While leading a group tour, Jim Patton, one of 110 docents for the Heard Museum in Phoenix, talks in great detail about the history of American Indian people. His voice is always calm as he weaves in interesting facts that relate to the Native American artifacts on display.
“Indian culture and history is a part of ourselves as Americans,” Patton said, as he led participants among a plethora of jewelry, pottery and baskets. “It’s important for us to realize how important it was and still is.”
The Heard, located off of Central Avenue between McDowell and Thomas roads, has been educating the community about Native American culture since 1929. Its exhibits concentrate on natives from the Southwest with an emphasis on native culture in Arizona.
However, the Heard has seen its share of economic troubles during the recession. It makes money from admissions, sales in the museum shop and donations, said Letitia Chambers, the CEO and president of the museum — all of which are down lately, she added.
“A lot of it has to do with the economy; people are buying less,” Chambers said. “Some of it can be attributed to the loss of convention business.”
November is National Native American Heritage Month. The museum will host the Navajo Weavers Marketplace Saturday, another event designed to bring more people to the museum and increase awareness about American Indian culture.
“Learning about other cultures always makes people more accepting,” Chambers said. “They see the similarities in humanity and then they become more accepting of the differences.”
To attract more people, the museum is focusing on its changing exhibits. The Heard has 11 in total, seven of which rotate with different collections. Chambers said that the curators try to keep a balance of traditional Native American art and contemporary pieces to maintain interest.
This has helped the museum get more local visitors as well as increased membership, which reached 17,000 people this year.
The change in weather and start of the school year has also helped increase the recent number of visitors, guest service representative Jessica Beach said.
Visitations always go down in the summer because of the heat, with most visitors being tourists, Beach said. Now, most visitors are local or school groups, she said, adding that the Heard always strives to educate the public about Native American culture no matter the visitor traffic.
“You can actually see objects from real tribes and get this info in an urban area without traveling a long time to go to a reservation,” Beach said.
Contact the reporter at dmillar@asu.edu
