Story

In my junior year of college, I took my first art history class. When we arrived at Chapter 8 of Janson’s History of Art “Early Christian and Byzantine Art,” I was completely lost. Christian art had not been included in my life experience. In multiple visits to museums I learned the characters, the setting, the plot, the conflict, and the resolution of the story. In the process of learning how to decode the narrative art, I also learned that good storytellers shape their message to the medium in which it is carried.

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September 2020

Building Capacity, Creating Sustainability, Growing Accessibility

MANY is pleased to open the call for participation in “Building Capacity, Creating Sustainability, Growing Accessibility” and extend our thanks to our congressional representatives for their support for the IMLS with CARES Act funding for Museums. 

This project will support 100 museums in high needs locations in the state to help them respond to the COVID-19 pandemic by giving staff the tools and training to reach their communities virtually and raise their profiles with audiences beyond their physical locations. The project will provide museum professionals with hardware, software, and training to develop virtual programs focused on stories from their collections revealing cultural and racial diversity within their communities. Each museum selected to participate will partner with a local library to develop and implement programs that build on the assets of both organizations resulting in access to 200 new virtual programs for audiences - no matter their geographical location.

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Opening day at the Central Park Children’s Zoo, September 28, 1961. Photo courtesy of Parks Photo Archive.

August 2021

Looking, Listening, and Learning

Memory deceives me into believing that as a child, I spent all my Sunday afternoons at the Central Park Zoo watching zookeepers toss fish to sea lions, peering into the whale’s mouth at the children’s zoo, and counting hours to the spinning animals on the Delacorte Clock. On one visit, the hippopotamus swam towards my father and me, stopping at the glass wall of its enclosure close enough for us to see the drops of water on its skin. My father didn’t notice a wide gap between the upper glass sections and accidently stuck his hand into the hippo’s mouth. When he jumped back in fear that the animal would attack in retaliation for the intrusion, I was knocked to the floor. This minor disruption transformed our zoo routine. Subsequent visits excluded the hippopotamus tank and I learned to look more closely at the built environment. 

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July 2020

Slouching Towards Recovery

We are fortunate that New York State is represented in the US Congress by members of the House of Representatives and Senate whose steadfast support of our museum sector has historically helped sustain our federal funding agencies. New York Congressional Representatives were also instrumental in passing the CARES Act, which included provisions that helped many of us through this worldwide health crisis caused by COVID-19.

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Lionni, Leo, Little Blue and Little Yellow 1959, NY Ivan Obolensky Inc.

June 2020

Navigating our Future with a Moral Compass

Perhaps after 100 days in quarantine topped by protests against police violence in support of Black Lives Matter, some of us would like to put away our moral compasses, open our museum doors, and return to business as usual. But if we are to successfully navigate our futures and thrive as a field, it is necessary to change our physical spaces in response to the COVID-19 health crisis and revise our policies and practices to ensure a culture of inclusion and racial equality. Museums need to chart a course beyond statements, to address long-standing disparities of power in our museum field, and to fight racism as we find it within our walls and in our programs. 

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Novi Belgii map, 1685, Library of Congress

April 2020

Mapping the Coast of our New Word

As we enter the eighth week of “NY on Pause,” I want to start this letter by acknowledging that some of us are grieving and that we are all unsure of what the future may bring.

I believe New York’s museums are in an existential crisis. Not the textbook definition of an existential crisis, but a definition that encompasses how New York’s museums will never exist again the way we did at the start of 2020.

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March 2020

Working Together in Uncertain Times

I hope all who are reading this are well, that your families are well, and that you are taking precautionary measures to remain healthy and safe.

When we began to prepare the 2019 annual report that will be included in the March 30 MANY newsletter, there was no way to foresee where we are today. Every museum in New York is closed, thousands of staff have already been laid off, and thousands more will follow. A Washington DC source estimated that as many as 30% of museums across the nation may remain permanently closed. That is a statistic that we are working hard to reduce with advocacy, information, and support for the field. If you have not looked at the resource pages of our website, please take a moment and check, there may be something there that can help you make a hard decision easier.

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NYS museum delegates gather outside Senator Gillibrand's office as part of Museums Advocacy Day with the American Alliance of Museums and (AAM)

February 2020

Making the Case for New York's Museums

If you’ve attended a MANY program in the past couple of years, you have heard me ask you to reach out to your local, state, and federal legislators to let them know what resources you need to serve our communities, preserve and share collections, and sustain and grow the unique power that museums have to transform lives. I know some of us find it difficult to speak up and get loud enough to make a difference. Many museum professionals identify as introverts, while others may be uncomfortable speaking with people they don’t know.

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