There was no room on the meeting table to put their year-end, celebratory bottle of wine. The 12 members of the Polson Museum board and a few volunteers peered at the 20 Elton Bennett prints laid on the meeting table, with more propped up against the walls of the museum meeting room last Wednesday evening. The prints were all variations of the “Driftwood Fire” series and have been donated to the Polson Museum by the artist’s daughter, Barbara Bennett Parsons. Bennett Parsons has more than 170 different titles, each with multiple variations, that she plans to donate to the museum, one or more titles each year.
“Each piece is different,” she explains, “because my father would have had no fun in creating prints that were all the same.”
The prints are serigraphs, also known as silkscreens, which enabled Elton Bennett to mix and match different screens to create variations on the scene. Some prints have different birds or backgrounds. Some have different colors but all are unmistakably “Elton Bennetts.”
Currently, she is working on collecting different prints in the “The Wayfarers” series and has 23 variations at the moment that will be donated next year.
In all, she hopes to donate 1,400 prints and various artifacts, which currently occupy a studio above the Hoquiam Post Office.
She hopes that eventually the collection will be housed at the Polson. Museum director John Larson supports the idea and says it could mean a substantial fundraising campaign to build space for the art.
Within the collection of 1,400 prints will be pieces that the museum will be able to sell and reproduce. “Gift cards are a big seller and I’m currently making refrigerator magnets. Kids love to collect refrigerator magnets! Elton Bennett refrigerator art, he would have loved that,” she smiled.
Elton Bennett has been called the “working man’s artist.” He worked his art like any other job, eight hours a day and wasn’t interested in being rich. He simply wanted to be an artist. He would sell his prints for $15, just to get them out into the world. And he succeeded. He has collectors all over the world, says Bennett Parsons.
Bennett Parsons, who is not an artist herself, is known as her father’s biggest fan, but she has plenty of company.
His daughter wants his prints out in the world also, “Share the work, get it out there,” she reiterates.
Most of the prints are currently being stored in a safe above the Hoquiam post office where they have been for 32 years, but Bennett Parsons and others worry that someday the space won’t be available.
“As I’m getting to a riper old age, I’m getting serious about transferring my father’s artwork” explained Bennett Parsons, 61, to the board. “I am the only renter” (at the post office) she said, and she doesn’t expect they will allow that for much longer.
Currently, the Polson Museum doesn’t have a large area to store everything that will be donated.
Until they are finished with their current project of the Railroad Camp, the Bennett donation will take a bit of a back seat.
Until they are ready for the next project, which will be in about three years, “our midterm goal would be to save the collection there (at the post office,” said Larson.
Long term, there is a dream to add a wing to the Polson Museum.
Bennett Parsons shares the dream with the Polson board and Larson, which involves an addition to the museum: an atrium and a gallery with a second story archival room. “The second story would be a climate controlled room for all our archives.” said Larson in a seperate discussion. This is where the Bennett collection, as well as other collections, would be housed.
But it will take more than dreaming to make it a reality. Larson believes that $20 million would do it.
“My dream is that if I live long enough, am pesky enough and bug you long enough that this will become a reality,” said Bennett Parsons.
“It will be a worldwide attraction.” commented board member Rob Radford.
“You’ll do the right thing with this art work and you’ll take care of things. Your commitment is real.” Bennett Parsons said.
President Joyce Thomasson called the donated collection, “A wonderful, wonderful gift.” She also thanked Larson for his “forward vision and thinking outside of the box.”
The Polson Museum, continues to collect history and it has many more exciting announcements in store. In addition to the Bennett donation, there was much to celebrate.
The Museum is working on its current project, the “Railroad Camp.” This past year they acquired all the parts to the 1887 Dolbeer Steambelt. The Linn Halftrack that has been restored is fully functioning. The Polson hosted its largest event: The Timber Revival in August. All the tickets are sold for the Dec. 27, 1 p.m. drawing of the Red Raffle of the 2014 Ford Mustang, Beatles album collection and a rifle, all items that came out in 1964. “I tell people, buy early and buy often,” said Larson.
The Polson Museum will be open each day this week and next starting Wednesday, Dec 17, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. through Dec 23 (read: lots of historic books and gift cards). The Museum will be closed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
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