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The Smithsonian, the Getty Center, the National Gallery in London – whether it be public funding or endowments, free museum admission means unbridled attendance and (perhaps!) global attention. Yes, San Diego has free options, but they are not available for everyone. “Residents Free Tuesday” at Balboa Park is during the workday on a Tuesday, exclusive to Balboa Park and exclusive to residents. Both the San Diego Public Library system and the San Diego County Library system offer two-week checkouts on family passes to select museums but, in San Diego Museum of Art’s case, you’d join 483 others on the waitlist for 74 passes. That’s neither a spontaneous option nor useful for tourists with set travel itineraries.
With arts institutions vying for limited funding and having to constantly innovate to stay relevant, where does access fall in each institution’s set of priorities? Nicole Miller-Coleman, the brand new executive director at the San Diego Museum Council, is hopeful that San Diego cultural institutions will always strive to increase access.
“Cost can be a barrier,” Miller-Coleman said. “What we mean by that is that getting into a museum – going to a museum – is not essential.” If individuals or families have to make decisions about commuting costs, food, housing and basic needs, a cultural experience is not on the list.
Now in its 30th year, the Museum Council’s annual Museum Month kicks off Feb. 1, and has expanded availability of half-price passes that will last the entire month. Over 75 libraries have the passes available, and (on the tourism front) passes are also available with stays at several dozen Hilton hotels. Hilton is a sponsor of the project.
“We really want to get people in museums, all the museums. Museum Month is really about that,” Miller-Coleman said.
Miller-Coleman is new to her role as executive director at the San Diego Museum Council, but she’s not new to museum culture in San Diego. She most recently served in a leadership role with the Model Railroad Museum, and has a significant background in nonprofit management and fundraising. The Museum Council, started in the 1920s with a small number of institutions banding together to innovate and share resources, is a membership-based organization that represents 40-plus museums in the county, aiming to help better connect those institutions with the city and one another.
Her aim at the start of the job? “We want to do what we’re doing now, well,” she said. Rather than work to add new programming or projects, Miller-Coleman wants to listen. In addition to surveying participating institutions and the public, she also wants to look outside the box.
“I want to talk to the museums that aren’t members,” she said. Membership fees for the San Diego Museum Council are on a sliding scale based on the size and scope of each organization.
In the long term, she wants to bring non-member institutions into the fold, such as the Centro Cultural de la Raza (“They’re not a member but they should be,” she said), as well as specifically take the temperature of existing membership.
Her broader goals seem more ambitious.
“We are fiscally strong now,” Miller-Coleman said. “We want to maintain that, but we want to grow so we can raise the visibility of regional museums to an international level.”
Tourism accounts for a significant portion of local museum attendance, according to the 2017 Economic Impact Report from the Commission for Arts and Culture. About 3.8 million tourists “participated in arts and culture activities” in 2017, the report states. But that’s just a portion of the 34 million visitors local hotels see each year, so there’s room for cultural growth. She wants people to think of San Diego and say, “‘They have really dynamic museums,’” and to put us on the map culture-wise.
A longtime San Diegan, Miller-Coleman has seen a shift in museum attendance and culture over the years.
When asked what has changed in museum culture in the years she’s lived here, developed a career here and raised her own family of museumgoers here, Miller-Coleman didn’t hesitate.
“I think what I’ve seen is professionalization of the nonprofit sector,” she said. She spoke animatedly about the ways nonprofits are increasingly helmed by individuals with degrees in nonprofit management. “It is exciting,” she said. And when an organization is run well, she said, “it just means a better experience, and it just means that the organization is not going to be gone 10, 20, 50 years in the future. They’ll be here for our grandkids.”
Five Powerful New Documentaries Screen at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival
As someone who has the babysitting wherewithal for like, one movie a year, it may seem like San Diego has some sort of film-festival-of-envy every other weekend. But this weekend’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival is exclusive to just five cities: Amsterdam, London, Los Angeles, Toronto and San Diego. Don’t miss it.
With screenings at MOPA starting Thursday and running through the weekend, five documentaries cover ground ranging from the trans experience in the military to climate change to a small town Ohio football town facing a disturbing rape case.
Each screening features a post-film Q&A with filmmakers or the subjects. I recently watched “Roll Red Roll,” which was stunning and unsettling, and would totally consider seeing it again just to be there to meet Alex Goddard, the true crime-obsessed blogger who pointed national attention to this sheltered case (and was subsequently sued for defamation). Her line from the film sets the tone: “To me it wasn’t a very woman-friendly environment. So that’s when I started snooping around.”
Tickets range from $6 (MOPA members) or $10 (public) to $40 for a festival pass.
Groundbreaking Girls, San Diego Black Film Festival and More News for the Culture Crowd
- Following a contest last year, the North Park parking garage was supposed to have new art installations by Kris Moore and Don Masse in place last fall. The Reader investigated the delays. It’s up for approval by the City Commission for Arts and Culture.
- The Civic Dance Arts Association presents its Dream Big dance festival, Friday through Feb. 18 at the Casa Del Prado, featuring choreography by Mia Michaels. (KPBS)
- Space Time presents a screening of “Oulaya’s Wedding,” a documentary following wedding musicians set in the Western Sahara, Sunday evening at Bread & Salt. The filmmaker, Hisham Mayet, will be at the screening for a Q&A.
- The next San Diego Goth Swap is at SPACE on Sunday afternoon. Curious what a goth swap is? Showing up without knowing might be kinda goth, or you could read this. (CityBeat)
- The San Diego Black Film Festival kicks off Wednesday night, with screenings through the weekend. Most events at ArcLight La Jolla.
- The Barona Museum hosts an arrow-making workshop on Saturday. Ages 16 and up, and free for Barona Tribal Members, $25 for the public.
- There’s a new exhibition at the Women’s Museum, called “Groundbreaking Girls.” Sounds up my alley. (Union-Tribune)
Closing Soon
- Collective Voices is a collaborative and participatory photography installation from the Aja Project and the United Women of East Africa, at San Diego Art Institute. The project’s third year runs through Sunday.
- The James Hubbell exhibition at Oceanside Museum of Art closes Sunday. Hubbell’s currency is nature and the spiritual, and I got a little choked up reading this U-T piece about where the 86-year-old wants his ashes scattered when he dies.
Food, Beer, Booze and Cannabis News
- Thorn Street Brewery is set to open in Mission HIlls this summer. (Eater)
- I’m sorry, but I’m not quite ready for peanut butter whiskey. But local couple and co-founders of Screwball think we’ll like it. Here’s a good pull quote to show my journalistic bias: “The thing about peanut butter is it’s oily … ” (Pacific)
- Hello, fancy vegan ravioli, come to mama. The Westgate Hotel now offers some classy vegan options on its standard menu. (Edible)
- This is a good breakdown of the implications (including local) of hemp’s recent “descheduling” from the Controlled Substances Act. (CityBeat)
What’s Inspiring Me Right Now
- “Melissa,” is a beautiful new essay by Bud Smith at The Nervous Breakdown. I recently lured Bud out to San Diego to do a reading and teach a class on novel writing, and I have literally never met someone who knows Bud Smith’s work but does not like it. (Maybe they’re afraid to tell me in person.)
- This is a difficult read to swallow. The Los Angeles Times on climate change, obesity and hunger.
- Accidentally blew a full hour on deadline day browsing the Scripps Institute of Oceanography “Oceanographic Collections” library. Creepy-cute deep-water photography alert. Also, you can track the routes and details of all the oceanographic research vessels OF ALL TIME (within reason).