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Nancy Horton's Blog: In the Oakland Museum's Basement

A rare volunteer opportunity for an art student in the 70s.

When I was a student at California College of Arts and Crafts in the mid-seventies, the Oakland Museum was still fairly new. It had been quite the sensation when it first opened. The galleries within its three distinct departments – Art, California History and Natural History – were arranged as to give visitors a walk through California’s past.

At the time, it was a pretty trailblazing concept.

I became a member of the museum while still an art student because I just couldn’t get enough of the place. The museum fed me in multiple ways. I brought my sketch book and drew from the wildlife dioramas; I boned up on California artists and soaked up local history.

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Between two work-study jobs, a small scholarship and my parent’s big contributions, I was able to afford CCAC’s tuition if I remained living at home. One day I answered a telephone call for “Mrs. Johnsen,” I gave the phone to my mother, but after a sentence or two, she gave it back, saying it was for me.

“Mrs. Johnsen, this is Mrs. Wright, the volunteer coordinator for the Oakland Museum. I’m calling new members to see if you’d have some time to volunteer at the museum.”

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Would I? Wow! Art students were desperate for a foot in the door at the Oakland Museum. We begged for opportunities to serve as docents, assemble exhibitions or even work in the ticket booth.

And here they were, calling me. I made an appointment with the volunteer coordinator for that week. When the day came, I remembered to bring a change of clothing, so I wouldn’t be wearing my paint-splotched jeans and Superman T-shirt.

The volunteer coordinator was a middle aged woman sitting at a tidy desk in a windowless office. When she met me, her face fell.

“Mrs. Johnsen?”

I confirmed that I was “Ms.” Johnsen.

She read my parent’s Alameda address aloud. I said that I indeed lived there.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Well, I expected a housewife. You’re just a kid. Usually, people who join the museum are adults who might have some time on their hands. I don’t think we can use you.”

“What kind of job did you have for me?” I could feel the urgency in my voice. Here I was with the opportunity to work behind the scenes in a place I loved and I felt I was losing the chance.

“The job involves cataloging a photographic collection, except you’d be gathering the information by interviewing the photographer himself. The museum recently received the entire collection of Roger Sturtevant, the architectural commercial photographer. The volunteer would sit with Mr. Sturtevant and organize the negatives and prints.”

“I can do that. I would love to do that. PLEASE let me do that.”

I got the job. The next Saturday I was shown to a dark basement room furnished with two folding chairs, a footstool and a light table. Mr. Sturtevant, then in his 70s, had photographed new homes in the 1940s, '50s and '60s built by important architects on beautiful California land for wealthy clients.

The photos were published in periodicals like House and Garden, Sunset and Architectural Digest. I had not heard of him but soon learned that he was a contemporary of Dorothea Lange, Maynard Dixon and Arthur and Lucia Mathews, whose artwork I had admired at the Oakland Museum. He worked professionally with Frank Lloyd Wright and William Wurster.

The collection, unfortunately, was in a terrible jumble and our task was to match up the negatives with the prints and note the date, location, architect and magazine client.

Even though I had work-study office jobs, I had very little experience seeing a big project through to completion. Of course, art school was preparing me for managing such tasks, but when the museum job began, I felt overwhelmed. I was given very little direction by the photography curator, and to be honest, I wasn’t even sure if I was in charge or Mr. Sturtevant was.

Roger and I agreed to meet at 10 a.m. on Saturdays for as long as the project would take. He never liked to get directly to work, but preferred to ask how my week had been, and offered details about his own well-being. After a few minutes of pleasantries Roger would elevate his feet (he had swollen ankles) and I’d put an array of 5” x 7” negatives on the light table while he rummaged through the box of prints.

Because it was the 1970’s, the “retro” look of the past three decades didn’t hold any particular panache for me. But, gradually, I came to appreciate the modern clean lines of the architects’ work and the way Roger’s black and white photography captured the best of each house. And it turned out that many of the photos triggered a story from Roger.

“Mr. Sturtevant, what about this one … looks like a kitchen interior with oak trees outside the window.”

“Oh, now THAT’s a good one. There should be some shots of a redwood deck in that bunch. That’s an Eichler in … oh, Atherton, I think, around 1958. Pretty far outside of town. There was a young assistant from Sunset Magazine who was anxious to get the exterior shots before the sun went down. But the light was perfect in the kitchen, so I kept going in there.

"Well, the kid was waiting for me impatiently on that redwood deck and, wouldn’t you know, a skunk came up — nice as you please — and sprayed him! I ran down to the nearest market for tomato juice, came back and soaked him good. He was madder than a wet hen! But after that, he let me take my time.” Roger told the tale with a devilish grin.

As the Saturdays rolled on that summer, I was able to get my arms around the scope of the project, and realized that the old man’s stories did not impede the process, but rather enhanced it. I learned to make myself listen and glean the facts I needed as Roger reminisced. I made note of historical facts when I could, and when the project was completed, was told by the curator that she appreciated the amount of detail we had provided. In retrospect, it would have been wonderful to have had a tape recorder for an oral history.

I was grateful for that job and proud to have had a part of cataloging a body of work that is in the museum’s permanent collection. And glad that in the process, I learned to slow down, pick up some knowledge of important architects, appreciate great storytelling and befriend one of California’s historically important artists.

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