New Orleans Museum of Art Fighting to Survive

— -- The baseball-sized French glass Mardi Gras beads still dangle on live oak trees outside the New Orleans Museumof Art. Somehow, they defied Hurricane Katrina's fury.

The Degas, Monet and Gauguin paintings, the jeweled Fabergeeggs, the Ansel Adams photographs, they're all safe inside. Eventhough storm winds uprooted 60-foot-tall trees nearby and8-foot-deep floodwaters surrounded the museum like a lake with anisland castle, the art treasures were spared.

But the museum wasn't and its scars are just beginning to show.

The New Orleans Museum of Art has been forced to lay off most ofits 86 workers, it must raise millions of dollars to survive thenext few years and it will not reopen its doors for months. Andthat's just for starters.

"It's going to take years to get back to where we were," saysJackie Sullivan, the museum's deputy director. "The toughest timeis definitely now."

The museum's plight typifies the dilemma a cultural institutionhere - especially one dependent on city dollars - faces in thispost-Katrina era. New Orleans has no money, no sizable number oftourists and no crystal ball to predict when all will change.

Then there's the matter of priorities.

In a city where hundreds of people died, thousands of homes weredestroyed, jobs are gone and schools and businesses closed, thepreservation of an art museum just doesn't rank at the top of themust-do list.

But E. John Bullard, the museum's director, argues that art mustbe a part of the city's revival.

"Obviously, the people have to have houses to live in," hesays. "They have to have hospitals. They have to have schools. Ithink museums ... are on the same level. You can't live in acultural desert. Especially in New Orleans. You just can't."

The 94-year-old museum, a neoclassical white stone building seton a circle, is important, too, because it attracts out-of-townvisitors - and that means money.

"I think the city has wakened up to the fact that tourism isits last great hope," says John Keefe, one of the laid-off museumworkers.

The museum needs $15 million in the next three years and is nowtrying to raise money to make up for losing visitors (about 150,000a year) and fees from its 10,000 members, many of whom have fledNew Orleans. "We're hanging out a little tin cup," says Bullard, who sayshis recent trip to New York to appeal to foundations for helpbrought in pledges of $900,000. The museum's crisis came after the storm. Mayor Ray Naginannounced in October that New Orleans was broke and had to lay offas many as 3,000 people, about half the city's work force. That had a dramatic impact on the museum because 60 percent ofthe staff are civil servants, including most curators. One of them,Dan Piersol, suddenly found himself out of work after 25 years. "If there's anyone expendable, it's got to be museum people,"says Piersol, who was curator of prints and drawings. "I fearedthat and it came true." Piersol says even as the flooding, looting and chaos thatenveloped the city were unfolding in horrifying TV images, he wasdetermined to return. "The more I watched, the more I thought thisis not going to work," he says. Friends, he says, urged him to look for a new job and he dideven before his layoff notice arrived. He quickly was hired asdeputy director at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson. "It was self-preservation," he says. "Everyone did or willget to that point." Piersol also had another bit of luck. When he returned to hisNew Orleans house in the Bywater neighborhood, "it was dry as abone" and 30 years of his paintings were not damaged. "It wasjust astonishing to see everything exactly as we left it," hesays. While Piersol has a new career, some colleagues scattered aroundthe country are in limbo - and waiting to return to their old jobs. "I can't imagine not being there," says Victoria Cooke, themuseum's curator of European painting who is living in New York,working on her dissertation and planning an impressionistexhibition for 2008. Cooke, who just bought a new house near the museum last year,says it's painful being laid off but she understands. "I have toput my faith in the people who have to deal with this, that they'llfind a solution," she says. "That's my hope. I'm trying to bepatient." But for Keefe, curator of decorative arts, these are worrisomedays. After 23 years at the museum, he says he thought he hadenough seniority to still be working and is annoyed the boarddidn't give the staff even a few hundred dollars each to tide themover. At age 64, he fears he'll be forced into retirement without agood pension. "After all these years of service," Keefe says, "you kind offeel, 'Why did I do this?' " Sullivan, the deputy director, says the museum had to pare itsstaff to 14 workers and with the doors closed, there's no need forpeople such as education curators or a volunteer coordinator. She's also aware there will be permanent losses. "The void istremendous," she says. "It's hard to replace someone who was acurator with 30 years of experience." Bullard worries, too, about the obstacles in reopening: Willworkers want to return? Where will they find housing? How will hismuseum compete with other places offering fatter paychecks? "How many people will want to come to New Orleans at the salarywe pay? ... When we go to rehire people, it's going to be hard,"he says. Many staff members had worked at the museum for a decade or moreand were a close-knit group, working as a team even as theyprepared for Katrina: They took paintings off the walls that werenear skylights and put others on wooden blocks in basement storageareas. Some sculptures were brought inside and some others -including the Mardi Gras beads - were tied to trees. Several workers - maintenance and security crew, along withtheir families - took refuge in the building and stayed there inthe turbulent first week after the storm. They were so determinedto protect the treasures from possible looters, they refused toleave when they had the chance. Some stayed downstairs, while others kept vigil on the mainfloor. They had already stocked up on food and filled giant garbagecans and ice chests with water. They watched the news on atelevision powered by a generator until they were finally orderedout by the National Guard. On the Saturday after the storm, Sullivan, the deputy director,finally made her way to the building in a harrowing nine-hourjourney in a two-boat convoy, passing floating bodies along theway. She was accompanied by M-16 rifle-toting security guards,mostly former New York City police working for a firm that had beenhired by the museum's insurer. The security force remained there for six weeks. Two OrleansParish sheriff's deputies now guard the museum. Sullivan says she was thrilled at what she found. "I could havejust screamed," she says. "Everything was pristine." Though there was no flooding in the galleries, the ground floorhad cracks that caused some water to seep in the storage and officeareas. Only one sculpture, a piece of furniture, two Kachina dollsand a pair of Japanese screens were damaged but the inventory isstill being taken. Only a fraction of the 40,000 or so pieces in the museum's $250million collection is normally on display. The museum also remainsa temporary home to about 1,000 works from private collectors. The museum needs to make repairs valued at more than $6 million,including fixing the huge freight elevator, waterproofing thebasement, landscaping, new outside lights and other improvements inthe sculpture garden. Most of those costs will be covered byinsurance or the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The public will be able to walk around the sculpture garden nextmonth, but the museum won't be open until March 1, Ash Wednesday,the day after Mardi Gras. Meanwhile, Bullard plans a fund-raising campaign, making stopsin such cities as Los Angeles, Chicago and Palm Beach, Fla., toencourage more people to open their checkbooks. Already, there are signs of good will. French officials recentlyannounced they'll loan some 50 paintings from their institutions,including the Louvre, to be displayed in a special exhibition latenext year or in early 2007 at the New Orleans Museum of Art. The museum will also bring some works to a New York gallery nextyear to raise money and pay tribute to the security force thatguarded the building. Meanwhile, George Roland, who was a donor, volunteer andeventually an assistant at the museum, wonders about the future -the museum's, the city's and his own. "I don't think anything in the city is going to come back theway it is," he says. "I think New Orleans is gone, at least theNew Orleans that everyone thinks about." But he says the camaraderie with his co-workers and the museumare reasons enough for him to return. "It's not New Orleans as a city that will bring me back," hesays. "It's the museum." Keefe, his former colleague, says even though people are worriedabout housing and other essential needs now, he's certain themuseum will survive because it's part of the fabric and the futureof New Orleans. "Art is not a luxury," he says. "It's something that enhanceslife. And this city is all about the enhancement of life."