Boise Art Museum Permanent Collection Rehousing Project

FAIN: PG-280649-21

Boise Art Museum (Boise, ID 83702-7646)
Melanie Fales (Project Director: January 2021 to October 2024)

The purchase of archival supplies to rehouse a portion of the Boise Art Museum’s permanent collection, with a focus on ceramics, sculptures, and textiles by contemporary Native American artists. The collection includes 67 artworks by Apache, Choctaw, Hopi, Navajo, Pueblo, Tohono O’odham, and Wyandot artists, and pueblo pottery from the pueblos northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The techniques for making pueblo pottery date from nearly 1,000 years ago and continue to be passed down to younger generations. The works comprise a fundamental component of the museum’s public educational programs, special lectures, and ongoing research on contemporary Native American artwork. As the only art museum in a 300-mile radius, the museum conducts extensive educational outreach through offerings such as docent-guided tours for rural schools, a distance learning program, and a digital app that collectively reach more than 16,000 Idaho students annually.

Boise Art Museum requests support for a project to rehouse significant humanities objects in its Permanent Collection, as identified in the Collection Storage Plan. This project is the next step in the implementation of the Collection Storage Plan, developed with the help of a qualified consultant in 2019 to better utilize secure storage areas, to improve the long-term preservation and accessibility of the collection, and ultimately to facilitate the critical programming BAM provides to the community. The purchase of museum-quality enclosures, mounts, and containers, and substantial dedicated staff time, is needed in order to properly store and protect all artwork. BAM regularly organizes and presents exhibitions from the Permanent Collection to reflect our diverse heritage, traditions, and history. This project will improve storage conditions, contribute to the long-term preservation of artwork in the Permanent Collection, and increase ease of access to objects for curatorial staff.