Bob Banghart and Scott Carrlee

00:06 My name is Scott. Carrlee, IM 45 years old today, is the 9th of January 2009. And I am a co-worker of Bob.

00:24 A bob, bob, bob. And I are co-workers. I guess that's, that's our relation to her heart and 56. Today's date January 9th, and we are in K2 studios in Juneau and Scott. And I are co-workers at the Alaska State Museum.

00:48 So, Bob, what do you do for a living? What do I do for Louis? Currently? I'm curator of exhibitions at the State Museum, but I have been involved with the development of museums and cultural centers in Alaska since about 74.

01:06 Can you tell me something about this line of work?

01:17 Well from a technical standpoint from abstract standpoint philosophical standpoint, all three of the first a technical standpoint. So what what does it mean to develop museums? And then kind of I would like to venture into a philosophical discussion, from a technical standpoint? It's material management. It's that's the collected material story from the community you live in from the community. You have lived in the people who came before. You as just managing that, that material, that tells that story, whether it's in part in total and then putting it together in such a way as said, it's communicable to people who haven't got a direct relationship to it, so that there's enough information. So the viewer or the audience.

02:17 And understand something about what was occurring in the end of this is got no Basin time. I mean, this is as far back, as you can, grab an app to current and as much as you can project, so the technical would be how to put the material together to do that. How to preserve the material, how to collect the material, how to get people to talk about it, get people to explain it, how to catalog, all of that data and use best practices available to us today at 2, to get it lined out and presented.

03:00 So, how'd you get into this line of work? I got out of college in, 74. And moved down here to start a ceramic studio and seven.

03:13 Got asked to solve some problems with Museum. I had some training was a mechanical engineering in an art and I'm one of my good customers. At the time in the studio was the wife of the curator of the museum that ran the place. And, and he called me up and said, we have a problem to think you could solve this. So I went over met him and, and fell into work in there and started working on Contracting year was that when you started 1974 and then what then would lead to the next? And I just get passed around because back then there wasn't a whole lot of individuals in the field in the state. Other than those that were associated with the individual institutions. So they have somebody come in.

03:58 You know, was as a specific Sprout Problem Solver and stuff was it was a little bit different. So it made it for an easy introduction to various communities.

04:11 So if you hadn't gotten into this line of work with museums, what, what do you think you would have done?

04:18 I don't know. Maybe it's saved me from a life designing machines to make peanut butter, you know, but I do know, I was teaching Ceramics and playing music and probably would have followed those lines. More aggressively. The music is still there, but I don't produce anything ceramic clay anymore. So where you even as a very young person while they ask, you always, what, what did you want to be when you grow up or, or where you always pointed in this direction or door, or did it just things like things happen?

04:54 But pointed you in this direction you do. I would say things is probably happened but the fields presents as an opportunity is there's an immediacy to the need to solve the problems. You're working with really, very incredible material and you get to meet fairly fascinating people that have a backstory that sometimes you can't imagine it it, you know, and so I came from a family with a fairly long history in one location. And so is always talked about in certain Fashions and displacement during the Great Depression and all of that was part of it. But no, I could I wouldn't have said I would have designed myself to this position though. Was there anything else that you thought you were going to do? Let's say when you were in high school that you thought you were going to design airplanes or something like that.

05:49 No, I have pretty conventional. I mean, I was a shop geek and a sense of me and that was my main interest was building things and

06:02 Yeah, the architectural study. I did a lot of architectural work and Architectural drawing and high school for money and in is Varian much into engineering. So the engineering aspect was was very much appreciated when and when I got to apply that to the museum world, that was even better. So, but no, I wouldn't have, I had no idea. All I knew was, I was going to leave home early, which we did. So in your, in your present job is curator of exhibitions at the Alaska State Museum. What do you like best about that position?

06:47 Well, still involved, deeply with with aspects of solving problems, I think.

