From the President

From the Director

Selena Ortega-Chiolero, President

I am especially proud of broadening our community partnerships, most notably with the Alaska Native community through Museums Alaska's and the First Alaskans Institute's decolonization cohort. Together we are repairing relationships and building stronger communities.

Bethany Buckingham Follett, Vice President

I am excited to continue our work for museums and cultural organizations, especially participating in establishing a statewide emergency network for disaster preparedness and protecting our cultural heritage.

Patricia Relay, Treasurer

It has been an honor to serve Museums Alaska and our members. I am proud of our partnerships to empower museums to be more inclusive, smarter, and stronger.

Sarah Asper-Smith

The decolonization cohort was an incredible opportunity for AK museums. The speakers were thoughtful, open, and generous. We had the kind of discussions that lead to change, and I look forward to a continued relationship between MA and FAI. And the webinars are all available online!

Scott Bartlett, Secretary

I'm proud of all of the training opportunities Museums Alaska has been able to provide to our members, from virtual workshops to networking events and conferences!

Sarah Harrington

The MA/FAI decolonization cohort program empowers museums and cultural centers to give voice to the indigenous perspective and tools towards cultural, psychological, and economic freedom for Alaskan Native communities.

Betany Porter

It has been exciting to help Alaska Museums and Cultural Centers purchase Artworks and objects for their permanent collections through the Alaska Art Fund Grants. These purchases support Alaska Artists directly and promote public exhibition of their work.

Sarah Owens

2022 highlights for me included the in-person events, workshops and Valdez conference, providing much needed platforms to share experiences and strengthen networks. Museums Alaska’s partnership with ASM on the PACO workshops helped to bring professionals from various fields together to share knowledge of emergency preparedness. I look forward to helping to facilitate more of these opportunities.

Kelly Gwynn

I'm honored to be able to stay involved with the museum community through Museums Alaska. I am very proud of the work we do to help museums and museum professionals across Alaska, from our grant programs to our advocacy at the state and national level. I'm excited to continue our work in the coming year!

Christine Carpenter

After 10 years of working with museums, I understand the broad needs and opportunities facing our field. I am honored to continue to support museums in this new capacity!

Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi

I look forward to joining the board because I'm passionate about increasing opportunities for Alaska Native involvement in museum work.

Ashley Bivin

I am excited to join the board because I'm passionate about helping other emerging museum professionals (EMPS) in Alaska excel in this field.

In 2022, the Museums Alaska board met in Juneau to reconnect after years of virtual-only meetings and begin our strategic planning. We were kindly hosted by the Alaska State Museum and were able to visit four museums and the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council while we were there.

Networking

We hosted 21 virtual networking events—11 for emerging museum professionals and 10 for the larger professional community.

Cohort

We co-hosted an eight-week cohort with First Alaskans Institute on Strengthening Museum Relationships with Indigenous Peoples.

Conference

We hosted our first in-person (and it was hybrid!) conference since 2019, in beautiful—slightly rainy—Valdez, Alaska.

Networking

Heather McClain and Chloe Nielsen presenting a SkillShare on Archives basics during an EMP networking session.

Alaska is a big state, so virtual networking is often the best way to keep in touch with everyone. Last year, we started an Emerging Museum Professionals (EMP) network and this year, we continued to grow our programming by hosting networking every month as well as SkillShares, where members presented short how-to's to their fellow EMPs.

We also continued to host our regular networking sessions, hosting networking meetings every month around a specific topic. Thank you to everyone who was able to join and say hi!

FAI and speakers presenting the first webinar, "Centering Indigenous Knowledge in Museums".

In 2022, First Alaskans Institute (FAI), a statewide nonprofit whose purpose is to advance Alaska Natives, worked with Museums Alaska to host a cohort of museum professionals committed to reimagining and fostering meaningful relationships with Alaska’s Tribes and Indigenous peoples. FAI hosted a series of interactive dialogues customized for museum professionals through methods that were grounded in Indigenous values and ways of knowing, incorporating social technologies to host provocative dialogues that advanced the needs of Indigenous peoples and partners statewide.

Participants learned how to have respectful and meaningful conversations about racism, equity, stewardship, and other challenging topics that continually arise in the field.

Program:

Alaska Native Dialogues on Racial Equality

Alaska Native Governance & Protocols

Centering Indigenous Knowledge Webinar & Discussion

Alaska Native Community Engagement & Trust Building Webinar & Discussion

Tribal Sovereignty and its Applicability to Museums Webinar & Discussion

The Necessity of Access to Sacred Objects Webinar & Discussion

Repatriation and the Treatment of Our Ancestors Webinar & Discussion

Decolonizing Museums Webinar & Discussion

We hosted our first in-person conference since 2019's Kodiak conference! This year, we went to Valdez and co-hosted the conference with our partner, the Valdez Museum and Historical Archive.

