It was a short break.  Time to get back to business.  Evidently a few
people on Museum-L found offense to some of my comments the last go
around.  They e-mailed me personally to voice their concerns.  These
individuals called for the need to restart the dialogue because it has
proven to be rather fruitful but they also suggested laying down some
ground rules.  Se vale! (it's permitted).  I will continue to moderate
until someone else steps in to do the honors.

Here are some ground rules that we will all adhere to:

Rule #1:  Diverse and disagreeing viewpoints are welcomed.

Rule #2:  We will focus on on ideas and not personalities; if you must
          engage in idealogical battering, do it privately.

Rule #3:  Polite chiding is permissable, poetic metaphors are encouraged.

Rule #4:  Let's focus on solving or promoting the idea of solving the
          issues, and not confuse "in a perfect world" syndrome with
          what actually exists.

The goal of this dialogue is to challenge/educate/and work together to
explore the issues posed.  We all have something to say.  You
can either respond publicly, privately or take score on the sidelines.
This may be the first and on ce opportunity for many of you to discuss
issues which will affect the field in the coming century.  We can all
learn together via discourse, or you can delete the messages and learn
later on your own.

Last week's topic: Diversifying Museum Boards fell off many screens and
disappeared off the floorboards.  One of the reasons was that challenging
the the hands that feed us is seldom wise.  A few persons did state that
their boards were a bit more diverse but that it was due to proximity of
multicultural populations, like the U.S./Mexico border.

Introducing next week's new topic: Diversifing Your Collections: Collecting
Artists of Color

Remember the focus is on collecting artists in the U.S. (yes, Puerto Rican
artists too).

And I can just hear those comments fly off the keyboards:

"We don't have any of those people in our community," why should we
collect artists of color?

"Our collection policy doesn't allow us to collect based on a person's
skin color,"  Yeah, right!

"We don't know who to collect.  We don't know any of those people."

"Our accessions committee doesn't know much about this area.  How do we
know if the work is worth collecting?"

Hence, I pose the following questions to list members:

How does your collections mission statement allow for diversity in your
institution's collection?

How diverse is your collection regarding artists of color?

How do museums handle artists from emerging multicultural populations?

How does one develop inter-ethnic collections?

Can anyone recommend any good trunk shows (and maybe free, except
shipping) exhibits of artists of color?

Maybe not via visual art, but what are some of the success stories out
there for incorporating artists of color in programming and/or special
projects?

Survey shows are good and fine, but what happens after the exhibit?  How
have these survey shows affected your institution's collection regarding
artists of color?

Who has the best collection of African-American artists in the U.S?

Who has the best collection of Chicano Art in the United States?

Who has the best collection of Puerto Rican artists in the United States?

I know many of you are not members of collecting institutions.  But for
those of you that are, if the shoe fits....welcome to the expressway.

Have a good weekend.