ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive houses one of the world's largest collections of African American quilts. BAMPFA has 3,000 of them, and as NPR's Chloe Veltman reports, the long-term care of these delicate artworks is now in jeopardy.
CHLOE VELTMAN, BYLINE: Quilts are designed for everyday use. They're usually stored in people's homes and easily exposed to mold, insects and other destructive elements that cause the fabric to degrade over time. That's why the quilts in BAMPFA's massive collection can only be put on public display after an extensive conservation process. Curator Elaine Yau explains.
ELAINE YAU: Batches of quilts get placed into an enclosed chamber...
VELTMAN: And treated with carbon dioxide gas for five to seven weeks.
YAU: And then they're individually vacuumed.
VELTMAN: Spritzed with an antiseptic surface cleaner...
YAU: And then very carefully folded and rehoused in acid-free tissue and boxes.
VELTMAN: The museum is doing all of this because these quilts are important. Yau says the artworks date back to the 1860s and tell the stories of the people who made them. They were bequeathed to the museum in 2019 by a late collector who had stored them in his home for many years.
YAU: These are beautiful artworks that can be enjoyed from an aesthetic point of view. But how they're really significant is thinking about how we regard the history of everyday Americans.
VELTMAN: Among the hundred or so quilts Yau has chosen for display in the museum's upcoming exhibition is a striking piece by quilt artist Alice Neel. It features a portrait of Neel's mother at its center, fashioned from scraps of a dress she owned.
YAU: And the woven hat that she wears actually detaches to reveal a portrait of her mother with a silk headscarf.
VELTMAN: A $460,000 federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, or IMLS, was meant to cover a large chunk of the museum's quilt conservation. But in early April, the agency canceled it, along with grants it had already disbursed to hundreds of other cultural institutions. Julie Rodrigues Widholm is BAMPFA's executive director.
JULIE RODRIGUES WIDHOLM: I wasn't surprised, but reading it in black and white was shocking.
VELTMAN: IMLS said in a statement to NPR the agency is redirecting funding towards programs that, quote, "inspire the virtues of patriotic citizenship to help President Trump usher in the golden age of America." Widholm says roughly half of the quilts still need to be conserved. Her team is hoping foundations, corporations and other entities will step in to make up for the loss. But it's a race against the clock.
WIDHOLM: We can basically continue conservation work through December. After that, we do not have funding to continue. And there is urgency to doing this work. Textiles are very fragile materials.
VELTMAN: Sean Buffington is the interim president of the Henry Luce Foundation. The New York-based grant-maker gave BAMPFA roughly $150,000 towards conserving its quilts. Buffington says he wants to do more for cultural groups currently facing federal funding losses, but the hole is too big.
SEAN BUFFINGTON: When you look at the resources that even IMLS, which is not a huge agency, puts into the arts, you know, that is not something that we can compensate for.
VELTMAN: Twenty-one states filed a lawsuit in April against a Trump executive order that called for the dismantling of the Institute of Museum and Library Services and other agencies. A federal judge then put grant terminations on momentary hold. The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive says, while the lawsuit is pending, it has no choice but to proceed as if it won't get the money back.
Chloe Veltman, NPR News.
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