Boundary pushing Hermosa Museum seeks legitimacy

by Kevin Cody

Of the more than 35,000 museums in the United States, only 1,113 are accredited by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM).

By this time next year, the Hermosa Museum hopes to join their ranks, making it the only AAM accredited museum in the South Bay. In all of Los Angeles County there are fewer than 20 accredited museums, and most are supported by local governments, or universities. None have as small a site or budget as the Hermosa Museum. 

The current Hermosa Museum exhibit is No Boundaries: The Life and Work of Warren Miller, celebrating the centennial of the legendary Hermosa Beach ski filmmaker.

But already, the museum has satisfied AAM staffing, and procedural requirements. In the coming weeks, it will submit its response to AAM’s 90-page accreditation study. If the study meets AAM’s standards, an AAM representative will visit the museum early next year for a final decision on accreditation.

Museum Boardmember Pete Hoffman said accreditation confers on museums the credibility required of grant applications. Hoffman and Museum Director Jamie Erickson, have been working on the accreditation for four years, along with fellow board members Howard Fishman, Jake Courtney, Jan Brittain, Pat Escalante, Pratik and Rosanne Basu, and Ricardo Resnichek.

Hoffman is a Hermosa Beach Planning Commissioner, and the retired founding chair of the Department of Urban and Environmental Studies at Loyola Marymount University.

The accreditation study, which Hoffman edited, is notable for pushing the boundaries of what a community museum can do, and dares to do. 

The Museum’s Beach Culture includes a skateboard collection, Bob Petersen’s 1936 paddleboard, a Tom Blake inspired “cigar box” paddleboard and Bunny Seawright’s aquaplane on which she won the 1939 Catalina to Hermosa Aquaplane race.

An example is the museum’s response to question 16 of the accreditation study. It asks the museum to “share a story where the museum took a risk…that propelled it to the next level of fulfilling its educational role.” 

The museum’s response reads: In the summer of 2023, a local, quasi-athletic competition known as the Hermosa Iron Man was celebrating its 50th anniversary. The Hermosa Iron Man requires participants to run a mile in the sand on the beach, paddle a surfboard for a mile in the ocean, and chug a six pack of beer. Fastest time wins. 

“The event is unpermitted by the City (even though City officials and employees are often participants) and involves amplified music and consuming alcohol on the beach (both against the municipal code). Additionally, many residents perceive it as promoting, and even encouraging binge drinking…. 

“Nevertheless, the Museum believed the cultural significance of this iconic event … over the last half century was deserving of exploration and formal presentation…. Museum attendees for the popular exhibit included a wide variety of individuals: long-time Hermosa locals appreciative of the recognition for one of the community’s most distinctive and authentic events; newer residents seeking a better feel for the local ‘vibe,’ and even Olympians and professional athletes who acknowledged the [athleticism] demonstrated by the serious Iron Man competitors each year.  Moreover, the exhibit provided a showcase for the local artists and musicians who created original artwork and perform at the event each year.

“This exhibit provided clear, empirical evidence that the Museum should continue its efforts to provide diverse programming and exhibits, even if controversial, that capture the eclectic and offbeat nature of the community. 

The Hermosa Museum’s surfboard collections includes boards by Golden Age of Surfing, Hermosa Beach shapers Greg Noll, Dewey Weber, and Hap Jacob.

The museum’s often unconventional programming has included a monthly Happy Hour with History. Attendees consume wine and locally made craft beer while listening to local experts. Another, newly popular program is Cafe Stories, held on the patio of the nearby Gitana’s Coffee. Longtime residents share their memories of Hermosa in their youth.

Last summer’s “Cheers, Hermosa” exhibit explored the history of Hermosa bars “as timeless gathering places where… the rich tapestry of community is woven into every drink poured,” the accreditation study says. Cocktail class and a pub trivia were part of the exhibit. 

