PNW Bainbridge Summer 2023 - Celebrating BIMA's 10 Year Anniversary

BY CONNIE BYE

PHOTOS BY DAVID COHEN

10 Years and Counting

After a decade, it’s tough to imagine Bainbridge Island without its art museum.

Now, as the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art celebrates that milestone anniversary, it’s time to acknowledge what the institution means to island life, said Inez Maubane Jones, former executive director of Arts & Humanities Bainbridge.

“We have a very large concentration of artists, people who have achieved success in all fields,” Jones said. “Before, they needed a center, a hub, a physical showcase. BIMA has supplied that in spades.”

And, Jones said, BIMA’s big art-filled window at Winslow Way and Highway 305 delivers a message to travelers and residents alike: You belong here, you are welcome here.

BIMA would be “a jewel for any city or town,” Mayor Brenda Fantroy-Johnson said in an email interview. “Having the museum at such a prominent intersection signals to those coming to the island what our community cares about and finds important.”

Despite that high visibility, Sheila Hughes said the museum wasn’t on her radar when it opened in June 2013. “But it became a heartbeat where there wasn’t one,” said Hughes, who started as BIMA’s executive director in 2016.

The museum belongs to everyone, said founder Cynthia Sears. That’s a big reason that BIMA’s board is committed to keeping admission free.

“The art of our culture belongs to the people,” Sears said. “They shouldn’t have to pay for what belongs to them.”

Taking Art To The People

You’ll not find paintings by Rembrandt or Van Gogh on BIMA’s walls. The museum focuses on artists and collections from the Puget Sound region.

“BIMA elevates all voices,” Jones said, “from the marginalized community in Kitsap to (artists) at the top of their game and those on their way up.”

The staff constantly tries to look harder and deeper at whether BIMA is fulfilling its mission, Hughes said. “Are we welcoming? Are people seeing themselves in the artwork here?”

On a dreary day last fall, Joe Wilcynski, chair of BIMA’s board, was surprised--and delighted—to find families everywhere, enjoying the museum. “It’s intriguing how some of these events appeal to families with small kids,” he said.

Children are a particular focus for BIMA. Early on, the board decided to subsidize the cost of bus drivers for field

trips, mainly from schools in Kitsap County. For many students, it’s their first encounter with a museum of any kind.

To prep students for their trips, BIMA’s education staff visits classrooms and shares photos of what to expect; when students arrive in person, docents lead discussions where kids talk about what they see in the galleries.

COVID temporarily halted that program, but this spring, school field trips brought several hundred students into the galleries once again. Hughes said she hopes by fall that the program will return full steam.

COVID also pushed the staff to think of innovative ways to “meet people where they are, rather than waiting for them to come to us,” Hughes said. Education Director Kristin Tollefson began offering digital art lessons for kids. The Museum Store started selling more items online, and the Bistro offered special meals for pick-up.

Assistant director for the Artist’s Books Collection, Catherine Alice Michaelis, launched the “Artist’s Books Unshelved” video series, allowing viewers to explore the books remotely. “Lots of educators use them,” she said. “We’ve made 40 videos to date.”

Hughes said BIMA also invited artists to talk about the COVID challenges they faced. “Studios, materials, the gallery system were all collapsing.”

Seeing With Fresh Eyes

From the start, BIMA incorporated art forms beyond the visual, and that pace quickened when Hughes came on board. With a background in live performance, she was inspired to look for different ways to bring visitors into the museum and to utilize all its spaces.

“When I first started working here, the auditorium was empty nearly every day when I passed by,” Hughes said. “I was open with the board: Try this on a low-risk basis; see if people want to hear some jazz. That first festival sold out.”

Special programs also serve artists by boosting public awareness and visibility of their work, Hughes said. Most visitors welcome experiencing other ways to interpret the art they see in the galleries, she said. “We were

DECADE OF SUCCESS

BIMA welcomed an estimated 750,000 guests in its first 10 years, despite a temporary pandemic closure.

• When BIMA opened, it had 38 actual gifts of art in the Permanent Art Collection, plus 60 promised from founder Cynthia Sears, said Curator Greg Robinson. In 2023, the collection has grown to 200 realized works of art through donations from collectors, galleries, artists and estates, plus another 75 promised gifts from multiple sources.

The Cynthia Sears Artist's Books Collection had more than 200 pieces in 2013. Today, it contains about 2,800 artworks, both one-of-a-kind and limited editions, Robinson said.

Now, a decade after the museum opened, Sears said she’s still “knocked off my feet by the way the community, in many different ways, has embraced BIMA.” For example, at the launch of an indigenous artists exhibition this spring, tribal elders provided blessings, she said.

Jones, with Arts & Humanities, praised Curator Greg Robinson for continually pushing to include artists from a range of backgrounds—age, gender, ethnicity, race and more.

“What a visionary,” Jones said. “There’s such an accessibility to arts and culture, to diversity. You step in the door and know that there’s something there for you.”

Every voice on Bainbridge Island matters, but it’s especially important to highlight those who are seldom heard or have been “historically marginalized, shut down or glossed over,” said Fantroy-Johnson. The city strives to build that platform through special committees, a diverse staff and a new equity and inclusion manager, she said. “BIMA amplifying these important voices completely supports the values we hope to embody on the Island.”

Sears’ collection of 2,800 artist’s books–with more being added all the time–forms the basis of rotating exhibitions in the Sherry Grover Gallery. These one-of-a-kind and limited-edition books wow museum visitors.

“It’s a rich and provocative art form, varied and amazing,” Sears said. “Children totally get it.”

Eventually, the collection will belong to BIMA. “I’m just the temporary custodian,” Sears said.

very deliberate about picking apart our mission. One-and-done exhibitions just are not meaningful.”

To that end, BIMA also offers a series of themed films, Wilcynski said. Concerts featuring a variety of music now regularly fill the auditorium and sometimes spill out onto the patio. The Creative Aging program, Look Again, targets yet another audience. And special events, such as the Dia de los Muertos celebration, have become visitor favorites, he said.

“Art truly takes flight when allowed equitable access for all,” Fantroy-Johnson said. “These programs allow for that, and I’m glad BIMA offers them.”

Art For Everyone

When Sears moved to Bainbridge with her husband, Frank Buxton, in 1989, she was surprised that there was no public showcase for art. And so, a seed was planted.

Jones noted that BIMA worked alongside other entities to win state Creative District status for the Winslow area last year. “It took all players and partnerships to make that happen,” she said. “BIMA has been instrumental in things we’ve done—and hope to do.”

MARKING A MILESTONE

BIMA’s

Too often, art is considered a luxury item, Fantroy-Johnson noted. But not at BIMA.

“Art is community. Art is language. Art is thought in motion, activism, joy and a window to see deeper and/or differently,” Fantroy-Johnson said. “If we limit that to a select few, we miss the bigger picture— pun intended.”

10th Anniversary Celebration

includes:

• Through June 1 – Treasure Trek (biartmuseum.org/treasure-trek/)

• June 9 and 10 – BIMA Bash! (biartmuseum.org/bima-bash-2023/)

• June 30 – BIMA Spotlight, the museum’s first juried exhibition, opens with more than 150 regional artists. (biartmuseum.org/exhibitions/ bima-spotlight/)

• August 5 – BIMA Block Party, featuring music, food vendors, beer garden, hands-on art projects, plus the museum's exhibitions— and free admission to KiDiMu.

• September 23 – BRAVA Awards presentation, a new biennial recognition of contemporary artists in four categories. (biartmuseum.org/the-brava-awards/)