A window into the past

By Gretchen Ammerman

Oregon Coast TODAY

Museums are treasure troves that, like icebergs, display only a small part of what’s stored below, especially when it comes to the photo and documents archives.

The Pacific Maritime Heritage Center has come on board with a new way to extend museum hours and share an example of the historic images they’ve been entrusted with. During the “Moving Image Show,” Newport’s history will come alive in the large windows of the center after dark. The nine-minute long looped production will play from dusk until 10 pm, Thursday through Sunday nights, except for first Thursdays of the month, for as long as the days are short enough to make it feasible.

“It's just a fun way to show a small selection of the thousands of images we have in our archives,” Executive Director Susan Tissot said. “We get new things all the time as people decide to let go of business and family records.”

Artist Carol Schenk is a volunteer at the museum and has a history that Tissot knew was perfect for the job of creating the display. Prior to moving to Newport in 2019, Schenk worked for more than a decade as an archivist in King County, WA, and was a founding board member of the nonprofit Moving Image Preservation of Puget Sound.

“Her skill set is exactly what we needed to pull this off,” Tissot said. ”We’re also incredibly lucky that she’s doing this as a volunteer; we would have had to do a significant amount of fundraising for this otherwise.”

Schenk rose to the challenge of representing a period from the early 1900s through the 1960s using only 60 images.

“The photos I selected reflected the diversity of the area,” she said. “I tried to find images of interest to the greater community that show the indigenous people and things like fishing and surfing, and I thought it was important to show the research side, too. There is one photo of Jacques Cousteau standing on a boat with local divers.”

Putting her skills to use, Schenk “animated” some of the photos. People in Victorian style garb skipping rope on the beach and trains going by help to bring the photo show, and therefore the area's history, to life, which was part of Tissot’s goal.

“It’s more of a photo essay than a simple slideshow,” she said. “Not everyone can visualize things in their head, so this way they can really picture the things from the archives, which helps give an identity and self of place.”

And though the archives are so full of images and documents that the process of digitizing them to make them more easily accessible for the public will take potentially decades, Tissot still wants more.

“Archives play a really important role in communities,” she said. “We need to understand everyone in the community, not just the notables. If your relative never held public office or was in the public eye, and you don’t put those things in an archive or a public collection, that person over time kind of disappears. These photos also help create a record of the changes to the area and to the natural world, which can help stop mistakes from being repeated.”

The idea of a projected moving image show isn’t original to the museum – Tissot actually started thinking about doing one after her husband was contacted to contribute photos for one in San Francisco.

“My husband was asked for surfing images for a show in the windows at the Cliff House,” she said. “Then I heard about a history professor who put one on a brick building in Portland.”

As is always her goal, Tissot thought it would be a great way to increase the visibility of the museum.

“A lot of people walk the boardwalk every night,” she said. “I thought this would be a great way to alert people to this amazing resource we have.”

The length of the show was designed to be a reasonable amount of work for Schenk but encourage repeat visits.

“The idea is that people can come by at different times and see different images,” Tissot said. “We also hope that this will help drive folks to the bay front and maybe have dinner during these slow visitation months.”

The show is free to view, but support for the museum is always welcome to keep the non-profit alive.

“There’s a lot of behind the scenes work that no one sees,” Tissot said. “That takes time and resources. We are so lucky to have Carol doing this as a volunteer, but if we can’t keep the doors open, we lose these incredible community resources.”

The Pacific Maritime Heritage Center is located at 333 SE Bay Blvd. in Newport, across the street from Port Dock 5. For more information, go to oregoncoasthistory.org or call 541-265-7509.