Scottsdale’s Museum of the West: Spirit of the West
Project Overview
CK Valenti Designs was honored to be asked by Mike Fox, Director and CEO, to assist in the revamp and relaunch of Scottsdale’s Museum of the West. In this project, we worked closely with designer Bill Dambrova to create western designs that showcased the style of the museum and its artifacts. For the initial launch in January 2015, we completed several exhibitions, including Spirit of the West.
The ongoing exhibition, Spirit of the West, features a selection of the western artifacts. The collection of 1400 items includes jewelry, spurs, guns, bronzes, paintings and saddles from the collection of Scottsdale gallerist, Abe Hays. While every artifact on display captures a part of our history, some are exceedingly rare.
Exhibition themes include: working cowboys; Wild West shows; western gear made in prisons; rodeos and fairs; western movies and parades; outlaws and lawmen; western saloons; and illustrations. The works are of the highest quality and marked by an artisan well-known in his specialty.
Highlights
Hitching Post Saddle Display
A “hitching post” saddle corral made from 5″ diameter pine logs with custom milled notches and platforms is one of our favorite elements from this project. The stanchions are designed to match the saddle corral style and used to cordon off areas and are topped with a steel ball and joined together with cowboy rope.
Artifact Display Cases
The museum display cases are vertical acrylic barriers, installed to protect artifacts. For maximum enjoyment, we designed the barriers to be as unobtrusive as possible. In addition, they are mounted on custom column and deck structures with MDF back boards. The acrylic can be removed to access the artifacts, which is essential since the museum features regularly changing exhibits.
