Museum May Display Artifacts Downtown Proposal Would Move Part Of ‘Stunning’ Native American Collection To Interactive Exhibit

Cheney Cowles Museum wants to temporarily move portions of its Native American collection downtown, a consultant said Tuesday.

“The museum’s collection of (35,000) Indian items and pieces is just stunning” and one of the best in the world, said Carol Derfner, a New York City consultant helping devise expansion plans for the non-profit museum.

But few people see or know about it because the museum has virtually no space to exhibit the collection.

Derfner outlined an interim plan to display many of the Indian artifacts downtown at a morning meeting of Momentum ‘95, a business development group.

If the plan proves feasible, the museum will rent or lease space downtown for an interactive display “that would be exciting and (have) lots of activities for visitors,” said Derfner.

Museum trustees hope to find a building next year and open it by Christmas 1996. It would stay open “several years,” according to Derfner.

The temporary exhibit would give the Indian pieces higher visibility, plus help attract visitors downtown, said the museum’s executive director, Glenn Mason.

“We found in talking with area residents a constant concern about protecting downtown and keeping it vital,” said Derfner.

“This plan would be a way of linking the museum and downtown” for mutual benefit, she said.

The rest of the museum’s Northwest historical material and art collection would remain in its Browne’s Addition building.

While establishing an interim exhibit downtown, museum directors would try to find money to expand the existing building.

Once completed, that site would become the permanent home of the Indian collection.

Most of the money for the downtown exhibit would be raised from private sources, although museum directors will seek state money to hire additional employees.

Since 1991, Cheney Cowles Museum has been the area’s primary cultural and historical archive. But its directors have been struggling with a shortage of space, hiding most of the Native American collection in storerooms and the basement.

In the past four months, Derfner conducted research and determined that outside Spokane, the museum is well-known for its Indian collection. Its Plateau Indian artifacts are considered the finest in the world, she said.

Much of that collection came to the museum in 1991, when the Museum of Native American Cultures closed and gave Cheney Cowles directors about 25,000 Indian items.

Two years later, Cheney Cowles Museum directors unveiled an ambitious, long-term expansion plan that would cost close to $50 million. That plan, Mason said, is seen as “a vision” of what the museum would like to become “down the road, eventually.”

This year, consultants are recommending the museum move more slowly. Derfner’s two key suggestions are for directors to raise its image and strengthen its finances.

The long-term expansion project now being discussed would cost about $19 million and double the museum’s current space.

Trustees hope most, if not all, of that money would be set aside over six years by the Legislature.

Plans call for relocating the entrance to face north toward the Spokane River, adding bigger galleries and auditoriums and building a learning center where visitors have more contact with regional artifacts.

The museum draws about 80,000 visitors annually. With expansion, trustees could expect up to 1.2 million people per year by 2000, Derfner predicted. The museum’s annual budget is about $1.1 million. About 45 percent of that comes from the state, with the rest from grants, private sources and contributions.

Momentum ‘95 has pledged up to $75,000 to help with the museum’s long-term expansion. Slightly more than half that amount will pay the consultant’s fee, said Mason.

, DataTimes