national archives week

Understanding counterculture: The world's biggest Deadhead visits Austin,explains the importance of preserving the Grateful Dead's legacy

Jerry Garcia (left) and Phil Lesh
Nicholas Meriwether, archivist for the Grateful Dead Archive at the Universityof California-Santa Cruz.

Scholarly Deadhead. The two go together about as much as Republican hipster or meat McRib. Nonetheless, Nicholas Meriwether exists, and he is both academically affluent and unyielding in his opinion that the Grateful Dead are “the best” band to emerge from the 1960s.

This high esteem comes in handy when you’re the archivist of the Grateful Dead Collection, the world’s only official Grateful Dead archive, housed at UC-Santa Cruz. The steward of the band’s booty spoke about his work at UT Austin Thursday night as part of National Archives Week. Marie Elia, project cataloger at The Andy Warhol Museum, spoke earlier in the week, and novice collectors can learn how to preserve their own paraphernalia at a free archives workshop this Saturday.

The theme of National Archives Week, apropos to Austin, is “Keeping It Weird”—something Meriwether says is integral to his work anyway. “The god’s honest truth is, if you’re trying to build a Grateful Dead archive within the UC system, it’s already weird,” he said.

The Grateful Dead archive is going to end up being a critical way for us to approach and understand the 1960s and the counterculture of the era.

The eponymous groove band, which emerged from the San Francisco Bay area in the early 60s and still plays with some of its original members today, gave its archive to the university in 2008. It includes everything from stage props and promotional concert material (think trippy fluorescent posters) to the band’s business records, photographs, colorful fan mail and materials collected from Jerry Garcia’s memorial altar in Golden Gate Park after his death in 1995. Among Meriwether’s favorite pieces includes lyric sheets marked up by Garcia with chord changes and other notes.

The vast compilation isn’t just a treasure trove for nostalgic fans, Meriwether noted—it’s an important piece of history.

“The Grateful Dead archive is going to end up being a critical way for us to approach and understand the 1960s and the counterculture of the era,” said Meriwether, who has written extensively about pop culture and its effects on society. “It’s also going to tell us a lot about the growth and development of modern rock theater, and it’s helping us understand fan culture.”

His work also might help transform the classic image of an archivist from bespectacled, bookish loner to outgoing pop culture representative. Because he works with little to no budget, Meriwether has to get creative—and often pushy—when it comes to procuring pieces for the archive.

“The idea of the passive archivist can be laid to rest,” he said.

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Fancy yourself an archivist, or simply want to preserve those old ticket stubs? As part of National Archives Week, students and faculty from the University of Texas School of Information, along with staff archivists from the Austin History Center and other area archives, will be at the Austin History Center this Saturday from 1-3 p.m. to offer advice on organizing and preserving your memorabilia. For more information, visit https://www.ci.austin.tx.us/library/nr20110929a.htm.

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Historic Austin museum will close for more than a year for restoration

Photo courtesy of the City of Austin

The Elisabet Ney Museum will close at the end of 2024 and reopen in mid-2026.

Every building needs some maintenance here or there, and the historic Elisabet Ney Museum needs some extra-special care. Formerly the art studio and residence of its namesake, it's been standing since 1892. It'll spend 2025 in relative solitude, as it undergoes renovation for a year and a half with no visitors allowed.

The museum will close to the public December 30, 2024, and open again in the summer of 2026 if all goes according to plan, a news release from the City of Austin shares. It'll be a quiet period compared to the 21,000 people visiting from around the world each year.

According to a museum overview on the city's website, Elisabet Ney, a European portrait sculptor, bought the property and called her new studio Formosa. She worked on sculptures depicting important Texans like Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston, and collected works of European contemporaries.

The building at 304 East 44th St. includes 3,700 square feet of museum space, which was converted by Ney's friends after her death in 1907. It retains its unique look that juxtaposes a Neo-Classical main studio from 1892 with a later addition from 1902 including a tower for her husband, Edmund, to write in. It is also on 2.5 acres of land, which has largely been restored to its natural state with native species.

A press release lists these tasks (verbatim) within the scope of the new work, referred to as the Capital Improvement Project (CIP):

Restoration of original exterior wood doors and windows
Upgrades and replacement of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system
Replacement of the exhibit and general lighting systems
Repairs to the roof, masonry, plumbing, and interior finishes.

There will also be work to do outside of the building. Workers will replace the pedestrian bridge across Waller Creek, stabilize a 20,000-square-foot portion of the bank, and make the grounds more accessible by adding new pathways.

Funding comes from several sources, according to a release: "the 2012 Bond, Proposition 14, the Parkland Dedication Fund, the Historic Preservation Fund, Partners in Preservation through the National Trust, and contributions from the Friends of the Elisabet Ney Museum."

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