The conference was held on September 19 & 21-24 as a hybrid conference via Whova and in-person in Valdez. The theme of this year’s conference was Transitions: Navigating Change and Moving Forward, and it included two workshops, one keynote, two roundtables, one networking event, 12 sessions, and three evening events.

It was great to see everyone who was able to attend in-person and online!

79

REGISTERED ATTENDEES

154

COMMUNITY BOARD POSTS

75%

THOUGHT THE CONFERENCE WAS VERY GOOD OR EXCELLENT

Grants

We managed two grant programs in partnership with Rasmuson Foundation.

Advocacy

We participated virtually in three national Advocacy Days.

Partnership Programs

We partnered on several major statewide initiatives and programs.

Grants

Ciqlluakcak- Sugpiaq Subterranean Sod House (PWS Dialect), model house, made by Andrew Abyo for the Ilanka Cultural Center. Image by Teal Hansen.

In 2022, Museums Alaska was awarded a new Tier 2 grant with Rasmuson Foundation to begin in 2023. Through this grant, Museums Alaska will receive $350,000 every year for three years to re-grant to museums and cultural centers across Alaska through the Alaska Art Fund program and the Collections Management Fund program.

This is a continuation of two long-standing partnership. grants that Museums Alaska developed with and manages for Rasmuson Foundation.

$325,339.48

TOTAL FUNDS DISBURSED

38

GRANTS AWARDED

23

AAF GRANTS AWARDED TO 11 ORGANIZATIONS

19

ARTISTS SUPPORTED THROUGH AAF

15

CMF GRANTS AWARDED TO 14 ORGANIZATIONS

The Collections Management Fund, established in 2013 in partnership with Rasmuson Foundation, responds to needs of the Alaska museum community to enhance collections management through professional expertise, training, and access to conservation materials and supplies.

$20,000 - The Alaska Native Heritage Center is executing a thorough inspection, cleaning, and maintenance project for its Southeast Alaskan totem pole originally carved by Nathan Jackson.

$18,161 - The Alaska State Museum is using collaborative methods to establish and execute the most up-to-date gut conservation treatments and exhibition techniques in the museum field while providing a model of inclusive collections care practice.

$14,972 - The University of Alaska Museum of the North is undertaking a comprehensive rehousing and stabilization project on the 54-piece flag collection held by the Ethnology & History department.

$12,719.50 - The Fairbanks Children’s Museum is repairing two of their most popular permanent exhibitions—the AirMaze and bubble tubes.

$8,437 - The Aunt Claudia’s Dolls, a Museum is hiring a conservator for thorough in-person advice and training to establish collections management protocols for routine care of the Northern Indigenous Doll Collection.

$5,859.48 - The Anchorage Museum is hiring consultants to train collections care staff how to produce quality standardized photographs of museum collections using practical and innovative skills and equipment. This training will be open to all local museums.

$4,333.33 - The Pioneer Air Museum is installing UV blocking film on all 12 of the museum’s exterior windows, as well as the 5 glass panes enclosing the museum’s public exhibition case located at the Fairbanks International Airport.

$13,850 - The Anchorage Museum is providing conservation assistance to recently exposed and damaged cultural heritage from the Nunalleq site and train community members and staff of the Nunalleq Cultural Center.

$8,302.75 - Ketchikan Museums is replacing the last of the 1980's and 1990's inefficient, incandescent lighting in the lower level gallery of the Totem Heritage Center, allowing them to meet light level standards and provide a higher level of collections care.

$19,913.36 - The Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository is moving collections off-site, starting with stone artifacts stored in the basement, in preparations for the renovation of AMAR facilities starting in mid-2023.

$19,985.91 - The Eagle Historical Society and Museums is assessing and conserving a pair of moosehide drapes and seven ecclesiastic textiles that have been in use or displayed since 1899/1900 in Eagle's historic St Paul's Church.

$9,342.15 - The Museum of the Aleutians is completing an inventory, cataloging, photographing, and rehousing project for their World War II Artifact Collection.

$19,920 - The Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association is working with a conservator to provide professional treatment for 12 baskets, assess 16 culturally significant items, and provide staff preventative care training.

$20,000 - The Alaska Law Enforcement Museum is working with a conservator to complete an assessment survey of the textiles and clothing in their collection and to host a workshop on the care of textiles and clothing for themselves and several local museums.

