Family took Keith McCullar and me to Fresno this last weekend to celebrate my father’s 80th birthday. As we gathered en famille a few days after the event, it gave my father the opportunity to go skiing on his actual birthday with several of his buddies, all of them 80 or over. If I were to be in as good shape as my father when I enter decade number nine, my physical condition would have to materially improve over what it is now.
During a break in the festivities, I had a chance to read several recent issues of the Fresno Bee. Shrunk to tabloid size, it nevertheless is replete with press about the closure of the Fresno Metropolitan Museum- and the perilous state of the Fresno Art Museum. Although not closed, the Fresno Art Museum, a venue established over 60 years ago for the exhibition of contemporary art, is certainly on hard times, 
with staff layoffs that include its longtime curator and my good friend Jacquelin Pilar. The museum may be able to keep their doors open with these cuts, but, sans curatorial staff, exactly what visitors can expect to look at is an open question.
My own first professional exposure to the art world came with an exhibition of ukiyo-e I curated at the Fresno Art Museum nearly 20 years ago. To say that it was an exhilarating experience is an understatement: life changing is closer to the truth. Consequently, I have an inordinate fondness for the institution.
While guest curators might occasionally be useful to enhance the exhibitions program of any art museum, it cannot be thought a permanent substitute. Certainly in the case of the Fresno Art Museum, its own collections do not possess sufficient depth to allow permanent display without being supplemented with visiting exhibitions. It was Jacqui Pilar’s vision and connections in the art world that has seen to this masterfully for nearly 20 years, keeping the museum full of some of the best things available. Ruth Asawa, Manuel Neri, and Oliver Jackson are just a few of the leading contemporary lights with major exhibitions hosted by the museum, all with curatorial oversight provided by Jacqui.
Will the trustees be themselves able to substitute? Doubtful, as the paramount role of any non-profit trustee can be defined in two words- ‘raise money’. To dilute that function will only exacerbate the museum’s difficulties. Moreover, while it certainly benefits a museum trustee to have a love of art, curating an exhibition is far more complicated than mounting pictures on a gallery wall. Actually, that is an extremely complicated task, too, as any successful exhibition requires a proper design that is both visually appealing and unfolds for the visitor in such a way that it compliments any explanatory text. The text itself, whether in wall tags, catalog, or both, must be both factually accurate and methodologically appropriate. Both display and text must work in tandem to achieve a site of meaning enabling the casual visitor to understand why the art came to be created in the first place- and why it is important for the visitor to see it. Although the trustees are charged with governance, management, and this includes curatorial activities, must be performed by professional staff. It is telling that the competence of the staff has more to do with a museum’s maintenance of its accreditation than the hands-on of its trustees.
To be fair, although it is the inability of the trustees to raise money that has resulted in so many staffers at the Fresno Art Museum getting axed, the poor economy has made what is always a tough job nigh unto impossible. Where Los Angeles has the likes of Eli Broad, whose $30,000,000 gift saved the Museum of Contemporary Art, Fresno is not possessed of a cadre of ultra heavy hitters who can erase a budget shortfall, or provide a massive influx of endowment funds, with a single stroke of the pen.
What to do? The Fresno Art Museum serves a need that, certainly absent the Fresno Metropolitan Museum, will otherwise go largely unmet in the fifth largest city in California, 200 miles distant from both San Francisco and Los Angeles. In his column this last Sunday, Donald Munro in the Fresno Bee opined that people were busy behind the scenes to ensure the museum’s survival but nevertheless hoped the local population rallies to its support. Me, too. If not everyone in Fresno understands or appreciates the iconic Fletcher Benton sculpture that dominates the forecourt of the Fresno Art Museum, I can assure them they would all miss it if it were no longer there.