Entire art museum board resigns

The Bigfork Museum of Art & History lost its entire board of directors Thursday following backlash from a July 20 announcement that executive director Marnie Forbis would be laid off due to a lack of funding in the budget to cover her salary.

Board members collectively resigned during a special meeting held at the museum. Before stepping down, they voted to approve one last motion to rescind their previous decision to eliminate the museum’s paid executive director position.

Word of the meeting quickly spread among museum members, many of whom showed up in support of Forbis. They arrived to find that the meeting would be conducted behind closed doors despite the fact that they were led to believe it would be open to the public.

In the lobby outside of the meeting room, dozens of museum members gathered and waited to hear the results of the meeting.

The shock was palpable as board members emerged from the room and announced their resignation.

“The reason for (all of) this is financial,” board member Susan Kuhlman told the crowd. “We don’t have the funds, and continuing forward, we didn’t see how this museum was to survive.”

After being notified of the board’s original decision to eliminate her position, Forbis — who has served as the museum’s executive director for the last 14 years — was told that her salary and insurance would be paid through Oct. 1.

Kuhlman said the board members, who are unpaid volunteers, were willing to take on the task of running the museum following Forbis’s departure. She also said board members planned to write a letter to the community to explain the action and ask for support during the reorganization process.

“We as a board have nothing more on our mind than to do what we feel is best for the museum,” Kuhlman said. “We have worked hard to do the best we felt we could for the museum with the funds available.”

Kuhlman added that in recent years, the museum has depended heavily on fundraisers — many of which, she said, have been unsuccessful — to stay afloat.

“We had a (funding) gift that we have been working with over the past five or six years, and that is now gone,” Kuhlman said. “We have come up short at all of our fundraisers.”

Kuhlman added that the museum has unsuccessfully applied for several grants.

Many museum members said they were unaware that recent fundraising efforts had been unsuccessful and wondered what could be done to make future fundraising endeavors more profitable.

“You don’t know how hard we worked, the hours we spent on all the different fundraising events,” Kuhlman said. “We have to fundraise all the time.”

Kuhlman said board members felt they were left with no choice but to cut the museum’s biggest annual expenditure — Forbis’s salary.

Forbis knows her salary makes up the majority of the museum’s budget, which is why she offered to take a pay cut earlier this year. The board declined that offer.

“I think this whole thing is just a communication breakdown between the board and me,” Forbis said.

Although the museum — like many businesses — has been struggling financially since the economy crashed in 2008, Forbis did not think the numbers were bad enough to necessitate such drastic action.

“Last year (at this time) we were $12,000 in the red, and right now we’re $7,000 in the black, so I thought we were OK,” Forbis said. “Plus, not all of our membership fees are in, and August and September are our biggest months for the gift shop.”

Forbis expressed regret over the situation with the board, but she is trying to stay optimistic about the future of the museum. She will immediately begin work on assembling a new board, which she hopes will breathe new life into the museum.

“I’m hoping to get more people into the museum, and possibly some new members,” Forbis said.

She said the outpouring of support during Thursday’s meeting gives her reason to believe that the museum will weather the storm and continue on as a mainstay in Bigfork’s rich artistic community.

“To me, the museum isn’t just a job,” Forbis said. “It’s something I’ve put my life, and my passion, into.”