$16,000 - The Cape Fox Cultural Foundation is moving 1899 Edward H. Harriman Expedition artifacts—repatriated by the Sanyaa Kwáan belonging to the Teikweidi and Neix.ádi clans. They are currently in a location with insufficient protection from the elements and will be moved to a safer location.

Since 2003, Museums Alaska has administered the Art Acquisition Fund (AAF) in partnership with Rasmuson Foundation, a program to support Alaskan museums in their efforts to acquire contemporary art created by living Alaskan artists. In 2022, the Art Acquisition Fund was renamed the Alaska Art Fund (AAF) to account for the expanded nature of the program.

$6,500 - The Ilanka Cultural Center is commissioning Eyak & Sugpiaq Housing Models, three indigenous house models to be crafted by Sugpiaq artist, Andrew Abyo to be used for a variety of educational purposes to improve traditional understanding.

$5,500 - The Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository is acquiring Kadiak, an oil on canvas painting by Kodiak Alutiiq artist Alvin Eli Amason. The painting depicts a person inspired by Alutiiq community members, a unique subject matter for Amason, who usually paints animals.

$5,500 - The Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository is acquiring Matriarchs in the Making, Afognak 1950s, an oil on canvas painting by Kodiak Alutiiq Artist Gloria Selby that will assist the museum in telling recent Alutiiq stories. Selby’s painting will help them interpret Alutiiq village life and share a story of persistence, resilience, and connection.

$3,700 - The Sheldon Jackson Museum is acquiring Midsummer Moon Mask, a fusion of artist Allie High's own Alutiiq, Tshimshian, and Haida background and her simultaneous nod to Alaska Native women's traditions and her family's roots in Ninilchik. The mask will be the second contemporary mask in the collection carved by a woman and it is the only one with such diverse array of Alaska Native cultures in a single work of art.

$3,000 - The Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository is acquiring Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women Headdress, a beaded headdress by Alutiiq artist Kayla Christiansen McDermott. Indigenous women make up about 1% of the United States population, but they are murdered at ten times the rate of other citizens. McDermott’s headdress tells this story.

$3,000 - The Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository is acquiring Bird Mask Hat, a festival garment stitched by Kodiak Alutiiq artist Cassey Rowland. Using the hat, the museum can discuss skin sewing, material use, and garment design along with other related stories.

$3,000 - The Anchorage Museum is acquiring Sylva, a mask created by Tsimshian, Haida, Sugpiaq, and Russian artist Allie High. The piece will be a unique addition to their collection as it is a mask created by a female Indigenous carver and represents the artist’s blended heritage so beautifully.

$3,000 - The Anchorage Museum is acquiring The Far Edge of Summer, an acrylic painting of the forest floor by Gail Priday. Priday’s unusual approach to landscape painting makes the work a compelling addition to exhibitions about the contemporary North, climate change, gender in the North, as well as programs and research dealing with forest ecology, the boreal biome, forest fire, and fungi.

$1,900 - The Alaska State Museum is acquiring Ben Huff's image Seven Doors of Doom, which is the keystone of a series of images entitled Atomic Island. The pictured WWII and Cold War Naval outpost on the Aleutian island of Adak tells a complex story of our westernmost front against communism, and the people who live among the remnants of our past military ambitions.

$1,500 - The Talkeetna Historical Society is acquiring High Country Grizzly, an oil pastel by David Totten, who was an important and popular artist in Talkeetna for over 20 years. This painting will expand their contemporary art collection and will be the first painting in their collection by Totten.

$1,250 - The Anchorage Museum is acquiring Impermafrost and Lichen Cross-Section, small-scale collages created by Gail Priday from painted and cut paper. The pieces depict different aspects of the Northern environment at a cellular/microbial level. These collages will help tell the story of climate change using a visual language that also represents a shift in how artists are grappling with depicting landscape.

$650 - The Alaska State Museum is acquiring Cody Swanson’s Dipnetters, a pinhole photograph made using a camera constructed from a cast of the artist's head. The print, ink on gelatin silver, was then altered with mixed media to express fantasies and memories within the landscape. The photographic process and the hand manipulation of the print is so unique that the museum feels that it will be a valuable addition to their photography collection.

$643 - The Talkeetna Historical Society is acquiring Aurora Guitar, a mosaic guitar by Rose Jenne, who has became famous locally for abstract mosaic on musical instruments, tables, postal boxes and even Xtratuf boots. The guitar will allow the museum to talk about the importance of music and art in the local community and also talk about an important local elder and her contributions to the community over the last 50 years.

