The Collection At The Museum

Had a brief conversation today with the manager of the Westerville History Museum about plans to donate my photos to the museum when I’m gone. Brief because she was headed to a meeting, and I was leaving to make photos and we agreed to meet later.

What struck me about the few seconds we talked, agreeing to talk later, it was the first time I’d heard my photos referred to as a museum collection.

I’ve always referred to them as a collection, a private collection, usually describing the volume made over my lifetime and the 19 years I’ve been making My Final Photo usually in, about, and around Westerville. There are hard drives, floppy disks, thumb drives, online archives, cloud storage, and a substantial number of black and white prints.

Just a bunch of objects sitting in a multitude of locations both physical and digital.

A museum is distinguished by a collection of often unique objects that form the core of its activities for exhibitions, education, research, etc., according to Wikipedia. To consider my collection since I was 12 to be a museum collection for exhibitions, education, and research is outside the possibilities of consideration when I made the offer to donate it to the museum.

Not sure if I was naive or ignorant. It’s just a bunch of photos I’ve made to keep myself active physically and mentally. That purpose has been modified now that the weekly newspaper stopped publishing and I’ve taken the reins of the Westerville News to continue delivering local news. Like me, it may not be here very long.

I really don’t know what to expect with my photos once I’m gone. I’d like to think that at some point someone would find some of them interesting, maybe even insightful about Westerville just after the turn of the century.

For now, I’ll continue every day to find photos that add to the museum collection by adding to my collection. For the time when there is one collection. For everyone.