06:54 It's it's learning a new methodology. Not having worked in in an Institutional setting having been private sector for 30 plus years. And so what I have found is some of the ideologies and opinions that I would foist on my clients that we're not viable, but that was my own ignorance based on the fact that had enough time inside institutional structures to know that was going to work and now I'm getting more of a glimmer of that. And then so now the mechanical if you will device, it needs to be constructed. I find fascinating is how to animate institutional structures, or bureaucratic structures to perform with a certain Dynamic that you can gain from some of the instances of occurring in a non bureaucratic structure. There's an excitement levels, the dedications those kinds of the

07:54 And and the other thing and I like about the museum is the level of dedication if you will of the staff that I in the co-workers and the colleagues, everybody's

08:07 That's very serious about the work and I think that's infectious. And and so that's enjoyable and this next question is kind of long the lines that you were going, but maybe a dig a Little Deeper, but if if there was something that you could change over over in your work situation, what would you change?

08:34 Well, exactly throwing somebody. I think what I would look towards.

08:52 Would be to see if there wasn't a way to change the relationship of the institution within the broader context of the bureaucracy that that houses. It and that comes back to his sense of prioritization of resources and an imbalance that I find that people generally have and how they view past issues history. What is relevant material culture? Why we hold certain things more dire than others and then watch all of that fall away. And then 5080 years later. We rediscovered something that would have necessarily been part of that point in time. But now we pulled out eye contacts and made something else out of it. So, you know what the museum serves to do that to a certain degree, but if I could change anything, it would be

09:51 How the institutions role in society is viewed and how we need to change that. So that it's, it's more immediate responsiveness as a deeper play in current events because I think there's a Vitality there that's not being taken advantage of. So, that's what I do. That's abroad since I guess, kind of gets us into more of the philosophical questions and I wanted to to venture into and I remember on one of our first meetings, you weren't working at that Museum of that time you were private contractor, but we we had a lunch. I think I'm went out and and

10:35 You said something to me that has always stuck with me and and I've used it repeatedly and in talking to other people and, and in my work with the museums around the state and you said that, that there is a change happening in, in museums in Alaska today. And that changes is going to paraphrase. Kind of what I remember what you said, but that change has to do with the the fact that the people who found it. A lot of these institutions are now moving on and there's a more professional staff for more professional people coming up and taking those places from sort of like the original people who were the Pioneers themselves or the homesteaders. They

11:25 Created a lot of these institutions, lot of these historical societies. And now a lot of them are moving on either, you know, getting older or or retiring, or passing on. And and so there's kind of this wave of the second guard coming up and it's interesting for me because they the fact that Alaska such a young State and was settled not that long ago and then we talked about pioneers. We aren't talking about late. 1800 Pioneers were talking about the thirties in the forties Pioneers, in some ways and homesteaders coming up here. I just wondered if you would, maybe elaborate a little bit on on that your general philosophy about where the museum field, is it in Alaska right now, and maybe we know where we're going and that sort of thing.

12:12 I remember that. Yeah, we went to Paradise. I think I want to know what it's just you know, I mean if you're in the ball game long enough you get to see the base exchange and and the

12:26 The thing that I have noticed because I came up even though I had training academic training and in an engineering studies excetera out and coming into the museum, here everyone that I met in Juneau at the Museum. Came from another point in time. It didn't come through Museum studies program. Nobody there had come through Museum studies program. Allen Monroe, probably had the most direct link based on his apprenticeships at the Museum of Natural History. With the Natural History exhibit development. But everybody else either came from up education point of view, or, or Arts research base, anthropological, or whatever, but nobody came up through a program. The Define your activity as, you know, curator or a museum professional and and that was echoed everywhere that I win.

13:26 The smaller communities, they were primary source driven, you know, they were the the founders, if you will of the institutions are very close to what they were collecting. They were what they were collecting innocence mean many of the institutions because of communities were under a hundred years old the people who deemed it necessary to preserve it. We're still alive and so they did things very viscerally. It was it was from this needs to be done. We do it the best, we know how. And I still ascribed best practices to that. Because it was the best accepted practices that they had to use of the time. So what what occurred was all over the state things were maturing not not Anna level field, but he's Community with it to her as there was an economic expansion in that community. And what was interesting here was in there watching the museum in

14:26 Which was kind of the Kingpin of Institutions. And, and then it was bigger than like, the university Museum and I'll absolutely absolutely. The university Museum, when we renovated and put the new building up in 79. You could have gotten the entirety of the museum, downstairs, and it was two staff and everybody was Associated via their territorial positions, but they are curatorial positions were sub. They were were subordinate to their professional. Involvement is as a botanist or right there University Department was where they that they were as they brought into the museum as as curatorial staff, but their primary goal was running the department paleontology, whatever. So and in an acreage, they started out rather small in 67. There was a lot of money that came through to build in celebration of the hundredth the Centennial of 18/30.

