Tammis Keefe: Whimsical and Vibrant
One morning as I was passing through the office hallway, I did a double-take when I noticed a bright flash of beautiful, funky colors. Karen, one of our “Wonder-Full” volunteers, was working on her weekly project to photograph and inventory boxes of objects from our museum collection. (For more info, check out the previous blog on the Digitization Project).
“What are you working on today?” I inquired.
“A box of handkerchiefs.”
You see, most of our museum collection is sorted by type of object. So, all of our excellent Native American baskets will be stored together in one area, whereas historic documents live elsewhere, and costumes and garments reside in yet another corner of the storage facility. You get the idea. Karen has a stack of boxes that she works on weekly, and when she completes that stack, we swap them out for a new stack. Always ensuring we note changing locations in the database. It’s a never-ending process. That serendipitous day she had a box of handkerchiefs in her stack.
When I saw those handkerchiefs I was immediately awestruck and more than a little excited. “These are beautiful!” I exclaimed. The screen-printed designs just screamed “Mid-century”—one of my favorite aesthetic eras. I got closer for a better look and noticed they all bore the signature Tammis Keefe.
An exhibition was born!
I immediately hopped online and Googled her name. Wow, what an amazing lady! Not only are her designs adorably whimsical and highly collectible, but she was a role model to aspire to! My curiosity was piqued and I was falling headfirst down the rabbit hole. Before things went too far, I opened up our collections database to see how many Tammis Keefe items we had in the collection. Would there be enough to create an exhibition? The answer is… yes!
So, the next time you visit the museum check out Selections from the Collection: Tammis Keefe. Hopefully, you will find her life as charming and her designs as delightful as I do. This exhibition is located on the wall opposite our main exhibition hall entry. We would like to thank Jean Beauchamp for providing these wonderful handkerchiefs.