Getting your stuff in a good museum,How to..

JohnReid

Mission Accomplished !
How do I know that Shep approves ? Well ..
He appraised my work for the museum and valued it ,in dollar terms , right up there with what he was getting for his best stuff years ago.
Yes Shep the ball got picked up.....

So you're the new Shep Paine? And all this time I thought it was Bob Letterman or Lewis Pruneau...

A lot of the feedback that I get on this subject especially from dioramists(word?) and the RR layout guys is that there stuff can't be moved or the museums that they have already contacted have no room for such large pieces.
Have you ever thought of breaking your stuff down into small storyboard type vignettes or mini-dioramas ?
Often there are already, within the larger piece, lots of mini-dioramas going on.Why not just isolate these into a static storyboard piece that would be more acceptable in your relatives homes or interested museums ? With a little creative thinking the subject matter could be humorous or serious depending upon your interests. Later I will post a few examples of what I mean.

Mission Accomplished !
How do I know this ? I have three dioramas now in the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum ,our national museum in Ottawa here in Canada, and a fourth on its way this fall.
How do I know that Shep approves ? Well ..
He appraised my work for the museum and valued it ,in dollar terms , right up there with what he was getting for his best stuff years ago.
Yes Shep the ball got picked up.....

When I started building large scale dioramas there was no question about what I was trying to achieve.Huge 4X6 foot dioramas only have one destination.
Besides the museum thing, my other personal goal was to model like Shep Paine ,who's work I had admired for years and years.I had heard through the grapevine that he was retiring from modeling and he had let it be known that he wanted someone else to pick up the ball and run with it for awhile.I was one of those who wanted to take up the challenge.
My options were do it and write a book about it too,when it was finished,or take a more modern approach and do the modeling in real time and post it free on as many websites as I could reasonably handle.(this aspect now takes up a good 50% of my modeling time and is not recommended for weekend modelers.)
This approach has been more than successful for me especially when I look at the number of my photobucket hits that are recorded or the kind words of my fellow modelers that are posted to my threads on the websites.
One thing I have learned though is that "you can't please all of the people all of the time" so don't even bother to try !

You never know until you try !

I won't have to worry,none of my stuff is museum quality

Hi Chuck ! you are right about large layouts but did you ever think about breaking down your layout into small storyboard vignettes ?(more on this later) There is something about stories that catches the public's and the museums eye.

I guess that it all came about for me this way because I had already done the "donating it to a museum "thing years before when as executor of my fathers will it was up to me to arrange for this to be done for our beautiful '29 Beech Travel Air 4000(D4D) biplane.So contacting museums was not a big scary thing for me although there is always the "fear of rejection" thing to be dealt with.
You have to let it be known wherever you can that your stuff is available.Don't be afraid,if your stuff is good and you know it,it will get picked up.Start by saying "when my stuff goes to the museum" rather than "if my stuff goes to the museum" and your already half way there.

I'm about your age, John.  Museums don't want them, they don't have the space.  I hope a few of my special pieces will be treasured by my kids and grandkids, and the rest will probably go into the dumpster.  The pleasure of modeling is the personal satisfaction I get in building them, and I realize they are of little value to others, except for rare  sentimental family reasons.  Most of my friends and family have no understanding of the work that goes into them, and no appreciation for any lasting value.   Crap...Nuts....etc.

Why am I writing on this subject ? well nothing bothers me more than seeing my fellow modelers dioramas,layouts or models etc..get throw in the garbage once they go to the "Happy Hunting (modeling) Ground,that's why !
Lets face it not everyone cares or wants models ,large or otherwise ,in their homes.After Uncle Fred or Grandpa Jones is gone many a family is stuck with the "what to do with his stuff ? " dilemma. This is especially true of large dioramas,layouts or collections of individual models.Now is the time to plan ahead and help relieve your family of this burden.One way to do this is to get your stuff in a museum before you are too far gone over the hill.
I know that I started planning for this when I was around sixty (11 years ago)and finally realized that I wasn't going to live forever. How ? well.....