15:26 And they put all these places on the map Juno's Museum on the map. Many of the small place is so that was a formalization of formal recognition of those institutions. And there was an interesting occurrence where before it was, usually Historical Society had the collect in the building. Now, I enter into a relationship between collection owned by the Historical. Society building is owned by municipalities. So you ended up with these new marriages that work, there didn't work. Depending but again, staff by people who were interested, primarily coming out of the Arts are the historical, vain but not Museum professionals per se. And you were saying the Juno of all of these was kind of the Judo had, the largest staff, they had that they had the most modern facility that was cohesive, is designed as a museum. They they the educational program that there was run out of there was very much out on the front line.

16:26 In many respects, anyone a country in some respects in terms of educational programming and an outrage situation because we would the museum with chip and it made a big difference. It was the Tactical material and the audio video material and the lesson plans that went to the bush communities in the teachers could explain things and it all in it was huge staff that did that, you know Technologies of taking over much of that drive, but at the same time you've looked at the economic fortunes of the communities change Fairbanks is growing.

17:00 To surpass Juno anchorage's waste ripped. Without the general population in the museum is huge and I've got a giant staff. And so in many instances, they are the premier institution in the state from certain quarters in a look at it strictly from statistical points, you know, we have our own biases from Ariane perspectives employees, at the State Museum, but

17:27 What is occurring as as the industry has been maturing and I think is what you're getting early, what you're saying. What's occurring, as those Prime primary sources move on and I get out of the business and the people coming up are more and more coming up through academic programs that are specifically designed to Ward's Museum, studies that research, but still based in an, in a formal curatorial Matrix, like yourself conservators, all of these things are having a formalization. So the state is getting more closely related to the industry as it has matured in America. Proper the end. So what they're for me, what's fascinating is you can watch these transitions as they occur and because

18:27 Cuz you can go and look at any parallel lines that the institution down south. You can see what we need to avoid and getting involved with. And what we need to avoid, what I'm always cautioning. Everybody against is distancing yourself from your constituent, which is the community from which you serve and developing an ideology that segregates you by making you assume a position of grandeur. You don't really possess, you know, and institutions will do that whether they know they do that or not is debated, but you can always find where the institution isn't paying attention to its client. And the client is a community from which its pain. And if you don't constantly revisit that equation, you lose a connectedness there, which

19:22 It had its best is tenuous because it's not part of everybody's nomenclature for daily life. It's some place you go. And what I been, harping on forever is to try to change that relationship. So that museums or where you go. It's like to me in a bush Community, the museum in the laundromat, should be the same place or like the clinic in the long cut, the two plates, the same building the clinic and the museum in the same place. So you make it part of the mainstream of daily life. It takes the Big C off a culture makes it a small C and people recognize that their significance in the small things which generally don't get recognized until fifty years passes and then all the trace elements. It really had to mention to the small things are gone and you have that small fragment of it and it doesn't truly represent what really occurred. It then becomes subjugated to the vagaries of human record recorded memory, which is you know at best is

20:22 Fallible, so it's, I don't know yet. It'll be interesting to see what will occur in the next. Like, that's what been thirty years, 35 years. So what what are we looking at? What are we projecting ourselves to become the next decade? Because it's still be a lot of people that came into the industry that are turning out.

