China Lake Museum Foundation is grant finalist

PRESS RELEASE
Ridgecrest Daily Independent

The China Lake Museum Foundation was just notified that it was selected, contingent upon California Cultural and Historical Endowment board approval on June 10, to receive a $250,000 grant from the CCHE Museum Grant Program. The CCHE program is administered by the California Natural Resources Agency. The Museum Grant Program is funded by Proposition 40 California Clean Water, Clean Air, Safe Neighborhood Parks, and Coastal Protection Act of 2002.

Sixty-seven museum applicants applied for the capital asset grant program. The China Lake Museum Foundation hosted three state representatives for a site visit on May 3. Twenty finalists were visited and 18 museums around the state were selected to receive funding ranging from $50,000 to the maximum of $250,000.

These grant funds will be used in conjunction with existing China Lake Museum Foundation funds gathered through the Founders Program, capital assets fundraisers, memberships and special events such as the annual CLMF Dinner Auction.

The China Lake Museum, highlighting the great accomplishments to defense by our local base, will be making its first phased move off the base and into Ridgecrest this fall. The museum will be situated on Kern County leased land next to Maturango Museum.

Infrastructure including parking lot and utilities will be completed along with a 2,880 square-foot building which will house an information center and expanded gift shop. Some of the displays will be relocated to the new facility and others will remain in the base awaiting completion of Phase 2.

Phase 2 will be a 10,000 square foot building located on the same land. This will form a museum complex including outside exhibit areas. The China Lake Museum Foundation invites all interested parties to become members, work on the building committee or other subcommittees, become a building Founder for $5,000, or contribute what they can to make this museum in Ridgecrest a reality. For more information please contact Alice Campbell, president or Wayne Doucette, vice president of building at the China Lake Museum 760-939-3530.

Inyo County museum looks back on 2012

Inyo Register

During a year-end review of 2012 county operations, Eastern California Museum Director Jon Klusmire spotlighted accomplishments in the face of a tight budget. His report was delivered during the last Inyo County Board of Supervisors meeting of 2012. The following is a brief summation of Director Klusmire's comments:

• The Eastern California Museum installed the successful exhibit, “Personal Responsibility: The Camp Photography of Toyo Miyatake,” which was featured in stories in the Los Angeles Times, Rafu Shimpo and other publications.
• A grant from the Metabolic Studio, a direct charitable activity of the Annenberg Foundation, allowed the museum to digitize and document about 9,000 photos from its collection of 29,000 images.
• A grant from the U.S. Forest Service allowed the museum to digitize about 1,300 photos and duplicate about 15 linear feet of documents that make up the Inyo National Forest Supervisor’s historic archives.
• Both of these projects made a wider selection of the museum’s photos and documents more accessible to the public.
• The non-profit Friends of the Eastern California Museum once again supplied critical financial support to the museum, in addition to hosting numerous events and activities.

Over $1 Million of Grants Mark the Upcoming 100 Year Anniversary of the Los Angeles Aqueduct

November 5, 1913-- The scene of the formal opening for the Los Angeles aqueduct.  General Adna Chafee, president of the Water Board turned the wheel that allowed the first Owens River water to flow into the aqueduct.

LOS ANGELES -- To mark the upcoming centenary of the Los Angeles Aqueduct (11.5.2013), the Metabolic Studio is awarding grants to the following organizations to realize projects that will bring consciousness to the impact and importance of this monumental piece of hydraulic engineering.

The Metabolic Studio convened Chora Council 2012: a unique team of civic, tribal, educational, environmental, museum and nonprofit leaders from along the Aqueduct's 223-mile length to nominate the organizations and institutions that are receiving funding.

Lauren Bon and the Metabolic Studio are pleased to announce 16 Chora Council grants, representing over $1 million of funding. Providing significant support for action, research, education and community-building in the context of "one hundred years of L.A. water," the Chora docket reflects on the past century in the context of glacial time, while simultaneously acting for the coming 100 years.

