NEW DAWN FOR MUSEUM

PALMER — If musk ox could just pay attention for a minute, they’d see they’ve been the center of attention lately.

The prehistoric mammoths housed at Palmer’s Musk Ox Farm are clueless to the commotion going on inside the old museum next door. For them, it’s just another spring in the fields and business and usual. Across the field and inside the old colony barn turned tourist attraction, renovation efforts are being made to turn the run-down relic into a musk ox history haven.

Student Bridgit Armstrup and Musk Ox Farm staff have taken on renovating a portion of the farm’s museum that has seen its fair share of weathering. Inside one of the original colony barns built in the 1930s, the museum’s old pictures, rotted walls and dated historical material are coming down to make way for more appealing and modern attractions.

Armstrup, a graduate student at Alaska Pacific University working on her master’s degree in outdoor and environmental education, moved to Alaska from North Dakota in 2006. As part of her senior thesis project, she approached the Musk Ox Farm about renovating its dilapidated museum, especially its aged displays and signage. The farm gladly accepted Armstrup’s offer and with the aid of a $10,000 bed tax grant from the Mat-Su Borough she was on her way.

“The items inside were faded, stained, falling off and needed serious help,” Armstrup said about the condition of the barn. “I realized I would have to redo everything and wanted to make it look professional so that when people walked through they would get a sense of appreciation for the musk ox and what the farm does.”

The Musk Ox Farm, a private non-profit organization dedicated to the development and domestication of the musk ox, generates subsistence income opportunities for Alaska’s first people. In 1954, the Musk Ox Project helped re-introduce the gentle giants to the area when they were nearly gone. The Palmer farm was opened in 1986 and draws thousands of visitors year-round who come to catch a glimpse of one of nature’s oldest creatures in existence.

The soft wool of the musk ox known as qiviut is harvested from the more than 50 musk ox at the farm and delivered to Oomingmak, a cooperative of Alaska Native knitters who use the wool to design hats, sweaters and other warm wearables.

In her restoration efforts, Armstrup first created a handful of museum exhibit walls to hang newly discovered photos of the hairy creatures, the Musk Ox Farm and its surrounding historical areas, replacing the wilted and faded prints that have been damaged from years of wear and tear.

Informative plaques were also designed and the text simplified. She avoided lengthy and textbook-like descriptions of the prehistoric creatures, opting instead for something more in the style of Dr. Seuss.

“I wanted kids to understand what a diligent creature the musk ox is,” Armstrup said. “I tried to make it more it more interesting instead of just ‘blah blah blah.’ We’ve also included new flip touch boards, where visitors can touch real musk ox hide, qiviut, silk and angora. It’s an added bonus getting to touch these amazing creatures.”

Armstrup said a paper machete four-chambered stomach and a Polaroid camera station for tour documentation has also been added to the museum.

Armstrup and Musk Ox Farm Manager Amanda Kristinat built the foundation for the museum renovation project, both agreeing that displaying local art, a large mural in particular, would be an added bonus in perking up the tourist attraction. They began advertising for local artists to volunteer services, but received no offers.

That is, until Suzanne Bach stepped up to the plate.

Bach, an art professor at Mat-Su College, had been searching for a community service project for her students to do through the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Center for Community Engagement and Learning department, but was drawing blanks. She approached the Musk Ox Farm in hopes it would give her interior design students some free space planning and color scheme work and was told of Armstrup’s efforts to get a historical and colorful mural for the museum.

Bach quickly offered up her students. Armstrup was ecstatic.

“Suzanne found us and it was totally perfect,” Armstrup said. “She had all these awesome creative minds in her class, and when I told them what I had envisioned for a mural, they all took the reigns and began sketching out their vision of this ice age musk ox mural.”

On a cold and windy day in early February, Bach’s nine MSS art students visited the unheated museum barn, taking measurements, asking questions and ascertaining the expectations of management. They took their notes back to class and began jotting down ideas for Armstrup’s mural vision. They sketched, painted and even used computer graphics to present ideas to the Musk Ox Farm’s board of directors. Only one sketch would be selected for the final mural project, which the class would then work on together.

Marina Angel’s “Glacier View Ice Age” was selected from nine candidates and was the just what Armstrup had envisioned. Angel’s sketch portrays the ancient animals roaming on a snowcapped blue ice field, along with sabertooth tigers, mammoths and musk ox in the foreground.

“The one that won was the one that I had in my head,” Armstrup said.

The remaining sketches will be hung in different areas of the museum, with one design soon to be used for Musk Ox Farm T-shirt souvenirs.

Next, the class began working as a team, painting details onto the 4-foot by 8-foot mural panel, which will make its debut Mother’s Day, May 11, the season’s opening day at the Musk Ox Farm.

Angel, a second-year education major at MSC, enjoyed art as a child and pursued it as a hobby all through her education. A Wasilla High School graduate, she was runner-up in a high school portfolio competition, earning her tuition waivers to attend MSC.

“She said she wanted a landscape scene and so I wanted to focus on the ice age landscape idea,” Angel said. “It’s been a good experience for me so far.”

Armstrup said the student mural is a perfect addition to the new look she’d hoped for the refurbished museum.

“It will give people a sense of how long these gentle giants have been around and how beautiful they are,” Armstrup said.

Bach said the mural not only gives students experience in designing art for potential clients, but also provides an incentive to create something beautiful.

“They’ve worked so hard to this point,” Bach said. “It’s something they can look at down the road as an accomplishment of service as well as a way to practice artistic expression. The mural will hang for a long time to come so their families can see what they created, and that’s pretty neat.”

Suzanne Bach’s two-dimensional design art students will be at the Musk Ox Farm on the grand opening for Mother’s Day to showcase the new mural. For more information, contact sbach@matsu-.alaska.edu.

Contact J.J. Harrier at valleylife@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.