$9,000 - The Alutiiq Museum & Archeological Repository is commissioning a contemporary snow-falling parka from Kodiak Alutiiq Elder and master skin sewer Susan Malutin to fill a significant gap in their collection.

$3,000 - Ketchikan Museums is acquiring Killerwhale Spirit Button Robe Collar, by Janice L. Jackson (Aanchgwanutk') to fill a significant gap in their collection.

$1,200 - The Museum of the Aleutians is commissioning a woven grass basket from Akutan weaver Antoinette (Tina) Kudrin Gauen depicting the Islands of the Fours Mountains, a sacred place to the Unangax^. The piece will fill a gap in their basket collection.

$10,000 - The Anchorage Museum is commissioning a large-scale 3’ x 5’ woodblock print by Iñupiaq artist Sarah Ayaqi Whalen-Lunn depicting a woman bound and tethered by ropes, hanging from a uterus. The piece was created as a reflection of “current issues and how women’s bodies are used against them,” and is being added to the Anchorage Museum’s collection to represent an artist’s response to the historic 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court ruling.

$5,000 - The Alaska State Museum is acquiring This One by artist Sara Tabbert, consisting of two 20"x16" cradled panels, of natural and dyed veneer on carved panel, relief printing. The acquisition will fufill the museum’s goal of collecting a Tabbert piece, expanding their woodworking and relief carving collection, and enhancing their collection of artists outside of SE Alaska.

$35,000 - The Alaska Native Heritage Center is acquiring the piece, Indian Children Bracelets, by preeminent Tlingit and Unangax artist, Nicholas Galanin. The engraved artwork is a resurfaced pair of tiny handcuffs that visually conceptualize the removal of Indigenous children from their families during the Boarding School era (1860-1978). The piece will fill several gaps in their collection and assist them in telling the story of the Boarding School era.

$1,200 - The Cordova Museum is acquiring Mt Eccles, a large 31” x 55” energetic, mixed media painting by Sharlene Cline with beautiful brushwork of Mt. Eccles, a signature Cordova Mountain. The piece will enhance their collection as it features a medium not currently represented in their collection and the painting is of an iconic, local geographical feature.

$10,000 - The Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association is commissioning a set of four traditional visors by Alaskan artist Okalena Patricia Lekanoff-Gregory. In Southwestern Alaska, there are very few of these traditional visors in the communities, so the organization is building their traditional arts collection to display and share these commissions with tribal members and aspiring artists in their communities.

Advocacy

Patricia Relay, Bethany Buckingham Follett, Trish Neal, and Dixie Clough meeting with Senator Murkowski and her staff for Museum Advocacy Day.

In 2022, Museums Alaska participated in three virtual advocacy days: Museums Advocacy Day, Historic Preservation Advocacy Day, and the Advocacy Day for Humanities.

We met with our three national representatives' offices to advocate for funding for IMLS, NEA, NEH, NPS, and for tax incentives for donations.

We also thanked our representatives for supporting COVID relief funding, which was instrumental in keeping our museums and cultural centers running during the shutdown.

Our representatives and their staffers were receptive to our asks, and all of the national endowments and organizations received higher rates of funding in the next fiscal year.

Partnership Programs

Representatives from organizations across Alaska at the Fairbanks convening to discuss the creation of a cultural heritage emergency network.

In 2022, Museums Alaska partnered with a variety of Alaska organizations to complete important statewide initiatives including grant-funded internships for museums across the state, a survey to discover collections related to Alaska Native Boarding Schools, and emergency management planning.

