'I've been inspired over and over again': Collections curator Valerie Wahl to retire after 25 years at the MAC

Feb. 13—After a quarter of a century at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, collections manager and curator Valerie Wahl is retiring this year to travel, spend more time with family and focus on her own art.

For 25 years, Wahl has been responsible for managing artifact preservation and maintaining a catalog of the museum's permanent collection. But, most importantly, her job has meant finding new and innovative ways of telling the stories that belong to each of these artifacts within the greater context of the history of Eastern Washington and the Columbia Plateau.

Museums don't collect artifacts simply because they're old or valuable, Wahl said, explaining how her team approaches sorting through the myriad items locals bring in to discuss, or, much less desirable the "drive-by drop-offs" left with no explanation.

Above all, curators are searching for items with stories to tell. And the museum serves as a time capsule, "remembering on behalf of the community what has happened here and playing those stories back over generations," she said.

Wahl gave an example from a recently opened exhibit titled "Golden Harvest: Flour Sacks From the Permanent Collection," showcasing vintage flour sacks. The exhibit features a dress made by the "Miss Spokane" label, a local manufacturer from the 1930s.

By the fading colors and evidence of many careful repairs, you can tell the dress had been worn hundreds of times, she said. The dress, displayed with an apron stitched together from flour sacks, tells a story about resourcefulness in an era of scarcity.

"It's a story that's harder to tell with objects because people don't tend to keep everyday items," she said. "That Miss Spokane dress was a rare find and gem, useful for us to reflect a piece of our own history."

MAC executive director Wes Jessup shared how Wahl's "institutional memory" has been invaluable to him since he started at the MAC five years ago. "I've tried to absorb as much as I can because she understands how the collection has evolved and has a lot of insight into what our strengths are."

Where museum professionals in larger cities tend to stick to their specific roles, Wahl said, the relatively small size of the MAC has given her many opportunities to experiment with exhibition design and object display.

"She has really high standards, and that's critical in this environment," Jessup said, explaining some of the guidelines the MAC has to follow to maintain their status as an accredited institution. "A lot of that accreditation rests on collection care and management."

It's never easy. But with all of the planning and work that goes into putting together a gallery, the end result almost always exceeds your expectations, Wahl said.

"There's that point where you finally put spotlights on the work you've done ... then you can really make things sing," she said, mentioning her gratitude for the small but dedicated "dream team" she's been able to work with over the past several years, including her successor, Brooke Shelman Wagner.

Wagner joined the MAC as registrar and exhibitions manager in 2010 and has worked closely with Wahl for the past five years. Wahl has thrived on the creative problem-solving required by each new project.

"Even in just the last five years that I've been here, she's done some really great shows and been able to tell some intriguing stores based on those objects (while also) bringing objects of historical significance into the collection and curating shows out of the permanent collection," Jessup said.

"We're committed to always trying to get pieces of the collection out in different kinds of exhibitions, and she's been able to do that in a lot of really creative ways."

As an artist and an art major, Wahl said, the job has been a privilege to undertake. Wahl spent a year at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle before moving to Washington State University, where she graduated with a degree in fine arts. "I naturally enjoy spending time with art, working with art," she said.

Be it unpacking a local treasure by Wendy Franklund Miller or Patrick Siler, a masterpiece by an Impressionist era giant or a Smithsonian artifact like Louis Armstrong's trumpet, being entrusted with these pieces felt just as humbling as it was exciting.

"Spending so much time with so much amazing art — thinking back over the artists and the work that I've gotten to enjoy over the years — I've been inspired over and over again," Wahl said.

"To be frank, this job takes all my creative energy, but I've got all kinds of things in my head that I want to do and to play with," she said. "I'm really looking forward to starting over and discovering what it is that I want to do."