20:45 And the need to be people taking their place cuz the institutions have become pretty established bar in complete. What are not going to collapse and go away? Hopefully, well, hopefully not completing all the collapse of the country, all become people that are making small toys for folks. In China. Then think should stay and pain point. And if that's the case, they were all that, we're going to see people who come into the industry, who look at opportunities and a community for their job. Now, do they go there? And then they look to the next opportunity for their profession, which means that they go from Community to community to community, or do they come and dig in like, you have and made a commitment and stay here and grow with the institution and help it grow. That's will be the big change. You know, what do we end up with the transitory population of Museum professionals that can bring in certain, technical expertise, but don't have the emotional connectedness to

21:45 Do the kind of building over the long-term that really drive the equation to build, constituent, understanding, and constituent relationship switch is at the root of it. So, yeah, I don't know. I would that's that's the question. I'm always asking is great to have the technical expertise. What's the, the what are we giving up to get that? If anything on the one hand, you had a local person who had all the connections and knew the families and knew the names and but maybe didn't have the musee ology background. And so now you got somebody coming in, you know, who doesn't have the connection, but has the museum as your background. It's it's got to be a balance you do on. And that's why. If you do, I ran a museum studies program, you know, I'd make every I beat everybody out into the street and said, you going to have to work in the street, on the street, and know the street before Melissa back in the building because you can't talk about this issue. Unless, you know, that and at

22:45 And you don't know if that's the same thing, any good research person is going to do. They're going another study before they going to go out on a limb and make it statement about it. But for some reason, when we talked about it, in other Industries with the museum, especially with constituent development, we don't put that same Demand on ourselves that we just go ahead and assume people are going to come see us because we're really swell, which isn't the case, not at all. And I've I've seen too many communities lose track of that and watch their institutions found her and it like one instance, and in the 80s, early 80s, everybody was dying and the organization and the reason was they were getting old, but nobody young was coming in anymore. And I said, you know, why why it? Why is this we need to look at why this isn't working. And as I went through the process with them, over the. Of a

23:45 We discovered that their weakest point was the fact that they were closed during themselves at all times and they were afraid of change. The refrain of an occlusion of other cultures. They were they in and only by virtue of the fact that they were nervous about it. They weren't mean-spirited or or evil people. They were nervous about it and scared of doing it. So they needed someone to just say, it's okay. You can do this.

24:16 Once they decided to go for, it makes a change. It worked out. You know, it took ten years. It took some new blood in a leadership position, but it's fluid, but it, you know, but it is, I don't know. It's, it's human nature to not want to make things change to radically. But if you're looking at in a cycle, we're talking about in court in Clark wants same thing. If we're doing our job in the museum run, we're preparing for the next group of people to take over. That's, that's the way public service is in my mind. That's the way governmental structure is in my mind as you're not doing your job. If you're not looking to the Next Generation and preparing it to give them something that works. That's why this, you know, we've got some real major issues happening right now, because the guys over in lately. I've been looking only to the end of the, their bottom line, you know, that's as far as they look in the end. And if we're going to be truly involved with

25:17 I don't care what the subject is preservers of these things than we have to look Beyond us who's in the field. Do you know how these philosophical things? You know, whatever. And you know, it's it's it's it's interesting. It's not let's just say you can't take this too much to City council's because they look at you. Like I think I got to go check a pie in the oven in your. I know they're going to get out of there as quick as they can because they don't think that way yet. It has a direct relationship to why they're there. What they do how they do it, but you won't get him to admit it, which is fine. You know, that's, that's my club. I don't, I'm not part of their Club. Well, that kind of leaves me what you were saying. I leave me in the next question is, what should we be doing? And in this field in in Alaska and are there museums

26:17 Out there that are doing that, what you think we should be doing?

26:22 I don't I don't I wouldn't presuppose that I have I have an opinion I guess and that's what you're asking for.

26:35 I think.

26:38 I think what?

26:40 The more-developed. Let me step back on this. It's got a relates to music, to me. The people that I have met in and the years have been playing the ones who are the most powerful players that are more in.

26:58 In touch with those things that drive their music and they can reach the most amount of people where their stuff are the ones that are the easiest to approach and are the most generous with their time and are the ones that share the secret.

27:13 And the secret is, there is no secret, right? That's the secret. There is no secret. You mean, it's just a matter of getting in and doing it. And but people that really don't want to share that secret make believe there's a secret Museum. They're no different than that. And when a community has put itself together and it wants to see yourself reflected in an institution. There is no secret. It should be open for people to come in and make a difference in some respect. Good management.

