A longtime musician who nearly finished his doctorate in the psychology of music, he previously ran the Experience Music Project, a Seattle museum, for 12 years.
I’m not a motorcycle person. Willie G. Davidson said he pictured somebody in this job that had a little more gasoline running through his veins.
He asked, ‘Why should I think you can do this when you don’t even ride a motorcycle?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m a white kid that grew up in Seattle, but I wrote a book people think was the best documentation of hip-hop culture in the Bronx. I know how to get into a culture and learn it quickly.’
I applied sort of on a whim. One of my staff brought in an ad and put it on my desk. We laughed. Over the weekend, I was like, ‘This is kind of interesting.’ Our HR guy was from Milwaukee, so I went into his office and said, ‘Tell me a little bit about Milwaukee.’ He told me about this fantastic new art museum and he just loved it. I started thinking more seriously about it.
At EMP, pretty much every exhibit I did, you had to go out and find the stuff. Here, I was like a kid in a candy store. Harley’s founders started saving at least one bike a year in 1915. There was a desire to tell these stories and try to get more people interested in motorcycling.
What makes a good exhibit is what you leave out. You have to make good decisions about what you include, but being selective in the right ways is what creates an engaging experience.
For some people, it can be a real fetishistic thing. They love motorcycles because of the group experience and the sensations they get when riding. We’ve got to figure out a way to tell those stories with static stuff in a building. It’s a challenge.
I had no idea there was a Midwestern culture. There are characteristics that are different from other parts of the country. I know more of my neighbors and actually socialize with them more than I ever did in Seattle. There really is a familial neighborhood thing here, which I love.
– as told to Kate Rawsthorne