Some of the recipients of Chora Council 2012 funding are:

Arid Lands Institute at Woodbury University - The Arid Lands Institute at Woodbury University brings people and ideas together across multiple disciplines to shape answers and envision a future in which landscapes and communities are resilient in the face of regional aridity--environmentally, culturally and economically. http://aridlands.woodbury.edu/

Arizona State University Desert Initiative for ARID: A Journal of Desert Art, Design and Ecology - ARID is a creative and scholarly journal for contemporary works addressing desert culture, environment, and landscape. Marking the L.A. Aqueduct centenary, ARID will commission works that consider local, regional and international issues related to the social, environmental, cultural, political, engineering and economic impacts of conveying water across vast distances. http://aridjournal.com/

Autry National Center of the American West - An intercultural center and museum dedicated to exploring and sharing the stories, experiences and perceptions of the diverse peoples of the American West, the Autry National Center will digitize archival holdings related to the Los Angeles Aqueduct. http://theautry.org/

Bishop Paiute Tribe's First Bloom An initiative of the Bishop Paiute Tribe - First Bloom is an environmental education program that connects 4th and 5th grade children to the outdoors and Native American culture. Tribal elders and historians will lead activities that teach the values and history of water, while emphasizing the Owens Valley's native peoples' strength through struggles imposed by land trades and water exports. www.bishoptribeemo.com/Water/FirstBloomPage.html

California State University, Northridge, Special Collections and Archives - The Oviatt Library at California State University, Northridge will digitize archival holdings related to the Los Angeles Aqueduct, including the recently acquired Catherine Mulholland Collection. http://library.csun.edu/collections/sca

Claremont University Consortium's Honnold/Mudd Library - The Special Collections department of the Honnold/Mudd Library at Claremont University will digitize archival holdings related to the Los Angeles Aqueduct, including Fred Eaton's photograph album and typescript documenting his trip to Owens River Valley in November 1905. http://libraries.claremont.edu/

Henry E. Huntington Library & Art Gallery - In partnership with the University of California's Institute on California and the West, the Huntington Library will sponsor three events designed to bring historical perspective to water and aqueduct themes to draw attention to, and comment upon, issues of contemporary interest and concern regarding Los Angeles, water, the aqueduct, the Owens River/Valley and water use more generally. http://dornsife.usc.edu/icw

Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone Reservation (LPPSR) - The Lone Pine Paiute - "Water Ute" - fought for their lands and water when settlers claimed both in the 1850s. By 1937, when the Reservation was formed, the diversion of local water to L.A. had already, in turn, destroyed the settlers' agricultural economy. Today the approximately 350 LPPSR residents depend on LADWP for water access. This Chora Council award will support charitable and educational activities on the Reservation that work to preserve and protect the Reservation's cultural heritage. http://lppsr.org/

Silver Lake Reservoirs Conservancy (SLRC) - Dedicated to preserving and enhancing the benefits of Silver Lake's open waters and open space, SLRC will erect information kiosks that engage the history, ecology, infrastructure and future of the reservoirs to tell "The Story of Water in L.A." www.silverlakereservoirs.org/

The Eastern California Museum - Dedicated to the cultural and natural history of Inyo County and the Eastern Sierra, the Eastern California Museum will produce a yearlong series of events and programs to commemorate the completion of the L.A. Aqueduct. The series will support the Museum's exhibition of photographs exploring construction of the Aqueduct, a steel thread that has woven through life in the Owens Valley for over a century. www.inyocounty.us/ecmsite/

University of California Press Foundation's Boom: A Journal of California - A cross-disciplinary quarterly from the University of California Press, Boom embraces scholarly and less usual formats, including artworks and first-person accounts, to explore California. Boom will commission critical interpretive surveys of the L.A. Aqueduct and its historical, cultural and ecological legacies from prominent scholars, independent writers and critics. www.boomcalifornia.com/

University of California, Riverside, Water Resources Collections and Archives - The Water Resources Collections and Archives collects contemporary and historic materials on all aspects of water resources. It will digitize archival holdings related to the Los Angeles Aqueduct, including the Lippincott Collection, which contains more than 800 photographs documenting the construction of the Aqueduct. http://library.ucr.edu/wrca/

William H. Hannon Library, Loyola Marymount University (LMU) - The Department of Archives and Special Collections of the William H. Hannon Library at LMU will digitize archival holdings related to the Los Angeles Aqueduct, including editions of the Big Pine Citizen 1922-1928, and the J.D. Black papers, which provide a view of the L.A. Aqueduct from the perspective of Owens Valley residents. www.lmu.edu/Page4020.aspx