27:41 Creates opportunities and we were talking about it the other day platform. They create that platform for people to become involved on a level of an inclusion. That lets them contribute. And that what we as managers have to be is able to understand the depth of commitment, they have where we can apply at now, we can orchestrate it so that

28:05 What they do actually fits in the larger scheme and meaning you got to be polyrhythmic. And, in order to balance these things. It's a good manager. So, where do you find leadership like that? How do you find the nearest ship like that? You know what balance do you put in there in terms of practical skills, community-based organizing skills, musee, ology skills, all those things need to come in. So what should we be doing? We should be making opportunities for institutions to

28:39 Broaden.

28:41 Their ability to animate that community and how we do that. That's his device that, you know, is it is diverse is it as each community in. The only way to do it is to is to go there and to learn about the community and find people who you can get spun up into enough busitema and you keep spending them. And you know, it's like working through this thing for Prince William's house that they all the apps, you know, that the cultural center things to me. I would have loved to have the opportunity just to deal with that because what you're looking right there is the germination of a potential local community cultural center that the very very Beginnings that. I mean it's at the infancy and you could guide that through and build something there. That's not being done anywhere, you know, because it's got a, it's an immediacy, the people acting, you know, they can't elucidate, they can't even roughly describe what they are feeling.

29:41 Mostly they just bring it in. This is important. Why why? I'm not sure. I just feel it's important. That's a good thing, you know, so what should we be doing in the field at? You know, I mean, there's the standard preserve and protect issues and get you in push. People's awareness is of it. But I think we need to broaden the argument and and the drive method by which we can convince the larger population than that museums are a vital element and they're and they're an element of of cultural need and vitality that that's applicable to current situations and and drive that far there because if they buy that, it pushes us.

30:25 You have always thought it was interesting that and I worked in other states and other places. But in Alaska, I probably, because of the sparseness of the population. It, it just came to a, some sort of clarity for me, but going out to very small communities and I know you've seen this, you've been eating it, even smaller communities, I have, but you are very small communities. Like dealing Hammer Bethel. Are, you know, you go out there a Haynes, I think is a good example and they, the community feels that there is a need to have some sort of like you said some facility to to be reflected in in a way someplace to to put their stuff and say this is important and I want to save this. Where should I put with that? That should be in a museum. I hear that a lot that you had that you should take that down the museum and so no matter what community it is there seems to be

31:25 A non even a small community like and I hope they have a little hope and sunrise Historical Society down there. You know, Homer has a very vibrant Museum in the Pratt but it's not a huge, you know, Homer is in a huge community and yet they have a very vibrant institution. I've I've always been fascinated by that aspect. I think it. You see that very clearly in Alaska that

31:50 There is in my opinion kind of a fundamental human need for for this as part of your community. So some people ask me why, you know, why working museums or why, why should a community have a museum? I don't really know what the answer to that is. Why Community should have a museum, but I just see it as one of the, as one of the fundamentals. Do you see that too?

32:14 I think it's worth being a real Community. Well, I think it it, it it.

32:23 I don't, you know, I'm not sure if a community would Define itself through having an institution like that in it, but what I do know is that many of the people that I find it, I'm attracted to you, as leaders in and these various communities. And I'm not talking politics. I'm talking.

32:44 Because if you look at true leadership in a community, it's it's not, it's not an elected official. They're not the ones that are really pulling the strings. I mean, they provide a focal point for diversion, but they're not the ones that are really pulling the strings. I mean, so what I have to talk and have long conversations with the leaders, there's a portion of their aspect of their behavior that they're looking at Legacy. There's a portion of their aspect that they're looking for permanents for the community. But there's also this overriding feeling that I get from a number of those types of people. I would need to leave a trail and to record something of their experience there, but you know, you talked about Haynes

33:37 What was interesting for me? There was Sheldon that collection, you know, I think compulsive obsessive disorder is what it's called now, but he was a collector of every and he had