Individual Members

• Kimberly Arthur
• Sarah Asper-Smith
  
• Robert Banghart
  
• Scott Bartlett
  
• Heather Beggs
  
• Meghan Belin
  
• Laurie Berg
  
• Stephanie Black
  
• Savanna Bradley
  
• Marina Briggs
  
• Bethany Buckingham Follett
  
• Christine Carpenter
  
• Ellen Carrlee
  
• Hayley Chambers
  
• Patricia Chesbro
  
• Elizabeth Jane Cook
  
• Francesca Du Brock
  
• Shannon Easterly
  
• Bethany Follett
  
• Patience Frederiksen
  
• Monica Garcia-Itchoak
  
• Andrew Garner
  
• Andrew Goldstein
  
• Anjuli Grantham
  
• Karl Gurcke
  
• Kelly Gwynn
  
• Michael Hawfield
  
• Sara Hay
  
• Sheila Hernandez
  
• Ron Inouye
  
• Cynthia Jones
  
• Don Kiely
  
• Art Koeninger
  
• Amanda Lancaster
  
• Darian LaTocha
  
• Angela Linn
  
• Donna Matthews
  
• Heather McClain
  
• Katie Myers
  
• Janet Northey
  
• Michael O'Meara
  
• Selena Ortega-Chiolero
  
• Dave Pahl
  
• Patricia Partnow
  
• Nicole Peters
  
• Sara Piasecki
  
• Desiree Ramirez
  
• Ariel Rolfe
  
• James Rose
  
• Nadia Sethi
  
• Monica Shah
  
• Cathy Sherman
  
• Scott Shirar
  
• Christine Smith
  
• Amy Steffian
  
• Kailee Van Zile
  
• Alice Watterson
  

Organizational Members

• Alaska Botanical Garden, Inc.
• Alaska State Council on the Arts
  
• Alaska State Museums
  
• Aleutian Pribilof Islands Assn.
  
• Alpine Historical Society
  
• American Bald Eagle Foundation
  
• Anchorage Museum
  
• Aunt Claudia's Dolls, a Museum
  
• Bristol Bay Historical Society
  
• Clausen Memorial Museum
  
• Cooper Landing Historical Society and Museum
  
• Eagle Historical Society and Museums
  
• Friends of Sheldon Jackson Museum
  
• Haines Sheldon Museum
  
• Hammer Museum
  
• Homer Society of Natural History, Inc
  
• Juneau-Douglas City Museum
  
• Ketchikan Museums
  
• Kodiak Maritime Museum
  
• McCarthy-Kennicott Historical Museum
  
• Municipality of Anchorage - Public Art Program
  
• Museum of the Aleutians
  
• Museum of Alaska Transportation & Industry
  
• Palmer Museum of History and Art
  
• Pioneer Air Museum
  
• Preservation Alaska
  
• Resurrection Bay Historical Society
  
• Sealaska Heritage Institute
  
• Sitka Historical Society & Museum
  
• Skagway Museum
  
• Talkeetna Historical Society
  
• Tanana-Yukon Historical Society
  
• Tenakee Historical Collection
  
• UA Museum of the North
  
• Valdez Museum & Historical Archive Association, Inc.
  
• Wasilla Museum and Visitor Center
  
• Willow Historic and Wildlife Foundation
  
• Wrangell Museum
  

Donors

• Sarah Asper-Smith
• Scott Bartlett
• Sam Bornstein
• Bethany Buckingham Follett
• Susan Deyoe
• Terry Dickey and Wanda Chin
• Bethany Follett
• Karl Gurcke
• Kelly Gwynn
• Sarah Harrington
• Heather McClain
• Patricia Neal
• Selena Ortega-Chiolero
• Sarah Owens
• Amy Phillips-Chan
• Betany Porter
• Patricia Relay
• Amy Steffian

Grantmakers

• Alaska Community Foundation

• Alaska State Museum via Grant-In-Aid

• Institute of Museum and Library Services (via the Alaska State Library)

• National Endowment for the Humanities (via a subgrant from the Alaska State Museum)

• Rasmuson Foundation
  

95

Members

Thank you to all of our 2022 members!

1,219

Facebook Fans

We love our Facebook followers!

133,464

Facebook Reach

Wow! Our Facebook posts went far!

628

Instagram Fans

Hello to our awesome Instagram followers!

372

Email Subscribers

Woo-hoo! So many ways to stay in touch with us!

Emails Sent

Doing the most to keep everyone up-to-date!

Donors

Thank you to everyone who went above and beyond with a donation!

1

Staff Member

We have one staff member working with our awesome board to make everything happen!

9

Board Members

Thank you to our amazing board members who do so much for us!

Operating Income

Most of our operating income came from grants: from Rasmuson Foundation, through the ARPA grants, Grant-In-Aid, and a subgrant through the PACO program.

Other Grants

26.5%

Donations

3.4%

Membership

8%

Rasmuson Foundation

61.9%

Operating Expenses

Most of our operating expenses consisted of wages and taxes, accounting fees, expenses related to professional development, travel, and board meetings, and other expenses such as insurance, phone and internet, banking fees, association dues, and supplies.

Accounting

15.5%

Travel & Meetings

6.8%

Other

5.9%

Wages & Taxes

71.8%

Pass Through Funding

In 2022, we disbursed a record amount of funding—$448,880.81—to the museum and cultural center community: from paid internships and emergency management workshop travel funds to our annual AAF and CMF grants.

PACO Workshops

$64,341.33

AAF

$113,543

Internships

$59,200

CMF

$211,796.48

Thank

Our museum and cultural center community is the absolute best!

It's a pleasure to serve you all.

You!