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westernartgirlRepackaging a Delicate Treasure
Sophie Hunter, collections associate for the Autry’s Southwest Museum Project, looks over a worn cardboard box marked “Mojave” to figure out how to unpack it. Inside is a confused mass of tissue, packing peanuts and bubble wrap, and inside that is an ancient-looking ceramic urn with designs painted in red. Hunter knows it is not … Read more
Among Dusty Documents in Forgotten Drawers, a Real Treasure
It’s a bit faded, not to mention at least a couple of hundred years old. Until recently, it lay in a drawer under tissue paper in the Braun Research Library at the Southwest Museum, and none of the current staffers knew it even existed. But it appears that among the library’s holdings is a real … Read more
New at the Autry: Los Angeles’ Oldest Museum
In the lobby of the Autry now is a sampling of the treasures of the Southwest Museum of the American Indian collection, including a pipe that once belonged to Sitting Bull, an ancestral Pueblo basket that is at least 1,500 years old, and a “basket hat” from the Haida culture whose owner, we understand, was … Read more
Conserving the Perishable Parts of Native American Heritage
When the Autry National Center was created in 2003, staffers immediately began working to conserve the collection of the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, one of its original component institutions. It’s a task they should finish by 2013. Why so long? Well, the threats the collection faces are legion. Age, of course, is an … Read more
A Welcome Mat to View Some Very Special Scraps of Cloth
A couple of really specialized groups visited the Autry this month to get a behind-the-scenes look at some very rare artifacts. On Oct. 23, 20 members of several Southern California quilting guilds arrived to look at historic quilts in the Autry’s collection that are not currently on display. And on Oct. 9, the North American … Read more
Sounds From a Technological May-December Romance
At first, the sound is scratchy and full of clicks and pops. But after a few seconds, a lyrical voice rises from the MP3, singing an operatic aria in a seldom-heard, nearly century-old recording. The voice is that of Agustarello Affre, a leading tenor at the turn of the 20th Century, recorded in 1912 at … Read more
Justin Farmer Draws Basket Fans
Justin Farmer, an Ipai Native American who is an authority on Indian basketry, last weekend conducted “Working Knowledge,” a seminar on identifying, collecting and caring for baskets at the Wells Fargo Theater at The Autry, drawing a total 111 people over the two days. Farmer, who in the past has been affiliated with the Southwest … Read more