33:51 Very broad categories, ation processes for Providence, right? I mean, pretty Liberal Loan in his interpretation, but he collected it and he collected in collected, any was an institution in himself, and known in the community for his interest in it. And his daughter took up his dream of formalizing. What he has a collection into an institution and you know, late in her life. Finally achieved that but and she drove it and she drove it hard and people just became completely comfortable with. Oh, yeah. Well, that's the Sheldon collection. That's the show. The museum. They represent the community. They've been here forever. Yada yada. So, became a bit. You waited in the community, psyche, you see it in smaller communities? Where

34:41 Someone deems it important they burn that mantle hard as fast as they can and as long as they can and they look for someone to take it over when they can't carry it, any longer and if it can turn into a collective great, but if you look at the way they develop, it's an individual that's carrying that many times. It's like Skagway Paul sinchak was the guy that found the space collected, all this stuff again, very broad. It was like an oddity, put it in there if it's something dedicated to the community, put it in there and then he gets collected enough and then pretty soon. There's something in the next group of people come in and inventory at some further and further until you know, through the years and its guidance and me what we got and how long we have our building where our collection has been going on. What over 100 in a to some of the institutions that have been round 357, you know, some of the greatest attractions in the Mideast and stuff in

35:41 Around for a long time, so we're really young in that respect, but

35:49 There's still enough of a common link between what we do in the community as they feel. It's important to support it that changes because we're dealing with elected officials, you know, but then again, we're not in Volvo with putting ourselves at a point where people are going to say, I would rather have a museum than an overpass. Someday may happen. I don't know, but you never know. So, why they aren't? I I have it. I think for every question that I answer is in my own pursuit, in this regime, it, it, it gets bonds to Nuance all the conclusions. No, conclusions.

36:33 So, that that's pretty much a lot of the questions. I have. What some of the others were just what? What job they have. You done in the state that you're most proud of what installation did you really think turned out? Well?

36:55 I wouldn't, I wouldn't put it on a, on a, on a physical place. They would be people. So they came together in the right way. Yeah, i n n. N m, people carried forward after we started it and and see did it and it went forward. And and so I mean at that would be where I would feel like I was most successful is if I could leave and come back and things were maturing or, or I would come back, periodically communities. Like the Cordova comes to mind to institutions there, that from the very beginning evolved and they're maturing. Well blossoming while and work with both of us into Kathy, in and Larue.

37:46 And when individuals that have come through the company, you know, that are off doing their stuff and I would put it more towards that because, you know, the physical place.

37:59 It's up to the next person that manages it to make it better and change it which I expect. I hope it happens. If I leave a tool on top of a case and come back, 5 years later and it's not been moved. I'm not that's not a successful situation song.

38:15 Alright, then.

38:19 Why do you do what you do? Why do I do what I do? Can I say why? That's a very good question. Because Bob isn't why I wanted to interview him is because he's one of the most talented people. I know personally and I mean he could do a lot of different things. So I wonder that question to why, why do you do this?

38:40 I like to consider myself a social engineer and that's where it's come down to.

38:49 And we were talking earlier about the Folk Festival. What I've learned is.

38:55 That.

38:57 The non interruptible power supply if you will is the human ego.

39:04 If you can capture that and manage it and push it in the right direction. You can accomplish a lot.

39:15 Cultural centers and museums and stuff have a potential to incorporate that energy source. At the same time. They create a collective that drives.

39:30 A really good thing in a community. I can't even describe it as a sort of.

39:39 It started like when everybody's working together and Anna and I would say, you know, maybe you get this I've seen pictures of guys when I get out again and build a barn or something and and that kind of thing. It's not our tradition here to do that. But if you look at the indigenous cultures, especially like up north and new pic, they'll get together and pull out well in, right? So,

40:04 I like that aspect of the human effort and if I can see opportunities and create that I do that but it's the social engineering kind of thing. You get to mix all of these really different types of people there. Different needs their different desires, and their different Ambitions and skills and pull it all together. And it's I take a lot of inspiration from Duke Ellington.

40:30 When you're right for a band, you're right for everybody.

40:37 So you're using the scale bass that every player has and it's up to you as a conductor to know what that is.

40:44 You know, so anyways. That's the long answer or the short answer is. I don't know.

40:51 So,

40:55 Hi, well, thanks. Those are the questions I have.