A more recent exhibit explored Hermosa’s role in punk music. Black Flag singer Dez Cadena 

talked about a Manhattan Beach Sunday afternoon Concert in the Park in 1979 that ended in a riot, resulting in the Manhattan police banning the band from their city. A subsequent Cadena Black Flag concert at the old Baptist Church resulted in the band being banished from their hometown, Cadena recalled. The photo exhibit by punk rock photographer Kevin Salk  confirmed Cadena’s stories.

A year before Donald Trump made transgender athletes a political football, the museum premiered local filmmaker Peter Williams’ “Gender Outlaw,” a film about the local Gillis Body Surfing Club’s acceptance of local transgender body surfer Tyler Wilde.

The Hermosa Museum doesn’t ignore conventional historical exhibits. It posts on its Youtube channel oral histories with local councilmembers, artists, pro athletes, and local history experts. Its website offers downloadable walking guides, including one for the Hermosa Beach Murals Project. In 2021, after having completed 10 privately funded downtown murals in 10 years, the Murals Project founders entrusted the murals to the museum.

Each school year the museum hosts a field trip for Hermosa Valley fourth graders that introduces them to the indigenous Tongvas.

Students make Tongva necklaces, play Tongva ring toss games, and make baskets out of seaweed. They learn the Tongva were avid fishermen, but never caught dolphins because they believed the mammals were people reincarnated. 

Among the museum’s 750 permanent collections are political papers from Hermosa’s founding 1907 through the present; the papers of First Bank of Hermosa founder Ralph E. Matteson (1875 to 1978); and the Ephemera Collection (1907 to 2010), which includes property deeds, cocktail napkins, decals, correspondences, and brochures. The museum’s 4,000 annual visitors may view thousands of historical photos, and read bound volumes of the Hermosa Review (1913 to 1979), and Easy Reader (1970 to the present).

The museum’s signature collections focus on beach culture, including surfing, beach volleyball, ocean lifeguarding, and skateboarding.

Huntington Beach, Oceanside and Santa Cruz also have surfing museums, and Santa Monica has a private skateboards museum. (There are no lifeguard museums anywhere in the nation).

But only Hermosa’s museum presents these foundations of beach culture together in a way that shows their interweaving histories, the accreditation study notes. 

An exhibit last June, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Community Center Skateboard Park, had the hoped for effect of attracting young visitors, some of whom volunteered to help with the challenging job of cataloguing the skateboard collection.

Another role the museum plays is as a community venue. The Hermosa Surfer Walk of Fame, the California Beach Volleyball Association, and the South Bay Boardriders Club hold their annual celebrations at the museum. Nonprofits, including the Hermosa Little League, and HERmosa Circle hold their regular meetings at the museum.

The museum trustees hope accreditation will qualify the museum for grants to move to a larger space, possibly in the new or renovated Civic Center the City Council is contemplating.

A significant contribution by former Guild Drug owner Barbara Guild launched the Museum’s Guild Endowment Fund this year.

“The real constraint on the Museum’s ambition…,” the museum says in its accreditation study, “is the practical limitations imposed by the Museum’s relatively small site.” 

Its current 3,492 sq. ft. in the Community Center is the former locker room of the former Pier Avenue Junior High. A pink tiled shower stall seen in the pivotal scene in “Carrie” serves as a small exhibit room. The museum co-hosts a screening of the cult horror film every Halloween.

The first question asked of the museum by the AAS accreditation study reads: What is the museum’s official, approved mission statement.

The museum answered: The mission of the Hermosa Beach Museum is to engage, delight and educate the community through the presentation and exploration of history. 

The Museum’s current exhibit is No Boundaries: The Life and Work of Warren Miller. Miller was a pioneering ski film maker whose annual film premieres signaled the start ski season. He would have been 100 this year. He passed away in 2018 at age 93. A closing party for the exhibit will be held January 16, 2025.

The Hermosa Museum is located at Pier Avenue, Hermosa Beach. For more information call (310) 318-9421; email HermosaBeachMuseum@gmail.com; or visit Hermosa BeachHistoricalSociety.org. ER