By Ronald Penh
Under the collaboration of West Los Angeles College and the Mayme Clayton Library and Museum, the entirety of the Mayme Clayton collection was able to be stored within the college’s health center building following the museum’s eviction notice in October of 2018.
The building it is currently stored in, however, is scheduled to be demolished within the next 2.5 to 3 years as planned by the university, setting a more concise time frame on how long the collection can remain.
The collection is currently kept in reserve inside of storage containers which are not available for public display at the moment. The West Los Angeles College has offered their art gallery to the museum which they could use for public displays, receptions, and fund-raising events, but the Mayme Clayton Library and Museum have not yet responded to the college, according to Dr. James Limbaugh, president of the West Los Angeles College.
The decision to intake the museum’s grand collection came about as Dr. James Limbaugh heard about the news and knew that the college had available space for the collection.
“I invited folks at the museum to consider storing it here, I knew they were facing a time crunch, (and) I knew how valuable and important the collection was,” Limbaugh said. “And I’ve had a culver city address for 50 years, so it just seemed to be a good alignment of their need and our ability to help them out.”
From then on, the conversation materialized between Limbaugh, the West Los Angeles College’s Vice President, and Steven Fisher, the board director of the Mayme Clayton Library and Museum leading to the eventual transportation of the collection into the college.
“In the time that I’ve been here, the Mayme Collection has been identified repeatedly as very important to the history of Culver City and very important to the development of Culver City as a location for important museums like the Clayton Collection, Wende Museum, and Culver City Historical Society,” Limbaugh said. “So within that context, I think it’s very important for Culver City that it remains here.”
Before the Mayme Clayton Collection was relocated, it was part of an iconic trio of historical sites that stood among the proximity of the Veteran’s Memorial Park of Culver City alongside the Wende Museum of the Cold War and the Culver City Historical Society.