LIFE ON THE PLAINS: The Don Ray Retrospective art collection has over 100 pieces depicting Panhandle Plains living. The exhibit runs through Feb. 15. Photo by Amanda Garcia.
Janessa Corbitt
Prairie reporter
The Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum has around two million artifacts in storage.
How do the people of PPHM store all of these artifacts and how do they know that that have around two million artifacts?
“We have really good people who register everything we have,” Michael Grauer, curator of art for PPHM, said. “They used to hand write every artifact on index cards and now our system has evolved to a collection management database on a computer.”
The registrars are still inputting the data from the index cards into the computer as well as all of the artifacts in the new exhibits, according to Grauer.
“They are continually working, their job never stops,” Grauer said.
Standing in a room as large as a classroom near the art exhibits at PPHM, rows and rows of sliding racks with paintings hung on them are meticulously organized by rack numbers so Grauer knows where every painting is.
“We have about 5,000 artifacts in our art storage,” Grauer said. “We have to make sure that the temperature and relative humidity are at ideal temperatures to be sure that we are doing our best to preserve every artifact because it is a race against time, every painting will destroy itself eventually.”
The system of checking temperatures and humidity has also evolved.
According to Grauer, the museum used to spend around $1,000 on machines that were not very accurate and would be thrown off if someone walked in the room. Now the museum has HOBOs.
“HOBOs are extremely accurate at checking the humidity and temperature of each exhibit and storage unit.” Grauer said. “And they only cost $100 and are small enough to mount on the wall.”
So where are the other 1, 995,000 artifacts?
Andrea Porter, communications coordinator of PPHM, walked to a closet with a door that opened up to a 1959 elevator complete with doors you have to close yourself.
“Many of our artifacts are stored in-between the museum exhibit floors and in our basement,” Porter said. “We do have some off-site storage, but I don’t even know where it is and I don’t think many people do, it is very secretive.”
Rooms filled with artifacts passed by on my way down to the museum basement.
“We get most of our stuff from donations,” Grauer said. “But for the most part, philanthropy is dead so in recent years we have had to buy any new artifacts.”
According to Grauer, the lack of artifacts donated to the museum is because of Antiques Roadshow and eBay.
“Everyone has a special treasure in their attics, and it seems like they would rather get money for it than donate it to museums for everyone to see,” Grauer said.
However, PPHM sometimes buys artifacts off of eBay.
“Occasionally there is something on eBay we are interested in, but it is not frequent because the curators like the items to have a story that goes with the item that pertains to the Panhandle Plains region,” Porter said.
Although PPHM has around 2 million pieces in storage, curators are always looking for more artifacts.
“I know it sounds silly to want more things to be put in storage, but there is always a piece or clue missing to each exhibit and the pieces won’t always be in storage because we are constantly changing exhibits,” Grauer said.
“I personally live by the philosophy that the person that dies with the most art wins.”